Pulse (2001)

Kairo, or Pulse as it is known in its English title, is a bit of a tangled web. Which tends to be how most Japanese horror/thriller films are (see Ju-On, also known as The Grudge, and Ringu, also known as The Ring). I'm still learning how to properly digest these films.

There seems to be a jumpiness to these kinds of movies, where it's not just one style of movie. It's a horror movie, with ghosts who have overflowed from limbo now amongst the living; it's a morality tale, not so subtly telling us of society's isolation through digital escapes (i.e. the internet); it's a disaster film, with desolate Tokyo streets, cars burning, planes crashing into nearby buildings. Now, I know one can argue that 28 Days Later hit on similar themes (although I dunno about morality lessons, but maybe the Rage that infected people was commentary on...war? Who knows?), but there is something distinctly Japanese in the way that these films are handled. Similar to Ju-On, it's almost like these parts are chunks of a movie that don't mesh together as fluidly as 28 Days Later does. I know Ju-On was originally a three part t.v. series, whereas this is not the case for Kairo. Kairo was based on a book of the same name. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, however, hit on similar themes in a few of his earlier films, most notably Charisma (2000).

To further this jumpiness, there are two parallel story lines to this film that don't come together until about 2/3 of the way through the film, leaving the viewer to scratch their head and wonder just what the heck one has to do with the other. Which I can deal with, but there's a setup to that style that is lacking. One story line follows Michi (played quite enojyably and believably by Kumiko Aso). Michi works at a greenhouse and her friends are disappearing one by one. Why is everyone disappearing and, more importantly, why is it that she is the only one that can survive a run in with the ghosts that are now amongst the living? She sees FOUR of them and never once goes comatose and babbling? Everyone else totally loses their minds at one encounter. But, more on that later. The other story line follows Kawashima (played by Haruhiko Kato), who finally decides to join the 21^st century and get on the internet. He is, one late night, installing an internet provider disk onto his computer, when suddenly, up pops a website asking him if he wants to talk to a ghost. What the hell is this website, why does his computer turn on even when it's unplugged and who are the people the webcams on the website are following? I would like to take this time mention another noteworthy performance by Koyuki, who played Kawashima's love interest who loses her mind and finally lets us see what the heck all of those webcams are all about, Harue Karasawa. She was also in the Tom Cruise film, The Last Samurai. Her moment with the webcam was a bit heartbreaking in its loneliness.

Anyways, there were a lot of moments that pulled me out of this, due to their sheer ridiculousness. When they are on a bus, they have a blue screen behind them to overlay the background onto. LAME. Was hiring a bus to drive down the street just not in the budget? With all of the other stuff in this film?! Also, as I noted, Michi's run-ins with the undead. She's the only one that survives these. She even pulls one of her friends away from one! The flaming cargo plane that crashes into a nearby street during the apocalyptic ending: this guides her, somehow, to the exact building where she finds the key to the boat that she and Kawashima are trying to escape in. Also, one of the main ghosts: this ghost is a female who twists and writhes as she approaches her victims. Looked like modern dance moves. The main ghost, who finally fells Kawashima, and the most terrifying one, in my opinion, does NONE of this.

Balancing that, there were some really creepy moments, that made me a little afeared to sleep with my lights off. When Michi goes to Taguchi's and talks to him, only to later see him hang himself (something about the blurriness of the tarp separating Taguchi from Michi really does it). Also, when Kawashima is confronted by the ghost I would give that a thumbs up on the creepiness scale. Finally, the first time we see the creepy ghost modern dance lady and she peeks over the bench that Yabe is cowering behind ranks high on the creepy scale as well.

So, story – choppy, and chock full of Japanese morality and philosophy (which is a refreshing break from American cinema-style morality and philosophy), but really frying pan-esque in how they hit you over the head with it. Fear factor – nice and creepy. Kurosawa knows how to make a viewer's skin crawl. Done to great effect in this movie. Definitely worth the watch. The experience left me confused, yet sated in my craving for a creepy film.