Ju-On: The Curse (2000)
Original Title: Ju’on (or Ju’en)
Translation: Grudge
Starring:
Yûrei Yanagi, Yue, Ryôta Koyama, Hitomi Miwa, Asumi Miwa, Yumi Yoshiyuki,
Kazushi Andô, Chiaki Kuriyama, Yoriko Dôguchi, Takako Fuji, Yûko Daike, Makoto Ashikawa
Director:
Takashi Shimizu
Writer:
Takashi Shimizu
I saw the first Grudge film in
the theater back in 2004. It was one of the few movies to legitimately scare
me, right alongside Prince of Darkness (1987). Even though I was 22 at
the time, I was still afraid of going to bed alone for a few weeks afterward.
It was only in the past couple of years that I decided to revisit the Grudge
franchise, starting with the first four Japanese films, and then the four Grudge
movies, which I watched with my teenage daughter. I decided to watch the
Japanese films again to write about for this site. So, let’s go.
The film is less than a coherent
narrative and more of a series of vignettes, set in three different time
periods, but played out of order.
“Toshio” and “Kayako” are the first
segments to occur, chronologically speaking. It involves a teacher named
Shunsuke Kobayashi (Yurei Yanagi, of the first two Ringu films), who has
been visiting his more truant students to find out how they’re doing. The next
on his list is Toshio Saeki (Ryota Koyama), which is disconcerting to him, as
he had gone to school with the boy’s mother, Kayako (Takako Fuji, who reprised
the role in the other movies plus the Hollywood remake). Upon arriving at the
house, he finds Toshio at home alone, battered and bruised, with the house in
shambles. I’m not sure how Japanese law functions, but if this were the States,
CPS and the police would be at the scene in no time. The longer Kobayashi stays
at the house—waiting for the parents to arrive—the more likely he is to start
sniffing around and discover what happened to Kayako…and why.
“Yuki,” “Mizuho” and “Kanna” are set
later on, after the house has been sold to the Murakami family. Said family
would be the matriarch Noriko (Yoriko Yoshiyumi, whose career appears to have
been steeped in pinku eiga) and her two adolescent children, Kanna
(Kasumi Miwa, The Great Yokai War and Love + Pop) and Tsuyoshi
(Kazushi Andoh, of 4444444444). Kanna has a full-time tutor, Yuki
(Hitomi Miwa, of Crazy Lips), while Tsuyoshi has recently gotten himself
a cute girlfriend, Mizuho (Chiaki Kurayama, of Battle Royale and Kill
Bill Vol. 1). Yuki is hanging out at the Murakami household after her ward
has gone to school to feed the class rabbit and is stalked by a creepy
“croaking” voice. Kanna and Tsuyoshi disappear while at the school, and Mizuho
finds herself being stalked by a ghostly Toshio.
Finally, there’s the “Kyoko” segment.
Kyoko (Yuko Daike, of Zatoichi and Fireworks) is a medium whose
brother is the real estate agent in charge of selling the old Saeki residence.
She immediately detects an evil presence in the house, warning her brother
about selling it. It ends with her visiting the house, and one of the new
residents staring creepily at her…
Ju-On: The Curse is a very creepy movie, with some great visuals and a few memorable
scenes. Some of the deaths and set pieces were incorporated into the Hollywood
version of The Grudge, mainly the infamous scene involving the jawbone.
What the film is not is a solid, coherent narrative. Part of the reason is that
the rules are pretty simple: Go into the house, get haunted, and then die. I
guess at this point of the story, not enough evil-ness has happened that
anybody would be willing to really look into the wickedness of the place and do
something about it.
Ju-On: The Curse 2 (2000)
Original Title: Ju’on 2 (or Ju’en)
Translation: Grudge 2
Starring:
Ryôta Koyama, Takako Fuji, Yûko Daike, Makoto Ashikawa, Tomohiro Kaku, Kaori
Fujii, Kaei Okina, Taizô Mizumura, Harumi Matsukaze
Director:
Takashi Shimizu
Writer:
Takashi Shimizu
The first time I watched Ju-On: The
Curse 2, it was on YouTube in a video that had both Curse movies
edited into a single entity. Watching them separately, I understand why: almost
half of the film is simply a reprise of the “Kayako” and “Kyoko” segments of
the first film. Why yes, this was a low-budget direct-to-video film. How could
you tell?
