I don’t get it, people will tell you they love Japanese horror movies, then they will tell you they hate a movie like “Wish,” but if you ask me, this film to me is your typical Japanese. It’s weird, creepy, slow, and has a lot of shots of Japanese people just standing there staring. Sounds like the bulk of Japenese horror films I have seen.
Now I am going to tell you a totally unrelated story, maybe you will get what I am trying to say, but probably not because half of the time I have no idea what I am saying myself. Anyway this is my own I (heart) Huckebees tuna fish story (if you have not seen that movie possibly I have already lost you). It’s a story I have told 1 billion times.
During an organized movie discussion at a movie theater I worked at, one of the attendees claimed she didn’t like a film because she didn’t care that the main character died at the end. The moderator asked: “well you need realistic characters who you care about to like a film then?” and the woman said : “No, I just didn’t like this movie because I didn’t care that the main character dies at the end.” And this went back and forth about five times. The movie was called “The Saddest Music in the World” which featured a character who was an amputee and at the end of the film has her legs replaced by glass legs filled with beer and goldfish. I have never pretended to understand that film, or any of Guy Maddin’s films, but I can sure as shit tell you it had nothing to do with caring about the guy dying at the end. Actually, from what I remember, he played the piano while he burned in a fire, so if he didn’t seem to care he was dying why the fuck should I?
Anyway, that has some point to do with hardcore Asian films. Unless you’re asian or have a master in asian studies I just don’t think you will ever get them. Like any foreign film, some translate better to American audiences, a lot don’t.
There are people who’s job it is to go to other countries and find stuff that will do well here. Those are the foreign films released in the United States, well the ones released in theaters or on DVD for more of the masses. If you decide to go looking deeper into foreign film no one is promising you will “get” or like all these movies. A lot of them are ass, trust me I have wasted a lot of my time watching them. Some are great “little” films you may have never heard of. For me the search is worth it.
Hmm oh yeah “Wish” is about a little boy who makes a creepy doll as a friend. Now even if you’re tired of hearing that clowns and dolls are creepy, it’s still true. That doesn’t mean you can just toss them in a boring flick, or do them badly, and you have an instant scary movie on your hands. Just ask that guy from “Saw.” He learned the hard way with “Dead Silence.” However, this puppet the little boy makes in “Wish” takes the cake for fucking creepy dolls. He makes the doll because he has no friends, and if this was an American movie he would of got beat up by the other kids for being gay, if ya know what I mean. Eventually the kid’s mother gets concerned and has him change schools and it works. He makes a friend, and since he no longer needs the doll, he buries it. Of course the puppet comes back to attack him and his friends. These scenes make the movie worth watching. Like I said, the puppet is creepy, and at least in this movie you actually see him attacking people. In most films like these (“Living Hell” comes to mind actually) you find out that all the crazy shit happening was caused by the person who was seeing it. Oh shit, I may of ruined “Living Hell” for you now, well fuck it. The end ruins it anyway. They do suggest this in “Wish,” but at least at one point you actually see the puppet attacking the little kid.
Some idiots will try to convince you a movie like this, hence “Tale of Two Sisters,” is so smart, but that is because it had subtitles at the bottom. If it had been American they would have just wrote it off as another lame horror film. “Wish” is your typical Japanese horror film, the only thing it suffers from is that is was shot on video (or whatever they shoot shit on today) and just looks like a cheap soap opera. If you loved other Japanese horror films, then this should be no different really. I guess it was also based off kazuo Umezz’s comic, which may be better, but I have no idea and actually don’t care!
