20131016: Horror Review--Nightmare Detective 2

Nightmare Detective 2

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Japanese live action feature length film, 2008, NR, 103 minutes, horror, drama.  Spoken word: Japanese; English subtitles.
2. IMDB:6.5/10.0 from 375 users.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and 59% from 105 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.6/5.0 from 3,712 user ratings.
5. Directed by: Shin'ya Tsukamoto; written by Shin'ya Tsukamoto and Hisakatsu Kuroki.
6. Starring: Ryuhei Matsuda as Kyoichi Kagenuma, Yui Miura as Yukie Mashiro.


2. Setup and Plot
1. 'Damn, who will save me, then?'   This is my favourite quote from the film, spoken by the protagonist, Kyoichi, who can enter the dreams of others, and sometimes dispel the the bad ones.


2. Kyoichi is the nightmare detective.  Way too much of this film consists of short segments from his childhood: his mother's many fears including her fear of his telepathy, her suicide, his father's leaving her when Kyoichi was very young, Kyoichi trying in vain to find his mother after her death.


3. The other thread concerns a group of girls who were nasty to another girl, Kikukawa.  They suffer bad dreams for having done this.  One of the guilty, Yuki, consults Kyoichi, who tells her to seek out the victim and sincerely apologise to her.


4. The bullying girls decide, more or less by omission, not to apologise.  Then two of them die.  Yukie consults Kyoichi again; he gives the same response.


5. At Kyoichi's request, Yukie meets Kikukawa in a dream.  Yuki apologises to no avail.  Kyoichi intercedes, but Kikukawa does not settle into any kind of peace.  He starts strangling Kikukawa to resolve the matter.  In a parallel dream, Kyoichi's mother strangles him as repentance for bringing him into the world.  This breaks the impasse, and all the stranglings cease.  Like Kyoichi's mother, Kikukawa is afraid to live in this waking world.


6. In various dream levels, Kyoichi holds and comforts Yuki, Kikukawa, and his mother all at the same time.  Since he has nothing to lose in the waking world, he says he will stay as long as they need.


7. Unfortunately for Yukie, the curse of telepathy surfaces in her.  She and Kyoichi can communicate fluently without speaking.


8. The resolution at the end seems only partial; is there a sequel in the works?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Telepath deals with psychological dramas.
2. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10 Dark, grainy, soft focus.  Add in the habit of jerky camera movements, and some odd framing choices.


2. Sound: 7/10 Some of the incidental music is decidedly tinny.


3. Acting: 7/10 Good.  I think.


4. Screenplay: 7/10 Both simple (not much happens in the real world) and multi-layered (dreams within dreams and the like), the story has a lot to capture the attention.  As with many psychological dramas, there is a lot of sound and fury that signifies very little.  Kyoichi has not learned to live with his mother's inability to deal with his telepathy.  Got it.  Yukie has a hard time the fact that her father is absent and her mother is distant and too devoted to work. Got it. Kikukawa has other fear issues.  Got it.