Joyû-rei (1996)

Director:

Hideo Nakata

Writers:

Hideo Nakata (story)
Hiroshi Takahashi (screenplay)

Release Date:

2 March 1996 (Japan)

Genre:

Fantasy | Horror

Plot Keywords:

Film In Film | Director | Fall From Height | Ghost | Actress

Cast

Yûrei Yanagi	...	Toshio Murai / the director
Yasuyo Shirashima	...	Hitomi Kurokawa / the seasoned actress
Kei Ishibashi	...	Saori Murakami / the debuting actress
Ren Ôsugi	...	Ootani / the cinematographer (as Ren Oosugi)
Takanori Kikuchi	...	Masaru Hayama
Hiroyuki Tanaka	...	Sekikawa (as Sabu)
Reita Serizawa	...	Sadaoka
Akira Hibino	...	Actor in the 1971 TV film footage
Hirofumi Kobayashi	...	Shigeru Mochizuki / the lead actor
Dan Li	...	Ghost actress
Daisuke Iijima	...	Police detective
Naomi Kojima	...	Actress in the 1971 TV film footage
Katsunori Someya	...	Tomoyasu
Yuuken Yoshida	...	Kasuya
Toshie Negishi	...	Tokiko Tsutsumi / Hitomi's agent

Also Known As:

Don't Look Up (International: English title) (USA)
Ghost Actress (USA)

Runtime:

75 min | USA:74 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Certification:

South Korea:15 | USA:Unrated

Company:

Bandai Visual Company

Movie Connections:

Remade as Don't Look Up (2009)

ghost existentialism

This film is great at putting ideas into the viewer's subconscious. The whole simple idea of the story is great, by having the characters shoot a film such that the viewer almost feels like they are separated from the characters and in tune with the supernatural. Since you are watching people making a movie investigating another movie, it brings you into the action, as if the same things could happen to you. The blandness of some scenes on the surface is really fun when contrasted against the supernatural events that happen later. An example is a line where the director tells the actress not to "look down" when saying her lines, when she really shouldn't be "looking up" later when she encounters the ghost. One of the most interesting things about this movie is that you wouldn't even think this was a ghost story in some scenes until you realize the context it is in. Definitely this is one of the best ghost detective stories, it has an almost meditative nature and makes the movie more scary. The over the shoulder scenes of the ghost are very scary, partly because the movie often shows people filming from the opposite angle, so you are actually watching them film, scenes in which you could become the ghost. By concentrating on the existence of the ghost, the whole movie becomes more scary.