StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

patchworkworld Kiyoshi, not Akira. Elements of the cinematography are indeed reminiscent of A. Kurosawa's great films, and the plot could be a good one, but the gaping plot holes completely spoil any possibility of its being seen as a good movie. And I can't figure out why no one else has commented on THAT here.As mentioned in another review, a girl is kidnapped and escapes her kidnapper, then while running away through the forest jumps into an empty trunk to hide from him. The trunk belongs to a sound engineer recording some "tree creaking" as per an earlier scene. When the sound engineer packs up to leave, he locks down the lid of the trunk; we know the girl is still inside because --behind his back while he is packing the car several feet away-- it starts rocking back and forth. So far, so good. Then everything falls apart as far as plot goes, because we are supposed to believe that the sound engineer just loads the trunk into his car and goes home, unloading it leaving it there locked on the garage floor.Oh really? So, let's get this straight...the guy habitually takes an EMPTY trunk out to wherever he is recording and is utterly incapable of feeling the difference between 2# and 60# (yeah, riiiight)...or...the guy habitually takes a trunk with equipment in it out to wherever he is recording and for no reason at all with absolutely nothing distracting him THIS TIME after using it forgets to pack up his equipment and just leaves it there (yeaaaah, riiiight). How else is he going to have a trunk big enough for an 8 year old to curl up in it lying about completely empty when he goes to record something and load it without noticing it's become substantially heavier? Right there, POOF, the entire credibility of the movie vanishes in an instant. We're never given the slightest reason why this could have happened at all. It's not stupidity on the character's part...it's impossible --not in the way of a fantasy or sci fi or horror plot needing one suspension of disbelief (eg vampires exist)but in the real world everyday way of 'ain't happening', so it comes across as filmmaker expecting audience to have an IQ of 10.The girl's subsequent discovery and killing by the couple is another problem. After more than enough time to make it believable that she has died trapped inside the trunk, they find her, ,begin to call police, and see her crawling after them. More on that in the next paragraph. The movie has two more scenes of the live girl after they put her to bed. In both the sound engineer is trying to keep her quiet. In the first he shoves her flat on the bed with his hand (and a fold of blanket) over her mouth and straddles her to hold her down. In the second, he wraps the blanket or comforter around her and holds her in it while she kicks and struggles. Both times he then exits the bedroom to tell his wife the girl is now "asleep". Okay, let's see. So...she doesn't suffocate inside the locked trunk for an extended period of time.....and she doesn't croak when a full grown adult slams her backward and holds her down with a blanket over her face until she "falls asleep", but she dies suddenly wrapped in a blanket and kicking fit to beat the band. yeah, riiiight. This on again off again dead girl stuff is patently ridiculous. Of the three incidents, it would, frankly, have been believable only if the trunk death had come last. The one that was supposed to have killed her was the least likely to, and the man acting exactly as he had previously when we thought she was dead but she was not makes us wonder if the filmmaker had the slightest idea the girl was supposed to be dead that time or just filmed a ton of 'ooooopps, not yet scenes' and didn't check the editing to see which was in there as the final one.BTW, the crawling girl scene is straight out of Ringu --she moves precisely the same way with precisely the same sort of tangled long hair approach etc. The scene of her crawling could have been directly lifted out of the other movie. To me that sort of exactness belongs in a parody, not in a separate serious movie. The way in which this and the next scenes are filmed are mildly confusing --the audience initially wonders why on earth the two haven't called the police before tumbling to the thought that the couple are worried about being charged with the kidnapping.As a last comment, for those confused about why a doppleganger would appear when the guy who saw it didn't die...I believe the implication is supposed to be that the guy is going to be executed for murdering the girl. I haven't the faintest idea how Japanese law views such crimes so I can't be sure, but if that is it, of course the Japanese audiences would have a better chance of figuring it out. Besides that, the doppleganger scenes were in no way in the original story either, they are added because K. Kurosawa likes them. Unfortunately they don't do what he wants them to --there is really no reason in the film for an audience member to "get" that the sound engineer burns his doppleganger as a finger up against fate/an assertion he will choose his own fate. That idea comes out when you listen to the K Kurosawa interview!

