J-horror Inquirer article

[wgardne1 at swarthmore.edu]

For those who follow American media coverage on Japanese film, there was an article in today's 
Philadelphia Inquirer about the death and un-death of J-Horror. The online version also includes 
links to some web resources.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14765415.htm

a copy is pasted below--

Cheers,
Will Gardner
Swarthmore, PA

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J-Horror haunts Hollywood
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14765415.htm
Posted on Thu, Jun. 08, 2006


The Asian film phenomenon has studios scrambling to do remakes. But you can scare up the 
even creepier originals on DVD.


By Tirdad Derakhshani
Inquirer Staff Writer


In "Ju-On," Megumi Okina plays a young woman who discovers the house she bought is 
occupied by vengeful spirits - of the previous tenants, brutally murdered.

J-Horror is dead.
J-Horror has never been bigger.

Banking on the success of two American remakes of Japanese films, The Ring and The Grudge, 
Hollywood has at least 16 more remakes of so-called J-Horror films in various stages of 
acquisition, production and release - a major gamble on a minor genre.

During the late '90s, the Asian cinema - not just Japanese - produced a bunch of deliciously 
surreal and creepy flicks, including Tomie (she's so lovable, you're compelled to kill her) and 
Phone, about the cell phone from hell ("Can you hear me now? Good: you're about to d-d-d... 
aaagh!!").

Even as the phenomenon is being promoted in Everytown U.S.A. (the next remake, of Kiyoshi 
Kurosawa's Pulse, opens July 14), cineastes and critics say the original J-Horror mini-movement 
is over. Kaput. R.I.P.

Yet the transformation of the genre from cult to cash cow has had one great side effect: It has 
opened up the home video market to obscure Asian titles, many of which are available from 
small distributors, including Tartan Films USA and Media Blasters.

Tartan U.S. president Tony Borg said his Asia Extreme line, launched in January 2005, appeals to 
the "17- to 28-year-old video gamer, anime fan and Maxim magazine reader... . The 
demographic is very young, hip, cool and edgy."

Oh, the (J-) horror

The "annoying" term J-Horror was, according to filmmaker and critic Nicholas Rucka, slapped 
onto a few, hard-to-categorize Japanese imports such as Ringu, Ju-On and S?ance, by fans. The 
'90s movies seriously wigged out horror devotees with their gruesome, weirdly paced stories of 
ghosts most sorrowful and vengeful.

Rucka, who writes for Midnight Eye, an online journal about Japanese film, said the movies 
eschewed computer-generated effects, instead relying on great lightning, cinematography and 
offbeat stories.

In contrast to Western tales, which are "logic- and morality-bound," Japanese yarns presuppose 
"a belief that spirits inhabit most everything, from inanimate objects to living creatures," Rucka 
said. So there's need to explain the haunting, and the story can give a deeper sense of the 
ghost's psychology and its interaction with the world.

He said the success of the American version of The Ring in '02 pushed the Japanese industry - 
which had already exhausted the genre - to keep cranking out identical films about "vengeful 
ghosts [with] long stringy black hair, impossible physical gymnastics, meowing little ghost boys, 
cursed videos or cell phones or computers..."

The effects-driven Ring, he said, was just too excessive. It "missed the point. The original was 
restrained, subtle, atmospheric... because that actually heightened the tension and the horror."

Travis Crawford, who programs the "Danger After Dark" series for the Philadelphia Film Festival, 
said, "Some of my favorite horror films have been remakes, including [Philip] Kaufman's Invasion 
of the Body Snatchers and David Cronenberg's The Fly... but I have yet to see one of those [J-
Horror] remakes that hold a candle to the originals."

"That whole wave of Japanese horror had already peaked by 2001," he said. "Now it's just caught 
into a cycle of redundancy." (There are nine versions - including sequels, prequels and a 
television spin-off of The Ring in Japan, the States and Korea, with a 10th, The Ring 3, due next 
year.)

