Midweek Movie Madness: Korei Reviewed!
Okay, I know I promised the review earlier (like last week) but apparently life had other plans. After being intrigued by his Cure, I was delighted to find a copy of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Korei circulating around and quickly gave it a looksee one evening with my sister. In case anyone out there is seriously contemplating watching the putrid trash that is The Sisters, try looking for this one or at least re-watch the Sixth Sense. Sisters is that bad.
One cannot help but compare this made for TV effort with Night Shyamalan's powerful entry, although to Kurosawa's credit he doesn't fall for the twist-at-the-end trap our Night is so fond of. The twists come early on in this flick, and to good effect.
Literally meaning "seance", Korei tells the story of an underappreciated psychic housewife Junko (Jun Fubuki) who, while alternating between contacting departed souls for her clients and being a subject of study by PhD candidate Hayasaka (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi) tries to make a comfortable home for herself and her audio tech husband Sato (Koji Yakusho from Cure). When a young girl is abducted from a playground, the police request her help and she reluctantly agrees, until the husband and wife find that somehow the girl has stowed away in one of his equipment cases. Junko hatches a plan to use the girl as a springboard to prove her detractors wrong, but they aren't prepared for what eventually happens..
As my sister put it after the credits rolled, "This isn't really a ghost story, is it?" Korei is at first glance like any other Japanese attempt at hopping on the bandwagon that Ringu and Ju-on started (in fact one particular scene may be intepreted as Kurosawa's little joke at the whole crawling ghost-girl image). However closer inspection reveals that it's more than that. At its heart, Korei is about morality and guilt, and how sometimes we are too preoccupied with our perceived injustices to care about anything else.
Junko is a tortured soul, unable to hold even a simple service job for long, since she always sees the crimes/spirits that follow her patrons. Her psychic abilities are both a gift and a curse, for though she can use them for good, there is nothing much for her to do with it except to contact the odd grandmother or relative. When the girl is kidnapped and the police contact her she is initially doubtful, but springs quickly into action when her senses tell her the girl is here, at her house. It is to actress Fubuki's credit that her portrayal of Junko is realistic and true. As she transforms from object of pity to someone we wish we could grab, shake and yell at, we see her motivations and at some level, we understand too. Koji Yakusho is in his element as Sato, so surprised at his wife's sudden change he becomes literally shaken.
As Junko's plot carries on and approaches its inevitable ending, the viewer cannot help but feel for her, but at the same time we are aware though we are her silent partners in this crime we do not approve. She is the amalgam of every ungratified act, every unnoticed deed that screams for some recognition from someone. Who among us can say we've never felt that at least once?
The effects are sparse (since this was a made-for-TV movie) but they work well in the context of the story. There are no histrionics or overacting and what plot holes there are don't force us to suspend our disbelief too much (we ARE talking about a horror movie) and it all wraps up nicely in the end.
Kiyoshi skilfully manages to evade some of those classic horror cliches and brings about something that not only appeals to the horror fan in us, but also a look into the mind of a normal person who's done something horribly wrong and tries to reconcile that with the course of everyday life. For this alone, Korei is a worthwhile catch. It doesn't add anything particularly new to the genre, but what it does it does well.
And perhaps that is far more important than any self-gratifying cameo *hint-hint*. Yes, Shyamalan, I meant you.
Ash.ox gives Korei a 3.5 out of 5.
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