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21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Cliched yes, but still entertaining., March 29, 2007
Since there is a plot description already on the page I'm gonna skip the rehash and get into my thoughts on the movie.
Reincarnation is the 3rd part of the J-Horror Series, which follows Infection and Premonition. Each movie though is standalone with nothing to do with the previous.
But Reincarnation was released as part of the After Dark Horror Fest as one of the 8 films to die for.
Takashi Shimizu is at it again with another ghost movie. While the movie differs from his Ju-on movies they do have a similar tone. For fans of Asian horror you should know what to expect by now.
After seeing the South Korean flick The Red Shoes I decided to take a long break from these movies. While none of them have been terrible movies, my only thought was I already saw this. So after months of avoiding these types of movies I figured it was time to check them out again.
Reincarnation isn't a perfect movie and can be slow at times, but Director Shimizu does a good job at keeping the movie interesting. While not as suspenseful as Ju-on: The Grudge, Shimizu manages to get the best out of every scene, even if it lacks the atmosphere Ju-on had.
That's not to say Reincarnation doesn't have atmosphere, it does, but just plays out as little slower. Bottom line is you aren't getting anything you haven't seen before.
The style is your typical Asian horror movie; but where some of the other films failed with too many clichés, Director Shimizu is able to take all of them and still make an entertaining movie.
There may not be a lot of creativity left, but with the right filmmaker they can still take it and make it something enjoyable. The highlight of the movie is Yuka who plays Nagisa Sugiura.
Not only is she really cute, but she plays her role to near perfection. When she supposed to be afraid Yuka looks absolutely terrified. And without a doubt she has one of the best screams in recent memory.
Some scenes that by right really shouldn't have worked play out creepy due to Yuka looking so terrified. While Director Shimizu crafted some excellent scenes with a lesser actress I don't think they would have worked as well.
Reincarnation has restored by faith in the Asian ghost flick, while no doubt we have seen this movie done a number of times and I have to say that scenes that would have worked well a couple of years ago don't work quite as well, but one thing showed is that an enjoyable and some what creepy movie can still be done even with the clichés.
The pacing though can be slow; while Ju-on wasn't exactly fast paced it did have a lot of haunting and a lot of dread. Reincarnation while does have some of that can run a bit slower.
You'll either be intrigued like I was or you might find yourself a little bored, it really can go either way. The final act can be a bit confusing, but if you pay attention you can and will make sense out what just happened.
Fans of Asian horror might wanna check this out; assuming you liked Takashi Shimizu's Japanese horror you might like this one then as well.
In closing Reincarnation features the clichés that have brought down these Asian flicks the past couple of years, but it's about how you handle it.
Director Shimizu handles it right and like I said makes an enjoyable and some what creepy movie despite the clichés. And along with Yuka a lot of scenes really play out better than they might have with another actress.
Reincarnation doesn't reinvent the ghost sub-genre and doesn't really offer us anything we haven't seen, but when all is said and done it's a well crafted horror flick with some good atmosphere and a good scare or 2.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A different sort of Japanese ghost story from the director of "Ju-On", March 28, 2007
"Reincarnation" ("Rinne") begins with three people having strange and unsettling experiences, each of which is different. Then a movie update on the radio informs us that the director Matsumara is making a new movie called "Memories," based on "the most brutal indiscriminating murders in Showa's history at a hotel in Gunma." In the 1970s a professor named Omori murdered 11 people at the hotel, including his two children. Then we meet Ikuo Matsumura (Kippei Shiina) and learn that not only is he going to make a movie about this crime, he is going to film it at the hotel and recreate each of the murders on the spots where they actually happened.
For "In Cold Blood" director Richard Brooks filmed in all of the original locations, including the Clutter House, so it is not like this is unprecedented. More recently ("Bobby") filmed a few scenes at the Ambassador Hotel where Robert Kennedy was assassinated during the hotel's demolition). But there is something inherently unsettling about re-enacting murders at the actual locations and "Reincarnation" certainly taps into those emotions. Even without out the ghostly encounters in the film's prologue, the director's announcement that they will be going to the actual hotel creeps you out long before they actually get there and he starts posing actors as corpses. Of course after watching "Odishon" any audition scene in a Japanese horror film gives me the creeps.
Because we are dealing with the conception of reincarnation, albeit as some form of possession, the "ghosts" of this film are not really "onryo," the Japanese ghost ("yurei") bound to the physical world by a desire for vengeance, so this is significantly different from what we have seen in "Ringu" and "Honogurai Mizu No Soko Kara", and of course director Takashi Shimizu's best known film, "Ju-on (The Grudge)." Except for the religious ceremony the cast and crew go through before they begin filming and the distinctive slanted tile roof of the hotel, there are not a lot of particularly Japanese elements to this movie and a more "western" approach might not be something fans want to see (you will probably be thinking "The Shining" more than anything else for most of this one).
