Siren

Forbidden Siren is based upon the Siren 2 Playstation 2 (so many 2s) game. Like most video game turned movies, I would say the majority don't translate into a different medium really well. And that goes for this one too, painfully.

There's a pretty long prologue which explains and sets the premise for the story, and the mysterious island on which a writer (Leo Morimoto) and his children, daughter Yuki (Yui Ichikawa) and son Hideo (Jun Nishiyama) come to move into. The villagers don't look all too friendly, and soon enough, sound advice is given about the siren on the island, to stay indoors once the siren starts wailing.

Naturally and slowly, things start to go bump, and our siblings go on a mission beating around the bush to discover exactly what is happening on this unfriendly island with its strange inhabitants. But in truth, you will not bother with what's going on, as folklore and fairy tales get thrown in to convolute the plot even more. What was really pushing it into the realm of bad comedy are its unwittingly ill-placed-out-of-the-norm moments which just drew pitiful giggles at its sheer stupidity, until it's explained much later. It's one thing trying to come up and present something smart, but another thing doing it convincingly and with loopholes covered.

Despite it clocking in under 90 minutes - I think it's a horror movie phenomenon to have that as a runtime benchmark - it gives that almost two hour feel with its slow buildup to tell what it wants to. Things begin to pick up toward the last 20 minutes, but it's a classic case of too little too late.

What saves the movie is how it changes tack and its revelation at the end. Again this is a common device used to try and elevate a seemingly simple horror movie into something a little bit extra in the hope of wowing an audience. It turned out rather satisfactorily, but leaves a bad aftertaste as you'll feel cheated somewhat. There are two ways a twist will make you feel - it either elevates the movie to a memorable level, or provides you with that hokey feeling. Unfortunately Forbidden Siren belonged more to the latter.

The saving grace will be its cinematography with its use of light, shadows and mirrors, but I will be that explicit - it's still not worth the time, so better to avoid this.

In 1976 the inhabitants of an isolated island of Yamajima were massacred.Thirty years later,Yuki Amamoto goes to the island with her father and her little brother who suffers from neurological disorders.The islanders are not very friendly towards them.When the siren begins to roar,the severed bits of mystery begin to assemble together to reveal the truth of the 1976 massacre and finally unravel the creepy secret of the siren...This adaptation of popular PS2 game is pretty decent.The pace is slow and there are several quietly menacing moments.The film lacks gore and draws certain parallels with "Silent Hill" film adaptation.The mystery aspect works quite well and the acting is fine.Give this one a look.7 out of 10.

I don't know anything about the original videogame, so I don't know if this movie lives up to it or not. The atmosphere and premises are good, and they set the right tone for a well-balanced tension buildup. The main flaw of the movie is that it doesn't explain much of what's going on, and some bits seem very rushed and pointless. And the lead actress spends the whole time screaming or waiting for bad things to happen, through very loud orchestral music and shaky camera movements. The ending kind of makes up for the mess before.

This is an entertaining movie which achieves its objectives within its genre. Without offering an amateur critique and regardless of its basis on a video game, it is well enough scripted, acted & filmed to provide 90mins of distraction.

Whilst not offering the seasoned viewer of Japanese horror/thrillers a great deal to enthuse about, this movie is clearly effective in bringing the genre to a wider audience, without a reliance on the inane Hollywood style special effects we have come to expect.

Simple and pleasing, the story is developed, extended, twisted and concluded with reasonable suspense and intrigue. Visually and audibly intense at all the appropriate moments - whats not to like. If you are viewing with AC3 or DTS sound - crank it up good and loud.

I never heard about the 2006 Japanese horror movie "Sairen" (aka "Forbidden Siren") before now in 2023, as I had the opportunity to sit down and watch it. I happened to come across the movie by random chance, and with it being an Asian movie that I never have seen, of course I opted to give it a chance.

Writer Naoya Takayama put together an okay enough script here for the movie. I mean, it wasn't exactly rocket science, nor did Naoya Takayama revolutionize the horror genre in any way with the storyline here. But I will say that the movie made for an adequate enough viewing experience, though a bit on the mundane side, if I have to be fully honest.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but the actors and actresses put on fair enough performances in bringing the characters to life on the screen and telling the story.

For a horror movie, however, then director Yukihiko Tsutsumi's 2006 movie "Sairen" was a bit bland. It was a movie that left no particular impression on me. And I guess that by next week I will have forgotten about the movie. So it wasn't a grand horror gem that I had been missing out on for the past 17 years.

Watchable for what it was, "Sairen" is a somewhat bland foray into the horror genre. While I managed to sit through all 87 minutes, this is hardly a movie that warrants a second viewing at any time down the road.

My rating of "Sairen" lands on a five out of ten stars.