J-Horror Ghosts
“Punishment is what you are after, huh?” (Akiko
Yada, “Pyrokinesis”)
The current J-Horror image of the pale-faced
but essentially youthful female ghost with long hair can be traced back
to films such as Michio Yamamoto’s “Yureiyashiki no kyofu: Chi o suu ningyoo”
("Bloodsucking Doll," 1970) in which Yukiko Kobayashi played a vampire
“Yuko Nonomura” whose appearance may have served as a model for “Ringu’s”
“Sadako,” as well as images of vengeful female spirits in traditional stories
such as “Okiku’s Well” as enacted in Kabuki and visualized by 19th Century
ukiyo-e print master Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. Other general cultural
influences may include the masks and formal plot structures of Noh that
also accord special prominence to portrayals of female vengeance for wrongs
suffered at the hands of males, as well as the early 20th Century horror
fiction of Taro Hirai. Writing under the pen name of Edogawa Rampo,
Hirai was influenced by the works of both Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan
Doyle to produce enduringly popular mysteries blending the bizarre with
suspense.
The “Ring” films – as distinct from related television
productions – originated with Hideo Nakata’s highly successful 1998 screen
adaptation of Koji Suzuki’s 1991 novel “Ringu.” Hiroshi Takahashi’s
screenplay departed from the novel in several important ways. By
erasing the literary “Sadako’s” ambiguous gender status, deleting elements
of sexual assault, and feminizing the character of the investigating protagonist,
the feature film script established connections with the female vengeance
spirits of traditional stories as well as cultural shifts in the narrative
representation of female characters.
In “Ringu,” Nanako Matsushima plays the character
of “Reiko Asakawa,” a divorced mother who encounters rumors of a videotape
that kills its viewers exactly one week after watching it unless it is
passed on to another victim. After viewing the tape herself, “Reiko”
teams up with her ex-husband “Ryuji” (Hiroyuki Sanada) to use their skills
as investigative reporters to unearth the mystery and save herself.
They trace the origins of the murky videotaped images to a remote island
community, where a girl “Sadako” (Rie Inou) was thrown into a well by her
father. It is her vengeful spirit that is embodied in the videotape,
and “Reiko’s” discovery of the apparent crime seems to save her but not
her ex-husband. In one of the defining scenes of contemporary J-Horror,
“Ryuji” is confronted by the spirit of “Sadako” who emerges from the well,
crawls across the ground toward the imagined position of the camera, then
through the screen onto his living room floor. As architect of the
prototypical screen attack on the privileged remove of the act of film
watching, Alfred Hitchcock would presumably have approved of this ultimate
assault on the audience. If “Ryuji’s” viewing screen is so unexpectedly
permeable, might the audience’s own be, also?
“Ringu” and successor films such as Takashi Shimizu’s
“Ju-on” (“The Grudge,” 2003) have enjoyed global appeal that may, perhaps,
be attributable to their blending of traditional genre elements such as
imperiled female protagonists, mysterious places and the spiritual legacy
of past crimes with aspects of contemporary everyday life such as watching
videotapes or other daily routines in ordinary homes. The residence
of “Ju-on” is a small, urban dwelling. The horrifying spaces are
small closets, an attic or a plain flight of stairs. These, and the
tiny cheap apartment of Hideo Nakata’s “Honogurai mizu no soko kara” (“Dark
Water,” 2002) are far removed from the traditional decrepit gothic mansion
that establishes the mise-en-scene of Shimoyama Ten’s “Otogiriso” (“St.
John’s Wort,” 2001). The co-mingling of traditional generic themes
with ordinary life may be a hallmark of postmodern cultural expression.
Now, in a universally connected postmodern world, even your cell phone
might, absurdly, kill you as suggested by Takashi Miike’s “Chakushin ari”
(“One Missed Call,” 2003). Higuchinsky’s “Uzumaki” (“Spiral,” 2000)
and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Kairo” (“Pulse,” 2001) have been among the more
critically acclaimed titles inspired by “Ringu” and continue its contagion
theme, while “Ju-on” may have been the most profitable.
Further “Ringu”-inspired works include the three
direct sequels, Toshikazu Nagae’s “Gosuto shisutemu” (“Ghost System,” 2002)
involving a hidden technology that re-animates the spirit of a schoolgirl
murdered by her boyfriend, Toshiyuki Mizutani’s “Isola: Tajuu jinkaku shôjo”
(“Isola: Multiple Personality Girl,” 2000) with its corrupted female
innocent possessing uncanny powers, a sequel to “Ju-on,” Osamu Fukutani’s
“Jisatsu manyuaru” (“The Suicide Manual,” 2003) and its sequel in which
a mysterious DVD instigates suicide, Kei Horie’s “Shibuya kaidan” (“The
Locker,” 2003) and its sequel involving a female spirit in a coin locker,
Kôji Shiraishi’s V-movie “Ju-rei” (2004), and Renpei Tsukamoto’s
“Chakushin ari 2” (“One Missed Call 2,” 2005). These films continue
to draw on various themes of Japanese culture and legends – such as vengeance
and avoidance of contamination – to indirectly examine some of the defining
tensions of everyday life.
