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Uzumaki
Review: Synopsis Shuichi's father (Osugi) was acting very strange of late. He was totally obsessed with spirals and wherever he looked he would see them. In the sky, in pottery, a snail's shell or even a shop sign, he just couldn't get the spiral out of his mind. Shuichi (Fan) was getting more and more worried, so he and his best friend Kirie (Hatsune) had to try and find out what is fuelling his fascination. The Film While Hollywood's perception of the horror movie spirals down to the lowest depths of mediocrity, Far Eastern Cinema is single-handedly reinvigorating the genre. Instead of fixating on how many different ways a masked killer can butcher a teenager, eastern filmmakers have reduced the gore and increased the intensity and foreboding that leads to genuine scares. With films like The Eye, Dark Water and Ringu they have increased the terror factor ten fold making anything Hollywood can produce look dated and repetitive. Uzumaki, while inventive and creatively shot, does really enter the same category as its illustrious forbears. The film is slightly too surreal to appeal to a mass audience. With not enough explanation for what is happening and only a slight reference to the backstory, it suffers from inconsistency and been just plain weird. Now this can sometimes work in the horror genre but people turning into snails for no apparent reason is a little hard to take. The movie starts well by introducing us to our two heroes, life long friends Kirie and Shuichi and slowing establishing the spiral obsession through Shuichi's father. Debut making Director Higuchinsky's use of dark green filters, strange camera angles and wide-shots with a flash of a spiral in the corner of the scene, gives the town of Kurouzucho a real sense of the sinister, as you know that something truly evil is going to happen there. But around half way through the movie starts to lose its way. The surreal starts to take over and the story loses all elements of clarity leading it to become a jumbled mess. The performances are fine. Debutants Eriko Hatsune and Fhi Fan are good as our two heroes and Ren Osugi is suitably macabre as Shuichi's spiral obsessed father. They all do their best with the material but it does make you wonder if they understood what was going on when they read the script? Uzumaki is a very surreal and very Japanese take on modern horror. While the movie starts well, it soon spirals into the obscure but as the movie is about spirals, this could well have been the filmmaker's intention. Star Rating = * * Picture & Sound The movie is presented in anamorphic Widescreen 16:9 with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound. The picture quality is very good and really emphasizes the green filtered visuals. While the sound is only in stereo, it is very clear but a full 5.1 surround sound track would have been more advantageous, especially during the storm scenes. Extras Uzumaki Q: Behind the Scenes of Uzumaki (10:47) Biographies/Filmographies Movie stills Promotional material Trailers Artwork Overall The DVD itself is nicely packaged for a very low budget Japanese film. As the movie itself only cost less than $1 million, its good to see that a decent amount of extras where afforded to the western DVD release. The Behind the Scenes Q&A with star Eriko Hatsune is OK but slightly short and the Bio/Filmographies are a decent read. The menus are well presented and very easy to navigate making it worth a buy for anyone who is obsessed with Asian horror movies or spirals for that matter. Star Rating = * * * Site Contents Copyright© The Z Review, unless used with permission.This site has no intention to infringe on the rights of the film owners of Uzumaki and intellectual copyright holders of the movies mentioned herein & hold copyright over the movie, characters, merchandise & storyline. |
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