Kokkuri

Released by: Urban Vision
Released on: 5/2/2006
Director: Takahashi Zeze Cast: Ayumi Yamatsu, Hiroko Shimada, Moe Ishikawa, Rika Furakawaa, Saki Aoshima
Year: 1997
Purchase From Amazon

The Movie:

The cover art and marketing campaign for this release makes it look like another in the seemingly endless stream of Japanese horror films featuring some weird girl with long dark hair and black eyes who has come back from the grave to haunt a phone or a video tape or a locker to screw with the living until finally put to rest. In short, it looks like a Ring knock-off. Imagine this reviewers surprise when the disc spun up, the story unravelled, and what ensued was a surprisingly different type of film. While there are definitely supernatural elements and horror movie 'spots' in Kokkuri, there is also some serious drama and a deceptively mature storyline to be found.

Mio (Ayumi Yamatsu), Hiroko (Hiroko Mizuki), and Masami (Moe Ishikawa) are three cute as can be Japanese schoolgirls who spend their time hanging out, talking about boys, and listening to 'The Bluebird,' their favorite radio show hosted by a mysterious woman named Michiru. One night Michiru instructs her audience to play Kokkuri (a sort of Japanese Ouija Board) to communicate with the spirit world and find out about her mysterious past. The girls give it a whirl and find out a few interesting facts about their favorite radio celebrity, some of which are amazingly accurte.

When it comes to pass that Michiru is actually Mio, who was guiding the Kokkuri board the whole time and fooling everyone, her friends included, it doesn't matter as something has happened to Hiroko who has started acting really strange, even going so far as to try and kill herself. It all connects to one of the girls' past, which we learn about through flashbacks throughout the film that intertwine with the present day storyline quite effectively, but the spirit that they contracted through the board might not be as made up as Mio would have everyone believe.

Know going into this one that it moves at a very slow and a very deliberate pace. If you start the movie expecting long haired female ghosts to jump out at you from the TV of the well or whatever, you're going to be sadly disappointed. If, however, you're alright dealing with some odd pacing and slow but steady character development and don't mind a healthy dose of teenage angst with your supernatural tales of woe, Kokkuri might just work for you. It takes a while to get going but once everything is firmly established it is a well made film with a couple of interesting plot twists along the way.

The closest film to compare it to is probably Memento Mori, as it has similar imagrey and equally impressive cinematography but Kokkuri is far from a knock off of that succesful south Korean effort. There's a very obvious nod to Mario Bava's Kill, Baby Kill about half way in, but again, the movies don't have very much in common. Special mention does need to be made of just how good Kokkuri looks, it's a very well shot film and it contains some striking and memorable imagery throughout. While the performances are nothing to write him about and the story does move at a snail's pace, it's not a bad film at all, you just have to be patient with it.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Asia Vision presents Kokkuri in a very nice (though sadly non-anamorphic) 1.85.1 widescreen transfer which appears to be the original aspect ratio for the movie. The color reproduction is a little flat in spots but then in others it is very distinct, and the black levels (of which there are an awful lot in this series) stay deep and don't pixelate at all. There isn't any mpeg compression to complain about here and edge enhancement, while present, is kept to a bare minimum.

The movie is presented in a Japanese language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix with burned in English subtitles. The quality on the mix is quite good, with some nice directional effects in the action and combat scenes and consistent and clear dialogue. The score and the sound effects are balanced nicely in the background and don't overpower the dialogue at all. Some more punch for a couple of the more intense moments in the film would have maybe made things a bit more fun but other than that, there's not much to complain about here.

Aside from an image gallery, we get trailers for Asia Vision's upcoming DVD releases of Azumi, as well as Kill Devil, and Kokkuri itself. In addition, there's a guide that appears in text format that explains how the game of Kokkuri is played. An insert containing promotional images for other Asia Vision DVD releases is also included.

The Final Word:

While the movie has its obvious flaws, at least Kokkuri rises above the plentiful knock offs that are out there and stands as a pretty unique and mysterious supernatural drama with some fine cinematography and a couple of interesting twists.