More Than a Grudge and a Ring: Why Asian Horror Films Rock
Published September 22, 2005
I've been a fan of Asian cinema in general, and horror in particular, for a long time. Long before the recent Ring craze.
Over the last decade or so, Asian cinema has taken over the horror filmm genre, and effectively left its own indelible stamp upon it. While western film makers continue to recycle the tame tired plots and ideas, Asian movie makers have gone into their cultural well to dig out new tropes and concepts - or, at least, new variations on very old cultural tropes.
Probably the surest indicator of how successful Asian horror cinema is the speed with which Hollywood is churning out remakes of Japanese and other Asian horror films--and the sizable earnings these films are raking in at the US box office, at a time when even the biggest summer blockbusters are going a-beggin'.
To be fair, these remakes are pretty good too. The Ring, Ring 2, and The Grudge, are all decent rehashes, partly because Hollywood was smart enough to involve the original Japanese creators in the remakes (in the case of The Grudge, the same writer-director helmed the American version as well, bringing interesting changes to his own story).
And, after all, film being what it is, even the Japanese 'originals' (if there is such a thing) deviated quite sharply from their own sources, namely the novels on which they based the film versions. So, for instance, you can read the true original Ring stories in the novels by Koji Suzuki.
The novels are much richer and very different from the film adaptations. Definitely better, in my opinion. Suzuki's novel Spiral, not yet adapted into film, is also a brilliant spine-tingler, a must-read for fans of horror fiction looking for something different but good.
Some of the best Asian horror films are movies you haven't heard hyped to the skies. Let me pick just two recent examples, out now on DVD, that will give you some notion of what I'm talking about. One is a Korean flick titled Tell Me Something.
It's a serial killer/cop murder mystery that's probably the best of its genre I've seen in a long while. And when I saw 'genre', I don't just mean Korean cinema, although that's doing great things right now too, I mean the thriller film genre in general, be it American, British or any other nationality.
Tell Me Something is genuinely hair-raising. The film is about a string of gruesome murders around Seoul. The murders, which are shown in all their gruesome gory detail, involve cutting off the limbs of victims and mismatching limbs with torsos. The killer then dumps each mismatched set of body parts in black garbage bags (double strength double-large, I presume!) and delivers them to a place where they're likely to be found by...the next victim.
The cop assigned to investigate the killings finds a common link: a woman who was involved with each of the dead men (yes, the victims are all male, for a change) at some point. The woman in question is exceptionally beautiful and very enigmatic. What follows is a fairly typical cop noir tale, beautifully shot scenarios, much brooding, angst, on the part of the cop, much introverted silence on the part of the woman.
- More Than a Grudge and a Ring: Why Asian Horror Films Rock
- Published: September 22, 2005
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Video
- Writer: Ashok K. Banker
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Hey Jeliel, horror, like any other 'genre' largely depends on a certain 'formula', for want of a better word. To me what makes Asian horror so engrossing is the sheer overwhelming power of the evil depicted--and the fact that the evil is always man-made, not something spawned by forces from beyond trying to take over the world. But check out Tell Me Something and I guarantee you it offers a new take from the drippy hair schoolgirl trying to cross over to the other side school of Ring-horror. And like you said, I'm sure you'll keep renting those vids despite your reservations!
I'll rent it if my store has it. And I keep renting, like I kept watching enterprise even though it sucked. I keep hoping for the best.
I enjoyed Tell Me Something rather a lot, but I think the most interesting Asian horror (sort of horror, at least...) flick that I've seen in recent memory was Audition. That is an incredibly disturbing film.
I think a lot of what we here in the West see as being formulaic or juvenile gets down to cultural differences in the end... what horrifies Americans is not what horrifies the Japanese, for example. If you watch the American Ring and Ringu within a few days of one another, it's interesting to see where the focus shifts and changes from one version to the other. Personally, in that example, I prefer the American version, because I found the heroine in the original to be a little weak and I need a stronger woman with which to identify.
How can you neglect the terribly bad and camp films from India like Purani Haveli, etc.:) I collected most of these films once, they were a different genre altogether
Aaman, I was trying to focus on new Asian horror films. Hindi horror has been 'sleeping' (snoring actually) for a while now...but did you read the spoof I posted to my blog last month? You just read it, bro! You'll enjoy all the in-jokes.
Audition was truly disturbing. I didn't mention it here because I was trying to provide a more pan-Asian overview. Japanese horror dominates, understandably, but there's a lot of great Korean, Thai, Taiwanese, and so many other good horror films being made out there (and other good films, period) that I wanted to talk about. Audition 2 is supposed to be equally disturbing, but I haven't seen it yet--have you?
I didn't even know it existed!! Now I have to track it down.
Amaerican Horror sucks right now! Japanese Horror and Korean Horror rocks! Have any of you seen One Missed Call, WitchBoard,Nightmare,or Reincarnation? They are really good!
I watched an Asian horror flick a while back, but I have no idea what it was called, nor how long ago it was made. Hoping you can help, as you love Asian horror. It started off a guy I think on his way to meet his wife-to-be, and she gets killed in an auto accident. Many years later, he is remarried, but keeps a locked room where he keeps her spirit/ghost/or body, and some type of music player that would play music. Help?
Above comment was in regards to a movie called "The Matrimony." It came to mind because of an English movie called My Wife and My Dead Wife. Sounded a lot alike to me.
Not just Japanese and Korean movie rawks, but Thai horror as well. My all-time favourites are Shutter (Thai), Wishing stairs (Korean), Ju-On (Japanese).
Whispering Corridors: Memento Mori was, most of the time, annoying. imagine the ghost looking down on you with big eyes straight from the ceiling... amazes me with its lameness... tsk-tsk.
A Tale of Two Sisters will be my ultimate favorite Korean suspense movie for five more years.
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With the exception of TWO SISTERS, which was chilling, most of these movies are so formulaic that it makes teen movies look like art. Water, black hair in water, ghostly child, weird living quarters. Ghost just wants peace, go to the damn light already and leave life to the living.
Phone took annoyance to a new level. The amount of times that damn phone rang in the movie was enough to make me want to commit celluricide.
And then they start making cheaper and cheaper sequels. For example, The Eye, the sequels were college student level movie making. The Eye Infinity was really a teen-horror movie.
ICHI1, prequel to ICHI THE KILLER, was so low-budget, storyless and goreless. ICHI THE KILLER was stupid but the utlra-violence was entertaining. While the prequel was poor in ALL ASPECTS. Even the fighting was weak.
I could name so much more. And yet I'm still tempted to rent them at my store, hoping maybe this one will be original.
South Korea is kicking out some good movies, not mainly horror, but some good titles.
What these guys should do is meet with the psychos that made video games like Silent Hill and run with those concepts. Because the whostly girl with long black hair has run out of steam in my humble opinion.