I saw no difference between the two
“Kayako” segments, but the “Kyoko” does have a little bit more than the first
film. After discovering that her brother, Tatsuya (Makoto Ashikawa, of Fireworks
and Zatoichi), had sold the Saeki residence, Kyoko Suzuki (Yuko Daike)
has a friend of hers do some digging into the history of the place. She learns
of its sordid past and a little bit more: on the same night that Shunsuke
Kobayashi was found dead in the Saeki residence, his wife was brutally murdered
in their home. It is widely suspected that the culprit was Kayako’s husband.
And what do you know? Tatsuya has recently divorced his wife, and he and his
son Noboyuki (Tomohiro Kaku, of the “When They Cry” TV series) moved into the
old Kobayashi residence.
Noboyuki has become increasingly strange
and withdrawn. When Kyoko comes to check up on him, they both are witness to a
vision of the murder of Manami Kobayashi at the hands of Takeo Saeki. And then
he turns to face them.
Then we get the “Tatsuya” segment. Following
the events at the Kobayashi house, Kyoko has gone into a catatonic state.
Tatsuya takes her and Noboyuki to his parents’ house to look after them. We
learn that both Kyoko and the Suzuki patriarch (Taizo Mizumura) were both born
with ability to see ghosts and other paranormal activity. Unfortunately, it
doesn’t take long for the Saeki family curse to strike the Suzuki household. It
also manifests itself at the origin house, where the Kitada family is now
living. And from the looks of it, Kayako is set on possessing Mrs. Kitada
(Kaori Fujii). And when it’s finally Noboyuki’s turn, we’ll see just how much
the curse has spread…
In between these segments is one called
“Kamio,” in which we learn that certain detectives have been investigating the
Saeki residence. Unfortunately, the main detective, Yoshikawa, has suddenly
gone mad. And his colleagues, Kamio and Îzuka, will learn about the dangers of
being in contact with a cursed person.
The final segment, “Saori,” will come
into play later.
On one hand, Ju-On: The Curse 2
suffers from a 75-minute length, about 30 minutes of which consists of footage
from the previous film. They could have skipped the “Kayako” reprise
altogether, since at least the “Kyoko” segment has more footage than in the
first film. That said, this movie does have something closer to a single
narrative, as it mainly follows the fate of the Suzuki family (save the
bookending segments), and in a linear fashion. It does build to a creepy climax
in which we learn that if people don’t stop buying that darn residence and then
coming into contact with other people (the nerve!), than all of Japan will be
screwed eventually.
Ju-On: The Grudge (2002)
Original Title: Ju’on (or Ju’en)
Translation: Grudge
Starring:
Megumi Okina, Misaki Itô, Misa Uehara, Yui Ichikawa, Kanji Tsuda, Kayoko
Shibata, Yukako Kukuri, Shuri Matsuda, Yôji Tanaka
Director:
Takashi Shimizu
Writer:
Takashi Shimizu
The two Ju-On: The Curse films
must have been successful enough on video that somebody gave Takashi Shimizu a
bigger budget and a guaranteed theatrical release. This is where Shimizu really
hit pay dirt, as the film made its debut at an American film festival and
eventually caught the attention of Sam Raimi, who produced an American remake á
la The Ring. The film has since entered critics’ estimation as one of the
top Japanese horror films ever. Not bad for what started off as a
straight-to-video horror programmer.
Like the two Curse films, Ju-On:
The Grudge is less of a single narrative and more of a series of vignettes
presented out of chronological order. However, this film does
acknowledge the previous two movies and the final segment from Ju-On: The
Curse 2 feeds into one of the plot threads.
“Rika,” “Katsuya” and “Hitomi” - An
unspecified amount of time after the events of the previous film, the haunted
Saeki residence has become the abode of the Tokunaga family. Namely, salaryman
Katsuya (Kanji Tsuda, of Shin Godzilla and Fireworks); his wife,
Kazumi (Shuri Matsuda); and Katsuya’s elderly mother, Sachie (Chikako Isomura,
of “Ultraman Taro”). Sachie is borderline catatonic and requires extra care, so
an agency regular sends a social worker to check up on her. Katsuya also has a
sister, Hitomi (Misaki Ito), who regularly visits the family.
