GHOST (Gosuto) DVD (2010)

SYNOPSIS: Nanami chooses to become a wandering ghost to stay next to her love, Juno but Juno does not notice her presence. Nanami stumbles across Satsuki Unten a psychic whom she can talk to and asks for help. Nanami asks Unten to talk to Juno about the danger he is in and Juno gets entangled in dangerous conspiracy. Nanami wants to stay near the love of her life but she gets sad as she watches Juno in sadness from losing her. Only thing the two want is to hold each other one more time. Love continues stay alive between the two even though they have no physical contact. The harsh world makes it harder to find a true love between two people but this love story will touch those who have hard time saying "I love you" to their loved ones.

MOVIE REVIEW:

For the younger generation who haven’t seen the original, this Japanese/Korean remake of the Hollywood classic starring the late Patrick Swayze and ex-poster girl Demi Moore will not likely be remembered years down the road. And for once, the Hollywood version wins hands down.

This adaptation overall remains pretty faithfully to the original, only jarring difference is the reversal of the roles. Instead of the guy, we have Nanako Matsushima’s young CEO character, Nanami being murdered while on the way home from work one night. Unbearable to leave her grieving pottery-making husband, Juno Kim (Song Seung-heon) alone in the mortal world, ghostly Nanami stayed on and things start to get complicated when she realizes her death has something to do with her best friend and worse still, the murderers are out to harm Juno.

If you want the audience to feel for your characters, chemistry plays a very important role when it comes to believable tear-jerking romances. Unfortunately, the chemistry exhibited by the pairing of Korean heartthrob Song Seung-heon and Japanese starlet Nanako Matsushima is stiffer than a Japanese bonsai. Song who helms from the world of Korean drama and definitely no stranger to tearjerkers seems to be distracted by his command of Japanese and lacks the ability to effectively emote his struggles and loss. Nanako, dubbed the Queen-bee of Japanese drama is likeable yet looks awkwardly unimpressionable opposite her male lead.

The only bright spark here is veteran Japanese actress Kirin Kiki channeling Whoopi Goldberg’s Oscar winning performance which largely entertains for the most part with her bubbly portrayal for her hack medium role. In addition, there seems to be a clause that states “Kids are required for any Japanese-made productions that deal with ghosts” thus we have a cute girl playing a ghost child who imparts Nanami the various methods of communication.

The impressionable scene of clay-making which is being spoofed by countless movies over the years remains intact though it functions more of an obligation. The Righteous Brothers’ Unchained Melody on the other hand is given a makeover by renowned Japanese crooner, Ken Hirai and you realized tinkering with a classic love song has its price.

With a staggering 115 minutes of running time, “Gosuto” hardly reaches the emotional level of the 1990 version and barely touches the hearts. Other than a convenient business pair-up by Japan’s Shochiku and Korea’s CJ Entertainment, we see no reason for such a flaccid remake. Just hunt down the original if you can.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Trailers, TV Spot and 2 Music Videos (not the original Ken Hirai’s versions mind you) filled up the disc’s extras.

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Video quality is soft and passable while the soundtrack does its job with the mostly dialogue based material and occasional soft-tempo music.

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee

Posted on 13 June 2011