20131019: Horror Review--Sadako

Sadako

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Japanese live action feature length film, 2012, NR, 96 minutes.  Spoken word is in Japanese; subtitles in English.
2. IMDB: 3.5/10.0 from 460 users; aspect 1.85.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet,' and 22% liked it from 77 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.8/5.0 from 13,838 users.
5. Directed by: Tsutomo Hanabusa.
6. Starring: Satomi Ishihara as Akane Ayukawa, Koji Seto as Takanori Ando, Yusuke Yamamoto as Kiyoshi Kashiwada, Ai Hashimoto as Sadako.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Like The Ring, but with cell phones, laptops, and cursed videos online.


2. Teacher Akane becomes involved when one of her students, Noriko, commits suicide, the evening after Akane caught her in class trying to see the cursed video.  Her video designer boy friend, Takanori, had been looking for the cursed video the same evening.  Takanori was disappointed when he thought he had found the clip, only to receive the message that it had been taken down from the server (404 error).  Unfortunately, Noriko had the same experience at first.


3. The police are looking into the suicides (not just Noriko), and question Akane about it. Akane does not tell the older detective, Koiso, about it directly.  He overhears one of Noriko's classmates, Lisa, discuss it with Akane.  He orders his junior detective, Nakamura, to track down this clip, just to tie up loose ends.  He finds that of the first 10 to view the clip (from Internet download records) all 10 committed suicide.


4. Takanori's boss thinks the clip had some strong subliminal messages in it.


5. An abnormally large moth keeps recurring in the film.


6. Det. Nakamura narrows things down to the online suicide of Kiyoshi Kashiwada in the recent past.  Det Koiso notes that Kashiwada is likely still alive.


7. Det. Nakamura tries to find the video clip, and gets the 404 message; Lisa looks for it, and gets the 404 error, as did Noriko earlier in the film.  Then the video is played, followed by Sadako reaching through the screen to grab Lisa with the long hair.  Akane comes in and tries to save Lisa.  Sadako's hands come for Akane, and Sadako's voice says 'you are the one.'  Akane screams and shatters the computer screen, breaking the spell.


8. The detectives are quite interested in Akane in their second interview with her.  Akane claims not to know anything.  At home, the Takanori is attacked; Akane again screams to break the monitor screen.  They try to run away, but Takanori is absorbed.


9. The third round with the detectives gets more intense.  Akane tries construct a working theory: Kashiwada is killing people in an effort to find the 'proper' body for Sadako to inhabit.  Detective Koiso is not impressed.  Next morning, Detective Nakamura appears before Koiso, but looking like a very tall Sadako.  Nakamura refers to Kashimada, then commits suicide.


10. Takanori's boss appears to Akane and tries to explain what she needs to do to get Takanori back.  It's not the boss, however; Akane runs screaming.  Koiso discovers some huge clues at Kashimada's flat.  The whole story seems to be written on the walls, which were formerly covered with abnormally large moths.  Koiso is convinced.  He meets Akane, and they share intelligence about Sadako.  They find the well together.


11. Kashiwada's says, "It's show time."


12. For every one of Kashimada's sacrifices, there's a Sadako replicant emerging from the well.  A dying Koiso implores Akane to run.


13. The chase goes on and on.  Akane kills (well, disperses) several of the replicants, but not all.  She is herded into a room where a cell phone shows a picture of Takanori.   She's surrounded by replicants, a couple of dozen perhaps.  Her scream disperses most of them.  She tries to contact Takanori, but this is Sadako's illusionary bait for the final capture.


14. Does Akane succeed in saving Takanori?  What is the cost?  That moth, hm.


3. Conclusions
1. I have yet to see Ringu 1 through Ringu 4.  This film is sometimes called Ringu 5; those who enjoyed one through four seem to object to this.  I have seen the American films The Ring and The Ring 2.  Except perhaps for the cell phones and Internet server messages, I do not see much that this film adds to all the Ring films.
2. One line summary: Well filmed and acted, but Ringu 5 is a bit too derivative.
3. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Good looking, competent.


2. Sound: 10/10 Quite good.


3. Acting: 9/10 Good.


4. Screenplay: 6/10 The story has been run too many times.  Several motivations for events seemed to be missing.