So, as those of you familiar with this site probably know, Takashi Miike films give me wood. Yep. The cineaste in me just creams over every single second of his challenging, surreal, hyperviolent, yet strangely touching films. Suffice it to say that I look forward to each and every Miike flick like a dog anxiously awaiting its master. So, when I heard quite a while ago that Miike was filming his take on the increasingly-popular Asian "creepy female ghost with long, black hair" sub-sub-sub genre (as typified by Ringu and Ju-On: The Grudge, most notably), I got all kinds of worked up about it. I usually don't like to go into any new horror flick experience with concrete preconceived notions, but in this case, could I really be expected not to have those notions? I visualized a taut, scary, and slyly funny thriller that almost satirized the genre as much as it melded with it. I expected Miike to knock my socks off, with terrifying scenes as well as hysterically biting digs at the whole ever-fuckin' concept behind so many of these films. We know the concept has been done to death, and you heard it here first, folks...One Missed Call...once and for all...officially sounds the death-knell of the subgenre (or at least it should), and when the inevitable and continuous entries in the genre keep getting pumped out, we have Miike's permission to completely ignore them, in favor of moving on to bigger, better, scarier things. Who can argue with Miike on such matters?
The synopsis...
This is one of those films that I can only synopsize in the vaguest possible way, so as to avoid completely spoiling the twists and turns. So here goes. Pretty Yumi (Kou Shibasaki of Battle Royale fame) and her friends have a problem. In turn, each of them receives a creepy, mysterious phone call...with accompanying voicemail...from themselves some time in the future. That time, of course, turns out to be the very instant preceding the horrible, spectacular death of the person in question. Before you know it, ol' "creepy long hair" makes her appearance, and as Yumi's friends start dropping like flies, the increasingly paranoid and stand-offish girl tries to get to the bottom of the true source of the phone calls. When she (inevitably) receives a call from herself in the future, thus (apparently) dooming her, she kicks her already frantic search for an explanation and/or "cure" into high gear. Along the way, she uncovers many secrets, and many, many more questions (including the possibility that all of this is somehow related to a tragic event in her own past). Will the intrepid (yet freakishly skittish) Yumi be able to save even one of her buddies? Will she find the answers she seeks in time to save herself?
If all of this sounds a bit...ahem...familiar, that's completely by design. You have heard this story before, after all, in the form of Ringu and Ju-On. But, true to form, it's what Miike does with the material that makes it so interesting. It would be best to describe as one gigantic, elaborate cinematic joke...of the "wink wink, nudge nudge" variety, as Miike has all sorts of fun with the conventions. True, there is much familiarity in these waters, but familiar or not, it all feels fresh in Miike's hands. One way he achieves this is through much more explicitly showing you what happens to these people when they die. Think about it. In Ringu, when somebody gets "ghosted", all you see is them making a freaked-out, contorted face...a mixture of terror and agony. Then, in Ju-On, the most you really see is someone get dragged off into a dark corner of an attic or something. In One Missed Call, however, Miike shows us why each victim is so terrified...what is causing such intense physical discomfort. Now, it's got to be said that Miike practices a bit more restraint here than in, say, Koroshiya-1 (Ichi the Killer), but there are still some truly spectacular...and often quite gory...death scenes here. Thus, One Missed Call has as much in common with more traditional American "teenage body-count" movies like the original Friday the 13th as it does with members of its own subgenre. Another method Miike employs to "liven up" the proceedings is the graceful, fluid, sneaky camerawork. Cameras sloowwwwly creep around dark corners, and shots strrrreeetttcch down corridors, slowly revealing only what Miike wants us to see, and that is often quite scary in and of itself.