The few great filmmakers who have emerged from the J-Horror scene, such as Kiyoshi 
Kurosawa, use horror metaphorically to explore the human condition, said Smithsonian film 
programmer Tom Vick. Films such as S?ance and Cure show that "the whole universe is this 
mysterious force which is controlling you and which is potentially dangerous."

Dead or alive

"I say humbug to the whole 'J-Horror is dead' thing!" said Hollywood screenwriter Ste-phen 
Susco, who wrote the screenplay for the remake of The Grudge and The Grudge 2, due out in 
October. Susco said he conceived of The Grudge as a small-budget homage to the Japanese 
original. But he had a hard time selling the idea in early 2002.

"Studio execs... are baffled by Asian horror, which is so unique and unconventional," he said. 
"Right, there's no happy ending," he said, in imitation of the pitch to a studio exec. "And, no, 
you can never kill the bad creature; and, yep, the film has a lot of spiritual stuff... ."

Fast-forward a few months to October 2002, when The Ring racked up $129 million at the U.S. 
box office. "Everybody," Susco said, "started calling us again."

He said the remakes aren't as extreme as the films by Japanese masters such as Takashi Miike, 
who directed Audition and Visitor Q.

"Thank God for the rise of the DVDs, because that way people can at least see those movies," 
Susco said.

The ghost in the DVD

So there's no need to commit seppuku. J-Hope springs eternal - on DVD. Two lines are perfect 
for the task: Tokyo Shock by Media Blasters, and Tartan's Asia Extreme collection.

Media Blasters' Richard York exudes optimism, with reason. Launched in 1998, his Tokyo Shock 
line has more than 125 titles in extreme genres, such as horror, action, gangster and samurai 
films. Its films include Bushinsaba, by Phone director Byeong-ki Ahn, and Takashi Ishii's deeply 
disturbing film about a woman seeking revenge on her three rapists, Freeze Me.

"We are also film fans ourselves," said York, who said the company is seeking out films from 
Korea and Thailand, where some of the best horror fare is being made.

The Asia Extreme line, which has 28 titles, is a series of gorgeously packaged DVDs, including 
the fabulously melodramatic Korean schoolgirls ghost story, Whispering Corridors, and its two 
sequels; Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo: The Ironman and his heart-rending tone poem about a 
med student who has to dissect his ex-lover, Vital; and Marebito, the first truly great film by 
Grudge director Takashi Shimizu.

Tartan company also distributes some of its titles theatrically, including Lady Vengeance, the 
last entry in Korean director Chan-wook Park's brilliant Vengeance trilogy, which opened in 
Philly on Friday.

Borg, Tartan's U.S. president, said the abundance of Hollywood remakes "will actually help us, 
by raising genre awareness." Think of it as a form of cultural consciousness-raising: Borg said 
Wal-Mart - Wal-Mart! - enthusiastically carries one of Tartan's first titles, A Tale of Two Sisters.

(Wal-Mart J-Horror. Wal-Mart J-Horror. Wal-Mart J-Horror. The room's beginning to spin...)

J-Horror Resources on the Web

A selection of Web sites about Asian horror films.

News and Information

Kyonsi Online Reviews, news and DVD sales: www.kyonsi.com.

Midnight Eye Online Journal about Japanese Cinema: www.midnighteye.com.

Tom Vick's blog tomvick.blogspot.com.

The Ring fan site www.theringworld.com.

Subway Cinema Organizes the New York Asian Film Festival, June 16 to July 1: 
www.subwaycinema.com.

DVD Distributors

ArtsMagic DVD www.artsmagicdvd.com.

Asian Pulp Cinema www.asiapulpcinema.com.

Asian Vision www.asiavisionfilms.com.

Elite Entertainment: www.elitedisc.com.

Media Blasters www.media-blasters.com.

Panik House www.panikhouse.com.

Tartan Films USA www.tartanfilmsusa.com.

Tartan's Asia Extreme www.asiaextremefilms.com.

Unearthed Films www.unearthedfilms.com.