Ju-On: The Grudge (2002) by Takashi Shimizu


Director: Takashi Shimizu
Year: 2002
Country: Japan
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Ghosts

Plot:
Following a series of strange deaths, a group of detectives learns that a pair of vicious ghosts is killing off linked to those who entered a house with a cursed history and race to stop the deaths from continuing as the circle of violence is in danger of consuming all in the community.

Review:

Overall, this one was highly impressive at times and got some good points out of it. The biggest factor for this one is mainly from the scares, which are prevalent throughout here as it works through several impressive elements. As is usual for the Asian ghost genre, the majority of that comes from the quite creepy and definitely scary ghost popping up whenever you least expect it in areas that are quite shocking to see it come from, definitely giving this one a feeling of dread and terror that very few actually manage to accomplish at all yet this is utterly masterful at. There's moments within this one that are all about extreme jump-scares as the ghost appears long before actually interacting with the victim which sets off the scares quite well so scenes of the lone girl in the apartment being tormented by the ghostly doppelgangers of her friends, the showing of the brother and his wife who succumb to the curse and the reporter in the hotel room are all outstanding sequences that work very well because of where the ghost finally pops up and how creepy it is seeing this.

When it decides to backtrack and focus more on the suspense of the slowly-approach ghost just utterly terrifying the victims, like the ambush on the security guard at her workplace, the first scenes showing her caring for the grandmother amid the ghost-boy and cat howling away as she works as well as the police detectives in the house during the crime scenes and finally the true meaning of the curse at the end where the hand-trick all-throughout the film finally gets explained, generates some rather creepy moments from time-to-time which causes this to definitely be worthy of its stellar reputation. Playing off the suspense and atmosphere of the situation rather nicely as the more action-packed scenarios in the later half come into play as well as the series of stellar payoffs from the ghost's appearance coming to haunt the various members of the family as they move into the house which gives us some rather fine and chilling scenes here. There's also the generally demented ghostly-look for them throughout here, which is just unnervingly chilling and creepy that serves this one quite well.


The cast here isn't that bad either and definitely helps this a lot. Megumi Okina as the worker Rika Nishina is a fine-enough lead. Caring, compasionate and dutiful to her job, the descent into madness that she experiences while being in the house is a great step and she handles everything quite well here which gives us a strong leading role. As the siblings, Misaki Itô as Hitomi, Kanji Tsuda as her brother Katsuya and Shuri Matsuda as his wife Kazumi Tokunaga respectively all vary throughout here. Kazumi is dispensed with almost immediately falling into the curses' trap, Hitomi is better as the manic, frightened sister who gets a lot more to like about this as time goes on since our intro makes her out like a flightly, happy-go-lucky type and Katsuya is basically just a blank slate to be taken over by the ghost. Misa Uehara as the teenage intruder Izumi Tôyama does well enough here as she starts off fine before turning crazy which is appropriate while Yui Ichikawa as Chiharu and Yukako Kukuri as Miyuki come off nicely as the concerned friends who just want to help. The rest of the large cast does incredibly well and doesn't really disappoint or distract much at all.

Unfortunately, it's also slightly problematic as there's a small-but-noticeable flaw here. The only real issue is that the film is plagued by a plot that's far too disjointed to make any sense as we constantly zip around to view the dozen or so different stories that are told within, making it nearly impossible to keep track of who's-who here and what time period we're in. Since the film doesn't go chronologically with the events either, and then because we learn so late in the film what's actually going on, it's far too late to really care which really leaves us all mightily confused about the plot of this one. When it sticks to the ghosts, it's great stuff all around and is certainly highly enjoyable. Likewise, the other minor issue here is of no real concern to the film itself but rather the fact that so many others copied the look, feel and general attitude of not only the ghosts but the setup of the film as a whole that this one might be too familiar to really have an impact like it once did. However, that's a quibbling factor that isn't detrimental at all.


Overview: **** 1/2/5
There's plenty to really enjoy with this one as it offers up plenty of engaging elements that end up making this one of the finest efforts in the genre. This is readily recommended to any fan of Asian horror in general or fans of the style or creative side, while there's not much here to dissuade this from others.

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