Apartment 1303 (2007)

A modern ghost story which turns a love hate relationship between mother and daughter into a tale of horror.

Director:

Ataru Oikawa

Writers:

Ataru Oikawa, Takamasa Sato

Stars:

Noriko Nakagoshi, Arata Furuta, Eriko Hatsune

Cast

Credited cast:
Noriko Nakagoshi	...	Mariko Midorikawa
Arata Furuta	...	Detective Sakurai
Eriko Hatsune	...	Yukiyo Sugiuchi
Yuka Itaya	...	Woman next door
Naoko Ôtani	...	Midorikawa San
Aki Fukada	...	Midorikawa Sayaki
Toshinobu Matsuo	...	Iwata Kenichiro
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Shion Machida	...	Yukiyo's mother

Storyline

While celebrating with her friends in her new cheaply rented apartment (with balcony and view of the sea) on the thirteenth floor of a building, the young Sayaka unexpectedly jumps off the balcony committing suicide. Her mother goes insane and her older sister, Mariko, decides to investigate the mysterious death of her sister. She finds that there have been many suicides of young women living in apartment 1303. She finds a book telling the tragic story of the Yukiyo and her mother, the first tenants of the apartment and uncovers the truth behind the suicides.

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Plot Keywords:

darkness | suicide | ghost | horror movie remade | remade | 

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Taglines:

Some rentals are too good to be true

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Genres:

Horror

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Connections

Remade as Apartment 1303 3D (2012)

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Soundtracks

Clover
Performed by Bahashishi

User Reviews

Obvious western influences bring this movie down, thanks to the western producers

What a shame, this could have been a very solid entry in the horror genre.

The story revolves around a woman whose younger sister commits suicide after having left her maternal household to live on her own with her boyfriend and their friends in her newly acquired high rise apartment.

Seemingly unaffected by the whole ordeal and coming across as cold, she decides to delve deeper into this mystery, after having spent the night at her deceased sister's former apartment to clear out her stuff, and supernatural things started happening, such as seeing her dead sister behind the cheap nylon curtains of the now-vacant apartment.

Now, the story in itself is not bad at all. It's actually a quite solid ghost story, but unfortunately this movie had to suffer the consequences of being influenced by western minds, as 4 out of 5 producers happen to be westerners.

You can clearly tell how this movie is influenced by them, as all producers push their will onto the director: the opening credits and end credits reminded me of a typical Goosebumps episode; the type of music used during the scarier scenes being the same music used in western horror movies, and jump scares to name a few of these western influences.

If the Japanese director was left his own devices, making his own personal choices, this movie would have improved greatly. Alas, westerners, learn a lesson from this: do not meddle with Asian horror stories, and let the native people to do the telling.

A little sidenote, there was a ghost during early on in the movie that they unfortunately didn't use as the movie's main antagonist, and served only as the backbone of a made up urban legend regarding the apartment building. The reason why that is unfortunate is because the ghost was actually original and pretty freaky. Final rating: 6.5/10 - rounded up to a 7. Had the potential to be an 8/10.

Details

Official Sites:

Official site Official site [Japan]

Country:

Japan USA

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

27 October 2007 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Apartamento 1303

Filming Locations:

Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka, Japan

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$726,960

Company Credits

Production Co:

Amuse, Career & Bridge, T.O. Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min (European Film Market)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1