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Kazuo Umezz’s manga-
HORROR THEATER 1 (Japan)

 ABOUT THE MOVIE

HOUSE OF BUGS

Genre:
Horror
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Bright Future, Cure, Pulse)
Starring: Hidetoshi Nishijima (Dolls, CASSHERN) Tamaki Ogawa (Samurai Fiction)
Rating: PG
Year Made: 2005

DIET

Genre:
Horror
Director: Tadafumi Ito
Starring: Miku Ueno, Shoko Nakagawa, Kanji Tsuda (Zatoichi, Juon-The Grudge, Audition)
Rating: NC-16
Year Made: 2005

 


SPECIAL FEATURES

NIL

 


TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Languages: Japanese
Subtitles: English & Chinese
Aspect Ratio: 16x9 Widescreen
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.0
Running Time: 1 hr 58 mins
Region Code: 3
Distributor: Comstar Entertainment

 

 

PART 1: HOUSE OF BUGS

SYNOPSIS:

Koji confesses to his lover, that his wife who has been cheating on him is not a human being anymore. He ask her to visit his home to check if he is seeing an illusion or not. Is the bug in your head, or is it in my head? What is real and what is not? Who is the one who has lost their mind?

MOVIE REVIEW:

From the pioneer and master of Japanese horror manga, Kazuo Umezz, creators of Japanese horror movies has joined forces to bring his works alive from his critically acclaimed pages of surreal settings to the vivid state of the TV screen. Following up in series, he steps forward with its first in the horror theater, two horrifying leads, House Of Bugs and Diet.

A tale of a depressed husband, who confesses to his lover that his wife was cheating on him. What's more, she, the wife, is somehow no longer a human anymore and invites the lover to visit to debunk his illusion. Then strange things starts to play with our minds into thinking, who of the spouse is really losing his/her mind.

From the director of Cure and Pulse, multi-segment editing and confusing angles and cuts are abound, which may be a complete maze at first glace. But much digestion is needed to fully understand the flow to finally reveal the ending. But as for this case, digestion was alittle complicated and scenes which made sense at first suddenly took a 180 degree turn and wiped out all that was understood before. Innuendos and visual interpretations of what the wife seem to have turned into seemed all surreal and might have looked and thought as cool on hardcopy pages but all too weird watching it onscreen without any bases.

MOVIE RATING:

PART 2: DIET

SYNOPSIS:

A fat girl goes on an excessive diet to impress a guy who has dumped her. She succeeds on the diet, but just as she was able to appear in front of the guy once again, her appetite that she has suppressed for so long springs to life...

MOVIE REVIEW :

A story of a girl who yearns to be pretty and slim to impress a guy who has dumped her. Starting off with a great setting and realisation of her status was pretty remarkable to its revelations. Using initial introduction of a young slim girl going about her daily life and suddenly transforming into a fat girl whenever life gets awry does set a refreshing way to view life through the eye of a bulimic. Constant surpression and anxiety switches her role back and forth slowly causing her to lose control.We then later see a more revelations of denial and jealousy in her past that causes her to this state. All seemed well so far in terms of story-line but somehow, during the last scene, all hell breaks lose, and the movie swerve at a right angle and went full speed ahead into a realm of weirdness and unbeleivablity that somehow didn't even remotely follow-up to any storyline previously.

Book or comic translation has far longed and been done with within the media of film. Some are great intrepetations and some a major misses. But Horror Theater, personally, takes the cake to really miss the point of horror. Definately the build up was present but the twist, turn, swerve and head on to a brick wall isn't what i was hoping for for a horror movie. Some might consider this a genre within the genre of horror (fantasy horror?), so if the future of Asian horror is of any hint to this horror theater, give me clichés anytime.

SPECIAL FEATURES :

This disc does not contain any special features.

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Full blast with Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0, this telemovie sounded clear as crystal almost as good as big production settings. Visually, it has all the elements of it being a tv made production, at times, dark scenes tend to get lost and leaving us squinting to figure out what was happening. Voiced in Japanese, thank the subtitles, that comes in English and Chinese, to help you fully understand the movie. Almost.

MOVIE RATING:

OVERALL DVD RATING :

Review by Lokman B S

 

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. When I Turned 9

 

 


This review is made possible with the kind support from Comstar

 


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