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Honogurai mizu no soko kara (2002)

Director:
Hideo Nakata
COUNTRY
Japan
GENRE
Horror/Thriller
AKA
Dark Water
RUNNING TIME
101 minutes
Producer:
Takashige Ichise
Screenwriter:
Hideo Nakata
Takashige Ichise
Yoshihiro Nakamura


Cast includes:

CHARACTER ACTOR/ACTRESS RATING
Yoshimi Matsubara Hitomi Kuroki ˝
Ikuko Matsubara (6 years old) Rio Kanno
Mitsuko Kawai Kirei Oguchi
Ikuko Hamada (16 years old) Asami Mizukawa
Kunio Hamada Fymiyo Kohinata
Ohta Yu Tokui

 

Review

Japanese horror filmmaker Hideo Nakata's follow-up to his hugely successful Ring series came at the a time when The Ring was being remade in USA, which would only add to his already growing status. Both Ring and Dark Water are based on stories by Kôji Suzuki, and the two deal with very similar subject matters. The difference, however, is that Dark Water has very little of Ring's suspense. It's a long-winded and overplayed film, filled with water and despair, but not many surprises. This makes for a stagnant experience. Granted, the thematics could have been interesting, but Nakata fails to explore them beyond a very shallow level of lost red bags and simplified guilt. The final scene, an epilogue, is by far the film's most effective, but by then, any tension it could have exploited is far gone. Remade in English in 2005 by Brazilian director Walter Salles (Central do Brasil, Diários de Motocicleta).

Copyright © 8.10.2012 Fredrik Gunerius Fevang

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