Customer Reviews

Retribution

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A detective (Koji Yakusho) investigates a series of murders by drowning, while at the same time questioning his own possible involvement. Like his last movie (Loft), Kiyoshi Kurosawa focuses mostly on the concept of memory. This time, however, the consequences that lie behind the motive for the killings reach far beyond the primary characters. The horror sequences themselves are nicely done and incorporate a variety of techniques. The pacing is glacial but there's more than enough here to satisfy.

Reading some of the negative reviews on IMDb only confirms that audiences are getting more and more stupid by the day. No doubt this is due to the endless flooding of Hollywood movies (if you really want to call them "movies") that are made for brainless halfwits who have completely abandoned their cerebral skills in favor of special effects and potty humor. That said, one can only shrug their shoulders at the mass of confusion expressed by some of the reviewers here who claim that this film "doesn't make a lick of sense." Allow me to explain.

START OF SPOILERS

The woman in red is behind every killing that occurs. The murders that the detective is investigating were committed by people, but the woman in red influenced them to kill because they experienced the same rejection that she experienced - they are not an integral part of the future of their loved ones. The detective is the only one who is forgiven, but the rest of the world must die, because she was abandoned by all. Therefore, her influence over the human murderers was simply a foreshadowing of the apocalyptic doom that would later befall the entirety of humanity.

END OF SPOILERS

There are more specifics to the story, of course, but the synopsis above is rather simplistic and shouldn't be all that difficult to understand. Then again, if someone feeds their brain with dim-witted tripe like Friday the 13th and Hostel all the time, it's possible that their movie IQ has degraded to such an extent that even the slightest bit of indirect communication by a filmmaker will go unnoticed. For those of us who don't need (or simply don't want) everything spelled out in BIG RED LETTERS, Retribution offers a bit of interest.

The rest of you Hollywood fanboys may as well not even bother with stuff like this. Just go and watch Freddy vs. Jason or Alien vs. Predator a few hundred more times until your brain turns into a quivering mound of jello.

"Retribution" (Japanese title "Sakebi" meaning "Scream") is a classic yurei tale. Director Kurosawa Kiyoshi has decided to draw within the lines, keeping all the elements of this traditional Japanese monster, while giving the film some of his personal touches.

Kurosawa (Cure, Pulse) has proved time and time again that he is a force to be reckoned with. Many of his films fall within the horror genre, and they all carry Kurosawa's heavy tone. "Retribution" is no different. Even while playing within the confines of tradition, the world-weary nature of his characters, the idea that even the best of us somehow deserves what is inevitably coming, all comes through strongly. Kurosawa has a vision with his films, and one that I enjoy very much.

The story of "Retribution" is a horror/detective pairing. A police officer Yoshioka (Played by Kurosawa Kiyoshi regular Yakusho Koji), is called to the scene of a grisly murder. A body has been found, lungs full of seawater, and all signs point to Yoshioka being the murderer. At first he is tempted to hide clues, but since he knows he did not commit the crime he keeps investigating. More murders follow, all involving the same MO, all committed by people who should not be committing murders. Into this strange mix are two women, a haunting Woman in Red (Hazuki Riona) who seems to appear and disappear, and Yoshioka's girlfriend Harue (Konishi Manami) who tries to help Yoshioka but finds herself constantly being pushed away and pulled closer.

"Retribution" is a very good movie, although not a particularly scary one. The film concentrates on mood and story more than chills, and although there are a few shocking moments for the most part the pace is quiet. With every Kurosawa Kiyoshi film I see, I love his style of horror more and more. It is psychological and supernatural horror all at the same time, with recriminations for society's growing coldness and isolated nature.

The DVD for "Retribution" has a few good extras, including a "Making of.", an interview with Kurosawa Kiyoshi, and an Alternate Ending and a special "Making of the Alternate Ending."

Retribution (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2006)

Kurosawa may be no relation to Akira Kurosawa, but there's no denying that he's created some of modern Japan's most enduring and distinctive cinematic artifacts (Cure, Charisma, Bright Future, and Eyes of the Spider were all Kurosawa joints, among others). Retribution, his second-most-recent film as I write this (and I am camping at the bit to see his newest, which I'll get to do in about three weeks), is a rare miss from the talented director, but even when he misses, Kurosawa's style is enough to at least make the film watchable, if not memorable.

Noboru Yoshioka (Kurosawa regular Kôji Yakusho, who might as well be giving us the reason his character ended up leaving the police force in Charisma; it's amusing to think of this as a prequel) is a police detective on the hunt for a serial killer. Once we've gotten a while into the movie, we start to realize that something's weird here--all the evidence is actually starting to point to Yoshioka as the prime suspect. About the same time this makes itself known, Yoshioka starts seeing a ghostly woman in a red dress, who he quickly realizes is one of the killer's victims. But is she here to aid Yoshioka in finding the killer, or take retribution on him for killing her? (In case that seems obvious, I'll mention that the title can be read either way.)

