IMDb wrote: Chakushin ari (2003)
Director: Takashi Miike
Genre: Fantasy / Horror / Mystery / Thriller
TagLine: Death cannot be put on hold...
Runtime: Argentina:112 min / Japan:112 min / USA:111 min
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Color: Color
SoundMix: Dolby Digital
Certification: Portugal:16 / Italy:T / Malaysia:U (cut version) / Portugal:M/16 / Malaysia:18SG (uncut version) / Argentina:16 / Australia:MA / Germany:16 / Finland:K-15 / Netherlands:12 / Norway:15 / Philippines:R-13 / Singapore:NC-16 / Sweden:15 / USA:R / Spain:18Cast:
- Kou Shibasaki ....... Yumi Nakamura
- Shin'ichi Tsutsumi ....... Hiroshi Yamashita
- Kazue Fukiishi ....... Natsumi Konishi
- Anna Nagata ....... Yoko Okazaki
- Atsushi Ida ....... Kenji Kawai
- Mariko Tsutsui ....... Marie Mizunuma
- Kumiko Imai .......
- Keiko Tomita .......
- Kayoko Fujii .......
- Yoshiko Noda .......
- Azusa ....... Ritsuko Yamashita
- Tetsushi Tanaka .......
- Mitsuhiro Sato .......
- Kaoru Hanaki .......
- Hassei Takano .......
(more)
One Missed Call is a kind of transposition of Hideo Nakata's famous Ring in a more modern society with a very simple trick: replacing the famous video-tape by a cellular phone.
In One Missed Call, people are notified about a "missed call" with a message awaiting them on the answering machine. But the missed call happens to be from a future date and hour and when they listen to that message, they in fact hear their very last moments of life.
Indeed, at the exact time of the supposed "missed call" the receiver will die, his last words being the exact ones he has heard him said on the message.
If the first victim really doesn't anticipate what is going to happen to her, as rumors are growing around the death, the next victims desperatly try to escape their announced fate.
With such a plot, One Missed Call has been quickly placed in the sub-category of asian ghost stories which was already becoming far too represented within the exportations at that time after the successes encoutered by movies like Ring (Ringu), Dark Water ( Honogurai mizu no soko kara) or Ju-On and tons of others who have jumped in the breach till the overdose ..
But One Missed Call has something more which is: Takashi Miike who had been here offered very confortable budget and has well used it. Compared to even many of successes mentioned earlier, I've never in One Missed Call laughed about the SFX which are all very well done. Then the picture of Miike is very with some very good and original angle choices for the camera.
For Takashi Miike such a "conventional" movie can appear weird and if I doubt this movie has satisfied his hardcore fans, One Missed Call clearly brings a lot more than expected to the ones who are just awaiting one more "japanese ghost story". Indeed, Miike cannot help himself to insert in his movie some efficient critics of our western society.
The media especially are particularly targeted in this movie in an excellent story evolution while the media, to increase their viewing audience, transform the "scheduled assassination" of a designated victim in a real TV show of the most cynical and horrible bad taste.
While I've managed to get bored watching the reference Ring, I do find the begining of One Missed Call very efficient and catchy.
The begining is very very good imho, then the rythm slows seriously on the middle and, sadely, the last third seems just to never end...
Too bad as really if all the following had been as good as the first half, One Missed Call would have received a much better mark than the 3/6 I am giving it...
If you have the opportunity to see it anyway I would advise you to watch the first half and to not hesitate to pass to something else once you start to feel a little bored ... but I really do like the first part a lot, I would mark it only with a 5 easily (so that's a 1~2 for the rest ...) ! Now I think I won't move to see its Hollywood remake as I've avoided the remakes of the former successes named before ...
Chevvie