I've read quite a few reviews for One Missed Call, and all of them (mine included) seem to at least touch on the idea that Miike is playing a joke on his viewers, but none that I've seen thus far really tell you what in the hell that is supposed to mean. Well, from my perspective, I think the biggest way he plays a joke on viewers is to not just toy with the audience, but to outright shock them when all they're expecting is a gentle "jolt". He seems totally aware of the very PG-13-ish methods that so many other films use in order to mislead the viewer. Whereas, in many such films, the music will intensify, the room will go dark, and the characters will take on "scared" expressions, and then ka-pow...a cat will jump out from the shadows, in One Missed Call, the same thing will happen, but then something will jump out and eat the cat, and then attack the scared person as well (proverbially, of course...there are no dead cats, to my recollection, in this film...so don't call PETA). Finally, since Miike clearly knows that since the timelines, back-stories, and plots of these films are often so complicated as to confuse and disorient the jaded viewer, he can royally fuck with the audience this time around by making those elements completely over-the-top and disjointed. This isn't to say that the movie makes no sense...it's just that Miike wants to play, and whether or not you like it, you're his plaything. I can see the evil grin on his face as I type this...
It's interesting...Takashi Miike's films are so varied...both stylistically and in terms of general content...that it's probably a bit daunting to know where to start for the average Miike-newbie. Well, if you've never seen a Miike film before, and you're a bit nervous about diving right into the dude's filmography with something as obtuse as, say, Gozu or something as outright gory and rambunctious as Ichi the Killer, then you might be better off going to One Missed Call as your "point of entry". It's one of Miike's most "mainstream" and accessible movies by far, and the familiarity of the subject matter will feel like warm blanket to you all you billions of Ringu fanatics. At the same time, there is enough of Miike's trademark cynicism and goofiness on display here that you'll get a true taste of what he has to offer. In short, One Missed Call is a great springboard into the depraved cinematic vision of Takashi Miike.
This release, a special Red Sun Imports release, is a true 2-disc special edition. Granted, like many of the special imports available from Asian Cult Cinema, it's got its problems. First and foremost, the print itself is somewhat muddy in spots, and it tends toward graininess in dark or heavily-shadowed scenes (which are expectedly frequent in a film like this). The 16X9 widescreen is nice, of course, and the 5.1 surround sound is suitably booming in some sequences but effectively creep-inducing in others. The second disc contains the special features, including trailers, a fairly impressive "making of" documentary, and cast/crew interviews, but all of these features lack English subtitles, making them a visual-only treat for us Japanese language-challenged viewers. The feature film itself, of course, has very good removable English subs that seem to be well-translated and, more importanly, well-timed to match the onscreen action. All too often, there is a huge delay between action and subtitling, making for a distracting viewing experience. Lucky for us, this is not the case here. All problems aside, this Region "0", NTSC release is a suitable and quite welcome opportunity to see this otherwise hard-to-come-by Miike film.
Once you get past the familiarity of the subject matter, and realize that Miike is having a really good time with the film, One Missed Call turns out to be a fun, scary, shocking, totally enjoyable, if somewhat uncharacteristic Takashi Miike film. In fact, it's a serious contender for the crown of "King of the Creepy-long-haired-pissed-off ghost" subgenre. Highly recommended, but be patient with the inherent flaws of the release.
So, as those of you familiar with this site probably know, Takashi Miike films give me wood. Yep. The cineaste in me just creams over every single second of his challenging, surreal, hyperviolent, yet strangely touching films. Suffice it to say that I look forward to each and every Miike flick like a dog anxiously awaiting its master. So, when I heard quite a while ago that Miike was filming his take on the increasingly-popular Asian "creepy female ghost with long, black hair" sub-sub-sub genre (as typified by Ringu and Ju-On: The Grudge, most notably), I got all kinds of worked up about it. I usually don't like to go into any new horror flick experience with concrete preconceived notions, but in this case, could I really be expected not to have those notions? I visualized a taut, scary, and slyly funny thriller that almost satirized the genre as much as it melded with it. I expected Miike to knock my socks off, with terrifying scenes as well as hysterically biting digs at the whole ever-fuckin' concept behind so many of these films. We know the concept has been done to death, and you heard it here first, folks...One Missed Call...once and for all...officially sounds the death-knell of the subgenre (or at least it should), and when the inevitable and continuous entries in the genre keep getting pumped out, we have Miike's permission to completely ignore them, in favor of moving on to bigger, better, scarier things. Who can argue with Miike on such matters?
