This is the second in the 'J-Horror Theater' series of movies - a projected six stories with different horror directors, linked only by the same production team (most importantly producer, Taka Ichise, trading on his success with the Ring and Ju-on/The Grudge franchises).

Premonition was released in Japan (titled Yogen) at the same time as Infection (Kansen) which is also availableon DVD. A third film, Reincarnation (or Rinne), directed by Takashi Shimizu of The Grudge series, was later released in Japanese cinemas in 2005.

Premonition begins with a glimpse of a newspaper article about the same real-life psychic who inspired Ring, and was referred to in the book and the movie.

The strong premise is that a newspaper is delivered with headlines describing deaths that haven’t happened yet, and what happens when the reader tries to avert these fatalities. I can't describe much of the plot without spoiling it from the start. I can just say that the opening scene is incredibly tragic and that the eerie mood doesn't take long to get established.

Based on a thirty year old manga story called Kyofu Shinbun (literally 'Newspaper of Terror'), the script expands and incorporates the original tale very cleverly.

I was expecting more from this film, seeing as it was directed by Norio Tsuruta, whose eerie Kakashi (Scarecrows) and Ring 0: Birthday had already impressed me.

In the thorough extras on the DVD is a very honest interview with the director, who admits that his horror films have been more subtle in the past, but now, jealous of the success of Takashi Shimizu, he’s been tempted to ‘show more’ horror. Looks like he studied Ju-on: The Grudge 2 very closely, because there’s a similarly tour-de-force sequence of alternate realities towards the climax, where the viewer is disorientated by constantly changing timelines. He even cast the star of Ju-on: The Grudge 2, 'horror queen' Noriko Sakai, as the leading lady.