Ekusute (2007)

Director:

Shion Sono

Writers:

Shion Sono (screenplay) &
Masaki Adachi (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

17 February 2007 (Japan)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

What lovely hair you have...

Plot:

About hair extensions that attack the women that wear them.

Plot Keywords:

Hair | Hair Extension | Hair Salon | Hair Stylist | Japanese Horror Film

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Chiaki Kuriyama	...	Yûko Mizushima
Megumi Satô	...	Yuki Morita
Tsugumi	...	Kiyomi Mizushima
Eri Machimoto	...	Sachi Kôda
Miku Satô	...	Mami
Yûna Natsuo	...	Kondô
Ken Mitsuishi	...	Tatsuo Sugawara
Hiroshi Yamamoto	...	Jirô Tamura
Tetsushi Tanaka	...	Yaguchi
Hikari Mitsushima	...	Yuriko Shiina
Ayaka Onoue	...	Nana Katô (as Aya Onoue)
Ryôsuke Nagata	...	Yûta Sakurai
Erika Mine	...	Sarina Tanaka
Mari Hayashida	...	Yukari Suzuki
Yôji Tanaka	...	Takashima

Also Known As:

Exte: Hair Extensions (Japan: English title)

MPAA:

Rated R for violent and disturbing content, some terror and language.

Runtime:

108 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:R | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Japan

Company:

Central Arts

Soundtrack:

Haruka

Takashi Miike with a killer wig on

I was expecting everything but what I got from this strange little movie. Its far from your typical Japanese "scary girl with long black hair moves in creepy way" movies. After the credits rolled I was more reminded of crazy stuff like "Organ" or some of the Miike movies. "Exte" already starts of like a romantic movie with an overly happy girl riding bike, talking about her life from off screen while some nice pictures float by. Then the movie is full with some rather crazy characters... her sister is a kind of gangster whore who beats her little daughter and steals the main characters stuff, there is a guy obsessed with hair who steals it from dead bodies in the morgue and then there is a girl who was harvested for organs and who can't rest because "her hair is raging". Obviously these are soon connected when crazy hair guy steals raging hair girls body and starts selling her hair to happy hair girl who works as a hairdresser. By then she took her sisters daughter from her rather demented mother to take care of her and things get weird.... guess what, with a lot of hair!!!

The horror element is inserted with people who get infected by the angry girls hair and start growing hair from their eyes, wounds and about everywhere. While at first this works pretty well the effect is so blatantly overused that by the point it gets really annoying you suddenly realize that this movie is not to be taken serious by an inch. Especially in the end there are some unbelievably ridiculous scenes that really made me laugh and with some of the scary and creepy stuff (like the organ harvesting) the whole movie is pretty schizophrenic and weird, especially because the touching life story of a hairdresser is presented around the main character regularly in a TV soap opera fashion.

Believe me, this movie is STRANGE!!! The mix of horror and gore (while here barely any blood is used but rather replaced with hair) and totally ridiculous slapstick elements reminds a lot of "Organ". So if you like this kind of movie and love Takashi Miikes way of mixing all kinds of genres into one strange movie you will surely like "Exte" too. To me its not much about average because none of the elements work for themselves and the whole thing seems a little disjointed. Anyway I had a laugh and some scenes and effects are really new to me. Be sure to watch the evil hair troll at the end in continuous repeat to wet your pants.