screaminmimi First, I'll explain the 8. It's a plot thing. I found myself yelling at the two leads to not do something stupid, but no initial stupidity, no subsequent movie.Second, if you haven't seen "Séance on a Wet Afternoon" or "Macbeth," don't look at Kurosawa's interview on the DVD extras until after you see this movie. There are plot spoilers in the interview.Third, am I the only one who sees a parallel between both "Séance"s and "Macbeth"? All three are about power hungry women who work their will on their all too devoted spouses. Kurosawa saw it, beginning with a quote from Macbeth's "Tomorrow and tomorrow..." soliloquy and then check out the music that's playing when Kôji Yakusho's character, Satô, confronts his doppelgänger.Now for the differences among the three stories. Kurosawa states that he had not seen the original "Séance on a Wet Afternoon," but that he used the same novel as the source for his screenplay. He cited a difficulty in making a story originally taking place in 1960's England fit 21st Century Japan. One thing he cited was the difficulty of portraying a crime that might have been considered commonplace in '60's England and that would be such a rarity in present-day Japan as to be unthinkable for the average Japanese audience member. Another thing he did was to alter the way his female lead expressed her fundamental craziness. Kim Stanley's character was flamboyant, charismatic, coquettish and kittenish, disconcertingly so for a middle-aged hausfrau psychic superstar wannabe. Jun Fubki's rendering of Junko Satô is no less crazy, but she's introverted, uncharismatic, mousy, and playing older than she is. Lady Macbeth has been subjected to countless interpretations, all along the spectrum between the Stanley and Fubuki continuum. But all three have in common an implacable desire for power and husbands who will do their bidding. All three of them show more and more psychopathology as they are assailed by the ghosts they help create, but none of them consciously concedes any guilt. Their husbands, in contrast, assume more than their share of the blame. I leave it to the viewer to decide how much blame Satô should bear. To say more would be a spoiler.Another thing I love about this movie is the carpet of sound that takes the ordinary and makes it frightening without resorting to excessive distortion or trickery. The sound picture is to this movie what the lighting and cinematography were to "Séance on a Wet Afternoon." They both put me inside the story. I too found myself having to pause it because it was dragging me along for the ride to such an extent that the characters' hurts felt like my hurts too.

MartinHafer The DVD box said it was based on the book SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON. I have seen the wonderful 1964 British movie by that title and was very surprised when this Japanese film turned out to be VERY different. It was as if the writers were inspired by the other movie but changed it liberally to make it a horror film (which the original movie was not). I'm not sure which movie is truer to the book--I assume it was the first movie, but as I have not read the book I just don't know.Here are the major differences. In the Japanese version, the couple accidentally kidnap the child (the British one was planned and very deliberate). Also, in the British version the leading lady THOUGHT she was a psychic but was in fact without any para-normal powers. The Japanese leading lady saw dead people but longed to be recognized for her abilities. Plus, while the child is later accidentally killed in both versions, in the Japanese version she haunts the couple (not just the lady) for much of the movie--much like RINGU or Ju-On ("The Ring" and "The Grudge"--2 other famous Japanese horror flicks). You could really tell that the writer was really trying to capitalize on the popularity of these flicks. However, while not being quite as scary as these 2 films, the story itself was a lot better--much more hashed out instead of ghouls just popping out in a contrived effort to give us scares.So, why the 8 and not perhaps a higher score? Well, the movie was such an intelligent film but the ending was so abrupt and poorly done that I had to knock off at least a point.For those who saw this film, how about this for a better alternative ending: The couple are slowly driven mad by the recurring images of this little dead girl but instead of a "pat ending", the couple eventually commits suicide. Then, in the final scene you see both the husband and wife AND the girl aimlessly wandering about the home--seemingly for eternity.

Colashwood There are two kinds of films in the world, my friends. Those in which it is easy to find a meaning (if possible, a moral one) and those which tell a story with such devices that you, spectator, are free to construe it. Seance is such a film. I for one do not see it as a horror or a crime movie. It has the required number of supernatural events, but what is far more frightening than that is the subtle psychological illness that affects the two hapless heroes, Junko and her husband. These two are completely hollow — the husband filled with noises, the wife with ghosts indeed ; they very simply do not live on the same physical plane as other people (colleagues, patrons... and the young girl who gets trapped in the husband's case) and it takes two extremely gifted actors, Yakusho and Fubuki, to convey this hollowness, this muted remoteness, as they are conveyed here. Kurosawa does not make any redundant comment on that stupendous hollowness : he merely shows it ; that indeed is his job as a filmmaker. The result is, in my opinion, one of his best films, together with Bright Future and Doppelgaenger. For yes : the doppelgaenger variation which one or two of the other commentators find so irksome (unfairly so, in my opinion : the eager student who mentions the apparition of a doppelgaenger in someone's life as a sign of impending demise isn't right* ; in literature the thing has been plaguing many a cheerless Romantic and postromantic hero for years) is back in Kurosawa's latest full length feature, Doppelgaenger (there is a Japanese DVD with English subtitles). No important message in that wonderfully quirky, eerily violent comedy (Yakusho again plays the double part). Let us rejoice about that fact : as long as a film puzzles more than it scares, it will never be remade in Hollywood. * And he shouldn't be believed any more than the misleading psychiatrist in Cure, should he ?