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Starring: Eriko Hatsune,Fhi Fan Directed By: Higuchinsky Uzumaki is a Japanese horror film that, unlike The Ring and The Grudge, has never really received much attention over here. It's based on a Japanese comic or manga of the same name - though curiously enough, the film was written and completed before the comic had reached its conclusion. Presumably the film's backers knew they had a hot property on their hands and wanted to get it out to to cinemas as soon as possible. Uzumaki takes place in a small Japanese village, which is a pleasant change given how many other Japanese horror films seem to take place exclusively in Toyko. The primary characters are a Japanese schoolgirl, Kirie, and her boyfriend, Shuichi. Kirie's is your typical happy go-lucky schoolgirl, but Shuichi is a little troubled, to say the least. Mainly because his father has developed a strange obsession with spirals, and anything with a spiral on it, such as clock springs, snail shells and so forth. Shuichi believes his father's behaviour to be a bad omen, but Kirie seems happy to write it off as a bout of eccentricity. Until it becomes apparent that something very strange indeed is happening to the village, and the aforementioned spiral obsession is just the start of it. Uzumaki is a very unnerving film, and one of the reasons for this is is that there's no evil boogeyman -or woman - running around killing people. Even The Grudge, itself a very scary film, had a clear antagonist. Whereas in Uzumaki, there's no clear focus to the events in the town, no bad guy that Kirie and Shuichi can hunt down or kill. The 'evil' if you want to call it that, may well be everywhere. It's hard to find fault with this movie. The acting and special effects are all top notch, and the sense of the unease the the film instils in you will stay with you all the way through the movie. I guess if I had to single out one thing for criticism, it'd be the ending. It's a little too open, unlike the one in the manga, which is a more satisifactory one. Though having said that, there's so much material in the comic version of Uzumaki that you'd need a whole TV series to cover it all. Uzumaki has to be one of the most unsettling horror movies I've ever seen, and don't let the fact that it's based on a manga comic put you off - it's an excellent horror film in its own right.
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Aug 17, 2008 23:30
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 02:05 |
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I thought Uzumaki was great, unfortunately everyone I watched it with totally hated it. The whole movie was just so god drat creepy, especially some of the scenes at the end.
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Aug 23, 2008 09:17
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They did a good job holding the tension, and making the 'why' of the odd events really creepy. The less they tell you, the better, and they kind of mess it up towards the end, but the film was great. 3.5/5
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Aug 29, 2008 00:04
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I agree with ZenMaster in that the whole "not telling you makes things even scarier" is good for this movie. I have to say that this movie had a better ending than some of the other Japanese horror movies I seen (ex: Suicide Circle) Giving it a 3 because it could have been better, I read the manga and wished they showed more like how the girl with the weird hair died and other thing, but I figured that 3 was a good middle of the road rank. 3/5
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Oct 15, 2008 03:37
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