Directed by Fujiro Mitsuishi
Starring Sayaka Yamaguchi, Mai Hosho, and Yosuke Kubozuka
When discussing the true horror franchises that have graced us in the 21st century, it's somewhat of a mystery to me how the Japanese Tomie series never gets brought up. They feature all manner of death, debauchery and deviant behavior, yet it seems that a lot of people don't even consider them horror movies. One would think that movies that feature characters repeatedly killing the bejesus out of an attractive girl would be worthy of the "horror" label, but what do I know? When it comes to stuff that can out-and-out disturb audiences, look no further than some of the better entries in this series.
Yes, folks, we're going to be doing another franchise review. I inducted the original film into the Registry many moons ago, so here's the abridged version of the Tomie story. Based on a manga series by Junji Ito, the formula for the story always stays the same - a pretty girl named Tomie shows up an a new location (a high school in the original manga), which is them summarily followed by all of the surrounding males falling in love with her while all of the females become insanely jealous. Eventually, one of the characters murders Tomie, only for the girl to come back to life and start the chain reaction that invariably leads to a whole lot of murder and chaos that Alfred Hitchcock himself would envy. For what it's worth, the first film in the series was actually a kind of sequel to the main-arc story in the manga. This one, however, is a different interpretation based on a different "side" story within the literature, complete with a new director and a new actress playing the title role. It's the hallmark of the film series, for better or worse - you can always count on new artistic drive and someone either hitting a home run or striking out colosally playing the strangest onryo ghost/demon/siren in the J-horror genre.
That's enough introduction. On with Tomie: Replay, the second film in the series (and no, I don't count the godawful TV movie Another Face, and I'm not going to review it because I'm not that much of a masochist).
PLOT: Advance warning about the Tomie films - watching them requires a viewer's full attention. There's no "I'll watch this one while either half-stoned or eating a meal" potential going on here. This rings true for THIS film more than any other in the series, as it weaves a lot of variable plotlines together. It begins with a six-year-old girl being rushed to an ER with a severely bloated stomach. The directors cut in and pull out a human head - a head belonging, of course, to the freshly rejuvenating Tomie, who soon goes about setting forth with her usual "chain reaction" madness. The male targets this time are a pair of young college students (one of whom being a patient in the very same hospital), while the main heroine is the daughter of the hospital's director, who has disappeared in the days following the operation. The action is a bit slower than it was during the original film, but if you give it your FULL attention, it's pretty engrossing stuff.
PLOT RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS: Sayaka Yamaguchi is your star actor, playing the aforementioned hospital director's daughter. It was a good choice, as she is likable when she has to be and just fierce enough to hold your attention while also not being annoying. Unfortunately, the two dopes playing the mismatched pair of doomed dudes damn near derail this flick every time they're onscreen - with or without Yamaguchi in tow. I get that there is supposed to be a yin-yang comparison between them, with one of them being a ladies' man and the other a shy nice guy, but the actors overplay it to the point of parody. As for Tomie herself, Mai Hosho is a bit disappointing after the angry fire that Miho Kanno displayed in the original film. She does a decent enough job when it comes to the scenes where she's supposed to be sexy, but falls harder than Jennifer Lawrence (yeah, folks, I think she's overrated) during the more heavy dramatic stuff.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: ** out of ****.
COOL FACTOR: The coolness of Tomie films are all in the surprises and the impact of the horror scenes when they do hit, and Tomie: Replay does indeed have a couple of scenes that will have you glued to the television screen. The flashback that reveals the fate of the team of doctors who initially preserved Tomie's excised head and the gut-wrenchingly tense bit with Yamaguchi arriving home to surprisingly find her missing father there are the flick's two money scenes, and they are the two scenes that will stick out in your mind after the credits have run. Folks, that's two more scenes than All About Steve had.
COOL FACTOR: *** 1/2 out of ****.
OVERALL: To anyone out there who saw the original film, you would be well-advised to pick up a copy of Tomie: Replay. It's a quality film, but it's a quality film in a very different kind of way from the first movie, in that it is much less concerned about female backbiting and rivalry and much more about the power that the character of Tomie has over the men that she comes across. I WILL reveal that this movie, for this reporter, was an acquired taste - it took three viewings before I was finally able to honestly say that I "liked" it, but I believe a lot of it had to do with my state of mind. Upon showing patience and watching it in one sitting front-to-back, it's revealed as a pretty damn badass J-horror entry and a worthy successor to the original.
OVERALL RATING: *** out of ****, and more than enough to tide you over until the "epic trilogy" conclusion that came next in the series. Foreshadowing alert...
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