XPost: soc.culture.japan

[ At present the movie can be found with English subtitles at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sY8uPpV3qk .A search on amazon for DVDs
only revealed one with German subtitles. ]

Plot : a dead woman is found in a cargo container in some port. The
autopsy shows that some of her organs were harvested. A man named
Yamazaki working at the morgue steals the body and brings it to his
house. He has an obsession with hair and notices that the dead body
grows hair. His off kilter instinct tells him that there is something
special about the dead woman so he has to have her.

A second strand follows the life of Yuko Mizushima (played by Chiaki
Kuriyama of "Battle royale" fame) and her housemate Yuki Morita. Yuko is
an apprentice hair stylist at a salon. Yuki is an aspiring dancer with a
part time job. Other characters are Yuko's evil step sister , Kiyomi ,
and the sister's young daughter , named Mami , on whom Kiyomi has
inflicted some nasty abuse (we get to see the bruises). Kiyomi decides
to leave Mami with Yuko for a while , just because.

Yamazaki makes hair extensions out of the hair growing from the dead
woman and then he sells them or offers them as free samples at various
hair salons around the town. These extensions prove deadly. It's best to
see for yourself the precise ways but they involve supernatural events.
The dead woman is obviously angry and exacts revenge through her hair
which I guess is also harvested by Yamazaki.

There are also 2 police detectives who first investigate the dead body and
then the bizarre killings which are caused by the hair extensions (although they don't know it at first).

The above summary may make it look as if too much is happening but no ,
the plot felt nice and tight.

Although the classification of the movie would involve "horror" , the
parts I enjoyed the most had nothing to do with horror but rather the interaction between the characters and the everyday life of Yuko and
Yuki and at the salon. Frankly , I would have preferred a television
series with just those parts and without the horror elements. For
example there is a sequence near the start of the movie which starts
with Yuko and Yuki beginning their day , continues with Yuko cycling to
work then has all the workers arriving at the salon saying "good
morning" to each other and concludes with the proprietor arriving and
giving them some useful advice on how to be good hair stylists. None of
these characters have encountered yet the nasty stuff which has begun
and this whole sequence has such a warm spirit that it's impossible to
describe , you have to see it.

Other favorite scenes are the interactions between Yuko , Yuki and
Kiyomi. Kiyomi is nasty and manipulative yet I find the scenes ,
especially one in Yuko's house , irresistible. There is a playfulness
about Kiyomi even while she is being nasty. For example as she leaves
Yuko's house she shouts "Mami bye-bye" , the "bye-bye" in English. There
is another scene with Kiyomi , her boyfriend and Mami. The boyfriend
says something , Mami does not respond in what the boyfriend feels
should be the proper polite manner for a child to respond to adults and
he says to Kiyomi "Slap her". Kiyomi gives a military salute and then
gets up to slap the child. Written in words it just sounds unpleasant
but there is also playfulness about it. Kiyomi and the boyfriend are
despicable but at the same time feel like fun people to be around ! In
any case , they get their comeuppance from the supernatural hair.

In another scene Mami asks Yuko why she wants to become a hair stylist.
Hair styling would be just about the most boring subject I could imagine ,
the term alone makes me slightly cringe. Yet Yuko's explanation and
the flashback involved gave me some mild appreciation for the subject !

If anyone had tried to sell the movie to me based on the scenes above ,
I would have avoided it. It is the horror elements which attracted me but
the scenes above which I enjoyed the most. Many of them are captured
from what seems to be a hand held camera which slightly moves. I found
this a bit distracting and I don't see the point.

Moving now to the horror (or at least scary) elements : what I found the "scariest" was how Yamazaki becomes more and more unhinged as the movie progresses. The special effects with hair growing everywhere including
from various body orifices I found ok. It grew on me with a second
watching. I found somewhat "counterintuitive" that hair would violently
grow out of various bodily places without any blood also coming out.

The final denouement and in particular the way it treats Yamazaki , is
kind of slapstick and surreal. I did not dislike it but I'm puzzled by
it.

The performances which stand out the most are Chiaki Kuriyama as
Yuko Mizushima , Megumi Sato as Kiyomi , Miku Sato as Mami (the kid has
talent , pity that she hasn't played in much since) and Ren Osugi as
Yamazaki. The last one with some reservations because the character is
so "crazy" that it's hard to tell what would count as a good performance.
But at his most unhinged , I found him scarier than the hair.

I also liked the character of the salon proprietor. She is strict but
clearly cares about her apprentices and wants to turn them into good
hair stylists.

I don't like pop music but I liked the pop song at the end titles.


*** Minor spoiler follows



The final scene where Yuko asks Mami "Stay with me forever" is heart
warming and well acted ; note in particular the awkwardness originally
involved , it's like Yuko is afraid Mami will say "no" and Mami is
afraid that she hasn't understood correctly and doesn't want to get her
hopes up.

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