Of course, we know that this family
isn’t long for this world. Katsuya finds himself being possessed by the
vengeful spirit of Takeo Saeki. Kazumi is terrorized by the ghost of Toshio.
And when the designated social worker mysteriously disappears, the agency sends
volunteer Rika Nishina (Megumi Okina, of Shutter and Howling Village)
to check up on Sachie. She arrives to find the house empty except for
Sachie-san, but soon discovers that the two are not alone…
“Toyama” is set shortly thereafter, in
which a pair of police detectives are investigating the events that led to the
deaths of Sachie, Katsuya and Kazumi. Their investigation leads them to employ
the services of Toyama (Yoji Tanaka, of Kill Bill and Death Note),
a retired detective who was the only person to investigate the Saeki residence
that didn’t end up dead or crazy, or simply disappear. After watching the
security footage that goes some way to explain the fate of Hitomi Tokunaga, Toyama
decides that it’s time to simply burn that accursed place to the ground…
“Izumi” is set about six years in the
future, with Toyama’s daughter, Izumi (Misa Uehara), being one of the girls who
visits the house in the “Saori” segment from Ju-On: The Curse 2. She
leaves the house just minutes before Kayako descends upon her friends. Feeling
survivor’s guilt, Izumi locks herself in her bedroom and covers the windows
with newspapers so that she doesn’t have to see the restless spirits of her
“missing” friends stare at her.
Finally, we have “Kayako,” which is set
concurrently to the events of Izumi. Rika Nishina has so far been the
longest-surviving “victim” of the Saeki curse. She’s 23 now and is working as a
social worker and doing well for herself. Her friend, Mariko, is working as a
school teacher. And when Mariko is called upon to visit her students, she finds
herself visiting the home of one truant boy named Toshio…
With better music, better photography,
higher quality film stock, and just better production values all around, Ju-On:
The Grudge is a step up in most respects from its two predecessors. The plot
structure is still the same, with there being about three different strands for
the viewer to follow. You don’t need to watch the previous films to make
sense of the movie, although it does help. Especially since the aforementioned
“Saori” segment feeds into this film. It is consistently creepy and sometimes
downright scary.
When this movie was remade for Hollywood
in 2004, Stephen Susco’s script was a composite of the first half of this movie
and the bookending segments of the first Ju-On: The Curse, with some
scares and deaths cribbed from the latter. That makes sense, since it means
that we had something closer to a single plotline, with the second story thread
being treated as a series of flashbacks to explain the origin of the curse.
Just switch Sarah Michelle Gellar for Rika, English teacher Bill Pullman for
Mr. Kobayashi, a family of American expatriates for the Tokunaga family, and
the rest is pretty much the same.
On the same token, the second half of
this film served as the basis for The Grudge 2 from 2006. Ambler
Tamblyn, playing Gellar’s sister, becomes the Future Rika equivalent. Like The
Ring 2, this does make a token (if unnecessary) attempt to dig into the
past of Kayako in an attempt to find a way to stop the curse. The Izumi segment
undergoes an ethnic switch to yet another Caucasian American expatriate,
although it ends up transporting the curse to Chicago. It more or less ends in
the same way, thus paving the way for the direct-to-video The Grudge 3,
which is not set in Japan. That said, critics attacked The Grudge 2
for being too scattershot, since there were three different plotlines to follow
in segments presented out of order.
Ju-On: The Grudge 2 (2003)
Original Title: Ju’on 2 (or Ju’en)
Translation: Grudge 2
Starring:
Noriko Sakai, Chiharu Niiyama, Kei Horie, Yui Ichikawa, Ayumu Saitô, Emi
Yamamoto, Erika Kuroishi, Kaoru Mizuki, Shinobu Yûki, Takako Fuji, Yuya Ozeki, Shingo
Katsurayama
Director:
Takashi Shimizu
Writer:
Takashi Shimizu
It is interesting to note that despite
this film coming out before the American remake of the first movie did, none of
its story was used in The Grudge 2 or 3. From a storytelling
perspective, this movie benefits from a more focused story, even if the events
are told out of order and can be confusing at times. I mean, instead of jumping
back and forth between two or three sets of characters on two or three
timelines, this one focuses on but a single set of characters on one timeline
(only jumbled). So, that’s a step up, right? Right?