The focal character in the story becomes Nagisa Sugiura (Yuka), who is picked to play the little girl who was the last to die at her father's hand. The screenplay by Shimizu and Masaki Adachi does have some other elements to flesh out this horror story, like the creepy child's doll that likes to announce, "We'll stay together, forever." But the fact that the original killer filmed the murders as he was committing them becomes a key ingredient in this movie's endgame and I like a lot of what Shimizu did in the film's climax, which cuts between both time and space as the movie crew films the murders, the cast becomes the victims, and a producer watches the original film of the murders. This is a film where I found the payoff to be better than the setup, which is better than the other way around, a fact confirmed by dozens of less successful horror films. I also liked the double-denouement, which was far and away the best ending of any of the Horrorfest 2006 films and on a par with that of "Honogurai mizu no soko kara," so I actually consider "Rinne" to be far superior to "Ju-On" in terms of Shimizu's films even if it produces less actual scary moments.
One of the reasons I liked "Reincarnation" is as I was sitting in the theater watching it as the opening film for the After Dark Horrorfest I was thinking that clearly this film wants us to think "A," but that what would be interesting would be if it were "B" instead. The more I played out my hypothesis the more I was convinced that I was correct, a fact confirmed by the movie's endgame. One of the fun parts of Horrorfest 2006 was doing a post mortem on each film when it finished, and nobody else said they had seen the ending coming so it should surprise you too, and even if it does not you should like the direction this film ends up taking. "Reincarnation" is the third film in producer Takashige Ichise's six part J-Horror Theater series, following "Infection" ("Kansen") and "Premonition" ("Yogen"), which is proving to be well worth checking out.
DVD Special Features: There is a brief introduction from the director and a pair of featurettes, "The Making of 'Reincarnation'" and "Memories of 'Reincarnation,'" to go along with the deleted scenes (which have commentary, although the movie itself does not). This is an above average collection of bonus features for a Horrorfest 2006 DVD, but nothing stood out enough to justify rounding up on the DVD overall. I never complain about having to read subtitles for a movie, but for some reason on these sorts of featurettes I get distracted. Go figure
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
ONE OF THE BETTER HORRORFEST OFFERINGS, November 5, 2007
At the risk of being thought of as a shill for J-Horror films, I really didn't want to like Reincarnation as the best entry into the After Dark Horrorfest, it just sort of worked out that way. Actually, I'd say it was pretty close between Reincarnation and Abandoned. The film is directed by Takashi Shimizu who directed all of the Ju-On films as well as the American versions, The Grudge 1 & 2. Reincarnation is not a copy of those films, however. In fact, in one of the DVD's special features, Shimizu comments that he wanted to get away from the Ju-On and Ringu type of horror films. He even takes the J-Horror scene to task somewhat for so much copying of those two noted films. He sought to make a ghost story that broke the mold of the curse-style of films. He was largely successful in his efforts although a few of those standard plot elements did creep into Reincarnation, whether it was intended or not.
Nagisa Sugiura is a young actress getting her first big break in a new horror film. From the very beginning, Nagisa keeps seeing a spectral little girl watching her and abruptly disappearing. The cast is told that the film is based on an actual event. Some forty years earlier, before Nagisa was born, Professor Omori went on a murder spree at a hotel, killing eleven people including his two children. The film is based on that event and Nagisa is told she will be playing the role of the little girl who was killed by her father, albeit in a more grown-up version. As part of their research, the director takes the cast and crew to the very hotel where the murders took place. The Hotel has been closed for years and Nagisa has never been there, but she immediately senses something wrong. She has visions of the murders and finds herself sucked into the past, seemingly fleeing from the killer and hiding in a closet.
While the movie is in production, several other cast members and others unrelated to the film, have their own encounters with the specters of that place and the film touches upon themes of reincarnation. Are these people reincarnations of the victims. Shimizu paces the film slowly, building both suspense and mystery. The story can be confusing at first as we don't really know what these other encounters have to do with the rest of the plot, but hang in there. This is like a puzzle that won't quite make sense until all the pieces are put together.
Of course there is the twist ending you've come to expect from most J-Horror films and I have to admit to being completely surprised after thinking I had the ending figured out. Shimizu does a masterful job in throwing out a lot of red herrings to keep viewers stumped. The last 15 minutes are truly among the creepiest moments in any of the After Dark Horrorfest films. The terror is palpable as it builds to a crescendo for its climax.
Reincarnation isn't completely original. Shimizu relates how he recently discovered films like The Shining and The Haunting, and certainly there are influences of both films. I also noted influences from the underrated film The Changeling. Like those films, the horror in Reincarnation is subtle, as it grows and festers.
The film is not without its flaws, however. There was very little in the way of character development, even with the main character Nagisa Sugiura. We end up knowing very little about her and almost nothing about the other characters, but there IS a reason for that, I suppose.
The DVD comes with a number of special features including an hour-long making of documentary, a short Q&A with Shimizu which is very enlightening as he reveals his thoughts on the differences between J-Horror and American horror films. There are also some deleted scenes as well.
Subtle and atmospheric, Reincarnation definitely ranks as one of the best of the After Dark Horrorfest films.
REVIWED BY TIM JANSON
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