By David Dent
In Japan Mag Mag’s director, Yuriyan Retriever (aka Yoshida Yuri), is better known as a successful comedian, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that her debut feature should have such a rich vein of humour and anarchy.
The movie sets itself up with all the by now almost comfortable J-horror elements; young people being stalked by a version of the traditional long haired ghost (the yurei spectre familiar from many movies) whose shtick is to fixate on someone, declare their love for them, and then either murder their intended by removing their eyes, or drive them bonkers, if the feelings aren’t reciprocated. The spirit has already entered into popular culture, described in something that looks like a teen mag as ‘two meters tall, shaggy hair, torn pink dress”.
But Retriever has more than one trick up her sleeve in spinning out this tricksy movie. The first is to give the ghost an origin story early on, linked to a spurned plus sized schoolgirl, Yurika (Marina Mizushima), mercilessly bullied for declaring her love to a classmate, who takes her own life by jumping from a school building.
The next is to offer up perspectives on the ghost’s modus operandum through the lens of different characters who encounter it, either dying or driven mad as a result: an awkward three-way relationship between Sanae (Sara Minami), obsessed with sculptor Hiroshi (Ôshirô Maeda) and who hates the artist’s model Rumi (Aoi Yamada); a house sharing group who’s philandering alpha male Akito (Joe Kujo) is spared but loses his mind after his ghostly contact; and a bullying father and husband, Akira (Tetsu Hirahara) whose welcome demise goes sour when the ghost transfers its affection to their young son, requiring an exorcism from a useless sensei.
What Retriever is offering up in this riotous takedown of a popular horror genre is that pathological revenge need not be confined to the murderous ghost. Mag Mag’s cast are all at it, and it’s their combined anger and anxiety that fuels the chaos within. Retriever plays fast and loose with tradition here; not all of the elements work, but this is huge fun, lively, narratively chopped up and always surprising. Recommended.