Kyoko Harase (J-pop singer Noriko Sakai)
is an actress known in Japan as “The Queen of Horror,” although her career is
taking her in the direction of more “respectable” television roles. Beyond a
promising TV career, she is also engaged to Masashi Ishikura (Ayumu Saito, of
the 13 Assassins remake) and is carrying his child. Their wedding is
planned for the near future, presumably before the baby bump becomes too visible.
Her next gig is on a TV docudrama about haunted houses, the next episode of
which will be filmed at…you guessed it…the Saeki residence.
From the get-go, things are weird,
albeit not apparent to everyone. Tomoka Miura (Chiharu Niiyama, best known for Godzilla-Mothra-King
Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack), the actress playing the reporter,
starts hearing strange thumping sounds in her apartment days before shooting is
to begin. On the day of shooting, costume and make-up girl Megumi (Emi
Yamamoto, who was appearing in rape-themed pinku films as young as 11),
who apparently has some degree of psychic sensitivity, has a bad feeling about
the house, particularly a strange stain on the floor. Finally, one of the
extras, Chiharu (Yui Ichikawa, of Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead), has
a vision of ghost boy Toshio (Yuya Ozeki) patting Kyoko’s belly.
It goes without saying that after
shooting is wrapped, things go to hell. Tomoka and her boyfriend, Noritaka (Kei
Horie, who played the Yellow Ranger in “Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger,” the basis
for “Power Rangers: Wild Force”), both die under mysterious circumstances.
Megumi returns to the studio and then simply disappears, with no security
footage attesting to her having left the place. Most striking is that Kyoko and
her fiancé are in a car crash, which among other things, results in a
miscarriage. But after Kyoko recovers from her injuries, a trip to the doctor
confirms that she’s three months pregnant.
Although you may argue that the Ju-On
films are more outright scary than the Ringu trilogy, the Ring films
have a better grip on how Sadako’s curse functions. You watch the video. You
are given seven days. Sadako appears to you when your time is up. You die. End
of story. There is one established way of beating the curse. Later films may
add more to the lore, and let’s not even talk about Rasen, but it’s easy
to get the gist of it all. And the tape was the limiting factor in the curse.
Kayako’s curse, on the other hand, is
free-form to the point of annoyance. You visit the house. You are cursed.
Kayako and Toshio haunt you for a day, or a week, or even several years. And
then they come for you. And you die. Or just disappear. Whatever tickles Kayako’s
fancy at the moment. And you get incorporated into the curse. Except for when
you don’t. And sometimes your house also gets cursed. Except for when it
doesn’t. And anyone who meets a cursed person, but hasn’t been in the house,
gets cursed. Except for when they don’t.
The last part is really a sticking point
for me, since it reminds me of the problem I had with Tomie’s lore,
especially in the anthology film (which served as part two of the series).
There’s no established limitation to the curse that prevents a Drexler’s Grey
Goo scenario from stemming from a single curse. Think about it: the first time
a peasant brutally kills his daughter after learning that she has been
supplementing the family income at the local brothel, or some daimyo’s concubine
and her samurai lover hack her husband to death to hide their illicit affair, a
ju-on curse will start. And the people in that household will interact
with the location. And then with people in the town or village. And then some
merchant is going to get cursed for selling rice to a daimyo’s servant and take
it to another village. And that village will get cursed. And within a
generation or two, all of Japan is reduced to tormented spirits under the
control of the first murdered person.
I also didn’t care for the final shot,
since it contradicts what we know about Kayako. She isn’t inherently evil, like
Sadako was hinted at being. She was weird, socially awkward and obsessive over
a guy she liked (even after she got married), but she was not evil. The portrayal
of her as such in that final scene didn’t strike me as being consistent with
the narrative thus established. No sir, I don’t like it.
