Kyofu

Who doesn’t like really confusing films about forbidden Japanese brain experiments?

Kyofu is by the makers of the Ring. Although this usually means the producers and let’s face it what did the producers do but put up money? In this case this is a film by Hiroshi Takahashi who wrote the screenplay for the original Ring. And Ring was such a great idea for a film that it got made three times. This isn’t the first film that Hiroshi has directed but it’s the first to get an international release so what’s it like?

The film starts off like many others with two young girls walking in on their parents watching a film from the 1950’s about brain experimentation.  The experimentation on people’s brains results in an ability to people to see the afterlife. It also renders cameras capable of recording what the subjects see but let’s not think too much about that. Flash forward twenty years later and one of the girls has joined a suicide cult which is where the film should really have taken off. Suicide is a real issue in Japan and the film takes us to Aokigahara otherwise known as the “Suicide Forrest” a real place in Japan where the authorities have stopped advertising the numbers of suicides each year in the hope of removing the attraction of the place; however, in 2010, 247 people attempted suicide in the forest anyway. So this film could have really been an interesting meditation on a subject that really taps into a social issue that is disturbing and distinctly Japanese.

Instead we get an interesting left turn where the girl’s mother, now a world famous brain surgeon is hell bent on repeating the forbidden experiments and is manipulating the members of the youth suicide cult into believing that they have died and are now in a holding chamber for the dead where people get their brains experimented on....and logic sort of leaves the building at this point. The mother seems to have a weird condition where she will be perfectly nice to your face but do horrible things to you if you sleep.  The other daughter moves into her missing sister’s apartment where she starts having very disturbing dreams and angry, weird and creepy sex with a Doctor. Frankly the words “Help me clean the smell of my sister’s blood off me” isn’t the sexiest line I can think off but it seemed to work for him.

There’s lots of putting watch batteries with hooks on them into people’s brains and portent that something from the other side is coming to claim them but when it arrives it doesn’t look very interesting or scary. And then at the end...well let’s just say that it’s either very confusing or a complete cop out depending on what you decide happened.

Audio: Audio is ok, just Stereo which lowers the creepy factor when you have a good surround sound setup.

Video: Video is fine, each brain is rendered in fine brainy detail.

Special Features: None except a Theatrical Trailer and some previews, one of which - Mutant Girl Squad is at once the best and most disturbing trailer that I have ever seen, almost worth the price of admission alone. I hope to never see this film but I will be showing everyone I know the trailer for months.