If you've seen a few of Kurosawa's films, you're probably used to the seemingly unique way he structures his movies, so that even when they're remakes (Séance) or ripoffs (Cure, which is a direct descendant of Silence of the Lambs), they're unmistakably Kurosawa. That said, in every Kurosawa movie I've seen except this one, there's more than that structure to make it work--the story takes an entirely unexpected turn, the settings are so perfect that you wonder how many years Kurosawa spent scouring aerial photographs to find them, the acting is beyond Oscar-quality, what have you. This one's missing it all; the actors are competent, but no one save Yakusho really stands out, the locations are generic, the story is an amalgam of a few different recent Asian ghost flicks and western mysteries (for which Kurosawa has a distinct fondness). And, of course, there's the ghost with the long black hair and the weird movements. Man, she does get around, doesn't she? I don't think there's a single fan of Asian horror movies who can't rattle a dozen movies in which ghosts like this have appeared off the top of his head. We get it, guys, but you know what? It just ain't creepy no more.

If you're a Kurosawa junkie (and we all should be), obviously you'll have to see Retribution at some point. If you're new to his movies, however, there are many, many better places to start, a number of which I've already mentioned in this review, any of which are worth your time. (My personal favorite is Charisma, but I started with Cure and it remains one of his strongest films, in my estimation.) Get to this one later on. ***

Retribution is one of the better post-Ring J-horrors, and certainly one of the best J-ghost flicks. In fact, upon reflection, I'd have to include it in my top 20 ghost movies of all time. Retribution builds slowly and obscurely, in director Kiyoshi Kurosawa's classic style, beginning as a pretty confounding police procedural but then morphing into a disturbing, even heavy, ghost story.

Following the standard mode of exposition he employs in all of his horror films, Kurosawa does not impart information to the viewer in a straightforward manner, and I found myself having to use a lot my own reasoning to draw conclusions about motives and to fill in information gaps in the plot development. This is not a criticism, but simply to say that this is a pretty challenging movie. The main theme of the film is also more complex than we often see in genre pictures - as I see it, a fairly complex prism of abandonment, emotional isolation, and culpability, set amid urban desolation. (Thematically, in how it is shot, and in how it ends, Retribution actually reminds me in some respects of Michelangelo Antonioni's Red Desert.)

Retribution is shot in an unhurried fashion, and some viewers may grow restless. I have to admit that I myself did for a few minutes until I reminded myself of who was at the helm. The reward for my patience was a slowly building sense of suspense and unease, heightened by some very creepy and outright unusual ghost shots. No spoilers, I promise, but it will not come as a surprise to fans of Kiyoshi Kurosawa that the ending is not pat, though it may be a little less obscure than some of his other films. One thing Retribution has which the more famous Pulse lacks (sorry, but I think Pulse is overrated) is internal consistency - there is ultimately a logical narrative to be had here, at least if my interpretation of the last couple of shots is on the money. So, all in all, far above average. I was going to give Retribution 3 stars, but after thinking more about the ending, and how intriguing the movie ultimately is, it rates a strong 4 or 4.5.

A series of murders w/ the same M.O. puzzles police as they each appear to have been committed by a different suspect. Meanwhile, a mysterious woman in red seems to be the key to everything. RETRIBUTION is an excellently executed ghost story w/ a fresh approach, and some nice little twists along the way. This one is right up there w/ the likes of PULSE, RINGU, and JU-ON...

This definitely is a movie that demands focus and thought from its viewers. Watch this to give your brain exercise. There's plenty of other movies out there to keep you mentally lazy as heck.

Cure and Pulse are my two favorites by this director, but this movie is right up there too.

n the beginning it took a bit for the movie to hold my interst. The pace did pick up a bit once the detective started questioning if he could be the murderer. However, I found shortly after the movie picked up it got boring soon after. It isn't a horror but more of a mystery thriller. It was ok but not something I would watch over.

I can't believe that Kurosawa would be happy with the ending of this film as it appears on the North American dvd release, and can't help thinking that he was either forced into it or that someone else did it for him. There's a shock scare and a bit of voice over at the very end that are completely out of keeping with the rest of the movie, don't play by the internal rules of the haunting, and smack heavily of money men mixing in in an attempt to make the film more commercial. The ironic thing is that it's too little too late, and the incongruous elements only serve to take some of the glow off of what would have been a very neat little movie indeed if it had ended a scene and a half earlier.

It's still the most interesting Japanese film I've seen this year, but for Kurosawa fans it's definitely going to feel compromised. Makes me wonder what the Japanese release print looks like, or, if it's the same as this one, what a director's cut would look like.

A sound departure from usually over-sexy stories from Japan mixes murdering with mystics, adding a little to a Kurosawa's legacy in world cinematography.