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Released by: Ventura
Released on: 4/27/2004
Director: Tomijiro Mitsuishi
Cast: Mai Hasho, Sakaya Yamaguchi, Yosuke Kubozuka, Kenichi Endo, Masatoshi Matsuo, Sugata Shun
Year: 2000
The Movie:
When Dr. Morita (Sugata Shun, who played Takayama in Takashi Miike's Ichi The Killer), the director of a hospital, mysteriously disappears, his young teenage daughter, Yumi (Sakaya Yamaguchi), discovers his notebook and tries to decipher the clues left within. As she reads through it, things go from clinical and scientific to downright crazed and ultimately, the last few pages are written in blood. One thing she picks up on is that the name 'Tomie' is repeated over and over again, as is the word 'monster.'
At the same time, a pretty young girl escapes from this very same hospital and is rescued by a young man who very quickly falls in love with her. He even goes so far as to shun his best friend and tell him off so that he can spend more time with this mysterious girl.
Yumi sets out to figure out just what happened to her father and piece together this puzzle that seems to surrounding the mysterious Tomie and as she does, she is drawn further into the strange events surrounding the hospital and a girl that was born there many years ago.
This second film in the series based on the popular manga by Junji Ito (Uzumaki) starts off strong. A shocking birth scene opening in the hospital is accented by some great blue and green lighting, giving the entire affair an eerie and otherworldly look. A few odd set pieces such as a surprise decapitation and an unexpected appearance by a character hiding out in the ceiling corner of a room keep things tense and creepy for about the first forty-five to fifty minutes of the film.
The last third though is where it all comes apart. The visuals remain strong and the performances are as good as they need to be to suspend our disbelief, but the story takes a nosedive once it begins to explain Tomie's origins. While the first film suffered from being a bit too intentionally vague, this second entry gives away the farm and ruins the character's mystique, rendering her fright-less. Where she functions well as a quiet, subtle, and enigmatic femme fatale who is able to inexplicably attract men and in turn make them lose their minds, here she's reduced to a one liner spouting franchise character - Freddy Krueger with long black hair if you will.
That's not to say that the movie doesn't get a few things right - the build up is handled very nicely and characterizations and motives are made far more clear here than in the first installment, which is a welcome change. But the first half of the film writes checks that the finale can't cash and ultimately, Tomie: Replay left me wanting.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen does a nice job of reproducing the primary colors used so heavily in the film, and while it does show some evidence of edge enhancement, the black levels stay solid throughout. There is some very minor print damage in a couple of scenes but it isn't too noticeable and overall this is a pretty solid looking presentation with only a few minor flaws.
The film is presented in a solid Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround track in its native Japanese language with optional English subtitles that are easy to read and typo free. While a 5.1 mix might have given the film a bit more punch during some of the more active scenes, the 2.0 mix gets the job done well enough, providing some nice spooky effects from sides while most of the dialogue is relegated to the center.
Well, aside from a still gallery featuring four images from the manga that inspired the movies, there are trailers for all five entries in the Tomie series.
The Final Word:
Not quite as surreal as the first film, Tomie: Replay is an average horror film with a few good jump scares, some nice set pieces, and a rather vapid story-line. It's worth checking out for Asian horror buffs but it hardly warrants a mandatory purchase.