It is a very good Japanese horror and supernatural movie, but there is still a gap compared with the top Midnight Bell and The Grudge
First of all, the plot structure of this movie is too similar to Midnight Sorrowful Bell:
The first stage: a supernatural event, the victim's relatives or friends are victimized
The second stage: the victimization escalates, and the female protagonist participates in it
The third stage: the male protagonist intervenes and overcomes obstacles on the road to the truth with male action and insight
The fourth stage: the male and female protagonists join forces to reveal the "truth" of the problem, which seems to "block" the source of the curse
The fifth stage: the real cause of the curse appears, the curse spreads, and the evil remains in the world
The structure is like this, it has to be suspected that this is a work that deliberately imitates the midnight bell
As for any expression, once there are strong imitation traces, then his effect will be greatly reduced.
For example, the two ghosts Sadako and Mimiko:
Sadako is actually a particularly innocent girl. When he was a normal person, he didn't have any evil intentions to harm others, but because of his super power, he received abuse and unfair treatment. Especially the dark days of being imprisoned in the well, and the state of lingering and panting, to survive or not to die, is actually very torturous, so his curse carries a strong resentment.
The scene of his body when the curse happened, blurring reality and surrealism, and becoming an eternal classic of horror films.
But Mimiko, the ghost, feels more like a willful child. Everything he did was due to a mental illness called agency feint disease (so-called inserting a knife, giving a piece of candy), but Mimiko, a ghost, lost control further and carried the damage to the end.
In addition, Mimiko finally appeared as a big boss, and she hasn't been so subtle. The aura and creativity are not even comparable to the design of Japanese second-rate ghost movies. She is completely the shadow of a flickering girl ghost.
In addition to the role of the boss ghost, Mimiko's mother, I think the setting is also a failure. Do you want to show his cruel scene? Or is it a scene of his tenderness as a mother? What exactly does this character want to illustrate? In a word, I don't understand the behavior of holding the second daughter who is not seriously injured for medical treatment, and throwing away the eldest daughter who can die at any time by her asthma attack. Where have the traditional virtues of Eastern mothers gone?
Perhaps in the idea of the main creative, Mimiko's mother is just a "pseudo-Boss" tool person.
The best part of the film is actually the mapping and interpretation of the heroine’s own character through the female ghost
In the last twenty minutes, it was a reversal of the previous plot of the film. This reversal not only includes the reversal of the female boss’s identity, but also the reversal of the heroine’s character.
All kinds of clues actually suggest that the heroine actually has so-called agency feints, and even has delusions, which is more serious than Mimiko's symptoms. He always believed that the mother who abused her should actually be the abused party (there is a scene of the heroine's mother crying in pain). This is why Mimiko chose to be the heroine instead of just being the heroine: the combination of the two agency feints will form a more powerful perverted force
And the ultimate victim of this power is the ignorant male protagonist. It seems that in a horror film with girls as the protagonist, the ending of men is not very good. This is a protection for girls’ weakness or a satire on the patriarchal society. This is not known.
There is another problem: In the first half of the film, the creator has repeatedly emphasized the heroine's fear of Xiaokong. The second half of the film also gave an explanation, because he saw the tragic situation of hanging grandma who died of abuse by his mother. But in the film's reversal phase, the plot is no longer mentioned.
This should be regarded as a plot bug. If it is the grandmother killed by the heroine, there is no need for him to have a small hole. If it is the grandmother killed by the mother, it means that the heroine's mental illness does not exist. , The basis of the entire film plot is about to be completely overturned
The horror atmosphere is actually well done. It is an excellent horror movie, but it can’t be said to be able to keep up with the midnight bell and the grudge.
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