That said, the free-form approach to the
“curse” gives Ju-On: The Grudge 2 a wholly irrational feel, much like
the best work of Lucio Fulci. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it does
contribute to an overwhelming sense of mounting dread. If you can accept the
curse as being so unfettered by logic that it can do what it does, you should
find something to enjoy in this film.
Ju-On: White Ghost (2009)
Original Title: Ju’on: Shiroi Rojo
Translation: Grudge: Old White Woman
Starring:
Akina Minami, Natsuki Kasa, Hiroki Suzuki, Mihiro, Aimi Nakamura, Marika
Fukunaga, Chie Amemiya, Akiko Hoshino, Takuji Suzuki, Tsuyoshi Muro, Ichirōta
Miyakawa, Chinami Iwamoto, Shūsei Uto
Director:
Ryuta Miyake
Writer:
Ryuta Miyake
The Ju-On: White Ghost/Black Ghost
films were made in 2009 as a way to celebrate the 10th anniversary
of the series, even though by that point, the only films being made were in
Hollywood. They are unrelated in story to the four previous Japanese movies,
save a random cameo by ghost boy Toshio (now played by Shusei Uto) that only
serves to muddle the film’s scant story.
The Isobe family has recently moved into
a haunted house. You might think that is a spoiler. But if you’re watching Ju-On:
White Ghost, you’ve probably seen all the other movies in the franchise.
Therefore, you as the viewer know that moving into any house in a Ju-On
film is risky business. The Isobe family consists of Kentaro (Eiichi Okubo),
the patriarch; Miho (Sumire Arai), his trophy wife; Atsushi (Tsuyoshi Muro, of Hentai
Kamen), Kentaro’s adult son; Junko (Aimi Nakamura), Kentaro’s adult
daughter; Mirai (Chinami Iwamoto), Junko’s daughter; and Haru (Akiko Yoshino,
of Tales of Terror from Tokyo and All Over Japan: The Movie), Kentaro’s
dementia-ravaged mother.
The family dynamic is a bit skewed.
Kentaro is the disapproving father who’s always bitter because his son hasn’t passed
the Japanese equivalent to the BAR exam. He also doesn’t appreciate that Junko
is a single mother and occasionally wonders aloud why his daughter didn’t abort
Mirai. Aloud! Miho is to all appearances the man’s second wife and has taken on
the role as homemaker, even though that bastard Kentaro seems to blame her
for his son’s screw-ups. And grandma Haru likes to put on wigs and make-up when
she’s not playing with her grandson’s favorite basketball.
That said, Atsushi the son really does
have a problem. Unlike the Saeki residence, this particular house exerts a Shining
or Amityville influence on him. I would initially assume that he is just
a horrible scuzz-bucket. But we do catch glimpses of a ghost wandering around
the house to let us know that the place is haunted. In any case,
Atsushi’s descent into madness begins with his sexual abusing his niece. Some
of this is witnessed by one of her school friends, Akane (Natsuke Kasa),
although she is a bit too young to help. And once Atsushi fails his mock BAR
exam, the pressure will be too much and the man will simply snap. And in a Ju-On
film, we know what that means…
Like the other movies, the story is told
out of order and jumps back and forth between timelines. Part of the film
involves Akane as a teenager, now played by Akina Minami (of “Magical Heroine
Magimajo Pures!”). Some of the segments involve other auxiliary characters,
like the delivery boy who stumbles upon the aftermath of Atsushi’s bloodbath.
The denouement is probably the “happiest” we’ve seen in a Ju-On film up
to this point.
The film suffers from some awful makeup
effects. One of the ghosts—presumably of Haru—is a short person in a goofy mask
running at the camera. And strangely enough, there was one instance where it
spooked me. I’m not sure how to explain it. It’s like Psycho when Bate’s
“mother” runs into frame out of nowhere and you can’t help but jump. But that
mask, apparently based on Sachie from Ju-On: The Grudge, was kind of
silly.
The film is at its best when it’s
ripping off Amityville Horror 2 instead of playing to the usual Ju-On
tropes. The scenes of Atsushi interacting with Mirai are genuinely
uncomfortable and her final fate recalls the endurance test that was Untold
Story. Those scenes, plus one or two jump scares, make the film worth a
view.
Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009)
Original Title: Ju’on: Kuroi Shōjo
Translation: Grudge: Black Young Girl
Starring: Ai Kago, Kōji Seto, Yuri Nakamura, Maria
Takagi, Hana Matsumoto, Yuno Nakazono,
Masanobu Katsumura, Shūsei Uto
Director:
Mari Asato
Writer:
Mari Asato
Apparently, I watched these movies out
of order—despite their being released on the same day in Japan—as this movie
takes place before the events of Ju-On: White Ghost and goes some way to
explain why the house in the aforementioned film is haunted. I’m assuming that
Takashi Shimizu by this point was too high and mighty to go back to Toei Video,
because both of these films were helmed by other directors. In this case, it’s
Mari Asato, a female director who seems to dabble in horror, suspense, and even
did a film called Samurai Chicks. In this case, it’s sorta The Grudge
Meets The Manitou.
Fukie Yokota (Hana Matsumoto) is a little
girl who has some problems. One day, she simply collapses in her classroom,
which is thankfully witnessed by a little boy her age. He informs their
teacher, who takes her to infirmary. The school nurse dismisses the episode as
a mild episode of anemia, and Fukie’s mother, Kiwako (Maria Takagi, of Tokyo
Zombie and Noroi, which incidentally is another way of pronouncing
the Kanji for Ju-On) comes to pick her up. It is implied that her
parents are estranged; Kiwako is upset with Mr. Yokota (Masanobu Katsumura, of Sonatine
and Blade of the Immortal) when he suggests taking his daughter out to
eat, instead of leaving her at home. We also learn that Yokota has been hitting
on one of his employees, Ayano (Atashira’s Yuko Nakazono), making a
desperate bid to get into her panties.
That same evening, Fukie goes into a
trance and tells her dad that he’s going to kill a woman with his own hands.
And that’s after she has a fit and collapses again. Kiwako takes her to the
hospital, but doesn’t find anything wrong with her head. So, she takes her
daughter to a psychologist instead. The psychologist performs a hypnotism
routine on the girl, trying to bring back latent memories of her in her
mother’s womb. She has another fit, screaming something about “Why didn’t
you want to give birth to me?” It’s back to the hospital for Fukie.
This is where it gets weird. In the next
sequence of medical exams, the doctors discover a large cyst around her pubis
area. They hypothesize that the cyst was actually a twin, but somehow Fukie
absorbed it into her. It has been growing within her ever since. That piece of
information turns the Superstition Dial in Kiwako up to 11. But…Kiwako has a
sister, Mariko Mazuoka (Yuri Nakamura, of The Sylvian Experiments) who
just happens to be an exorcist. If all this craziness is caused by the angry
spirit of the unborn child, then Mariko has the wherewithal to send the spirit
on its way. But the first scene of the film should be an indicator of what
direction that’s gonna go…
I like the premise of the villain being
a malignant (in more ways than one) teratoma. I think the film handles the idea
well and while not scary, it certainly makes for interesting viewing and a nice
departure from four films’ worth of the Saeki family curse. Where I think the movie
falters is in the out-of-order arrangement of the scenes, which makes it
confusing as to when the deaths of certain auxiliary characters occur. I think Ju-On:
White Ghost did a better job in placing the visual cues to help the viewer
put the puzzle pieces in order. That said, this film benefits from better
make-up effects (and some CGI) than White Ghost. But the use of the
Kayako’s infamous “death rattle” is out of place in this particular story.
Something that doesn’t make total sense
is how this film leads into White Ghost. [Warning: Spoiler Alert!]
You see, the Mazuoka residence is the place that the Isobe family from White
Ghost moves into. Given what happens to Mariko and her family, I can understand
there being a ju-on curse in that particular residence. However, shortly
before the “shocker” finale of Black Ghost, Kiwako receives a heavenly
message from Mariko suggesting that she is not an angry spirit. But it
is an apparition from Mariko in White Ghost that leads Atsushi
into one of the rooms, where he is subsequently possessed. I’m really not sure
what to make of that, only that two writer-directors make separate films in
parallel can lead to certain details being bungled. There is also the question
of “If Atsushi was possessed by a member of the Mazuoka family, why did he
become a pedophile?” Was there something wrong with Mariko’s husband that was
simply not brought up in Black Ghost?
