MovieChat Forums > Uzumaki (2000) Discussion > Completely Asinine

Completely Asinine

posted 20 years ago by rollinstock18
33 replies | jump to latest

Ok, here's an example that not every form of Japanese entertainment is good. Granted, I loved "Ringu" and " Ju-on" and several other Japanese horror films, but this was just stupid. I imagine that some pretentious self-proclaimed "film experts" will come here and either say I'm just not intelligent enough to have understood the true meaning of the film, yet will not say what it was ( hmm..wonder why), or another possibility is that someone will give an explanation about three pages long that will contain information that can only be obtained through extensive research. Well, if you can't get the message to me IN the film, then you failed to make a good movie.

Uzumaki is creepy, has wonderful effects and a unique style, and that is to it's credit. However, these ideas alone don't justify this film being made. It is never explained WHY this curse is happening.

The entire film goes from ridiculous to creepy. And several characters are just not realistic at all, like the japanese teenage drama queen with the glasses, or Yamagutchi, that annoying prick who keeps jumping out at the main character.

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[–] jdblick1002 19 years ago

I happen to think that this film is all the better for not being fully explained. It leaves more of a lasting memory of the film. We all know that this film comes from manga (written by the guy who appears on the wanted poster at the start of the film, on the outer police shack wall)but that doesn't stop it being one of the most bizarre concepts for a film, even for an asia!

[–] no_math9 19 years ago

I agree with jdblick, its better without the explanation. The movie is supposed to be like a nightmare...nightmares are not explained...there is no real ending to a nightmare, and if u are given explanations in a nightmare you have issues...its a lovingly bizarre and non-sensical movie...luv the gurls hair lol

[–] wais67 19 years ago

I think you are dwelling too much on the plot of this movie. Us North Americans (or westerners, whatever) tend to have a habit of frantically searching for a premise or plot for any flick that we watch. And if we can't find one, we whine and bicker on like 10-year olds and end up labelling the movie as "gutter trash". Who can blame us? Perhaps it can be attributed to the short attention span of the average North American movie enthusiast.

(On a side note, that's a good way to compare the two versions of The Ring. While the Japanese version is slow-paced and yet eerie, the American remake just has a bunch of intermittent, arbitrary horror scenes inserted at timed intervals throughout the movie to prevent the excitement from drowning out for those individuals with Attention Deficit Disorder.)

It never crosses our mind to think that maybe there was no plot to Uzumaki or "Vortex". This movie is reminiscent of the kind film short that's shown at internation film festivals like the TIFF where explanations aren't really required - except running a bit too long. We're too accustomed to "reading the movie between the lines", where that kind of analysis simply makes our heads scratch.

The best way to describe this movie in one adjective is "bizarre". Not really gory, not comedic...just bizarre. (The lighting technique used, especially in the villagers' dark little bungalows was quite spooky and uncanny, I admit). Some scenes were just so downright silly that they effectively eliminated the fright element of the movie. As a matter of fact, I got a few chuckles from the ending scenes. Would I enjoy watching Uzumaki again? No. Would I recommend this to the average North American. Probably not. It's just simply something that we're not accustomed to. If you are going to watch it, watch it like a dream sequence, like the other poster suggested.

Hope that clarified a few things.

Bad Engrish joke.Good Engrish joke:Flied lice. Flied lice?Flied lice! It's Fried rice. You plick!

[–] ManicMuse 19 years ago

I'm with rollinstock18

What's this movie about?
Some spirals drive people in a town crazy.
Why?
I dunno. something about a snake or was it a tsunami...
And then what happens?
uhh... nothing. that's it.
Nothing else happens?
Nope. more people die, more spirals - that's pretty much the jist of it.

so no. i wouldn't call that great story telling
and it has nothing to do with A.D.D. since this film was pretty short

Chewing gum is really gross
Chewing gum i hate the most

[–] dirge93 19 years ago

I'll say it: the movie really isn't all that good. It's stylistically all over the place, it takes creepy source material and doesn't know what to do with it, it tries to offer an explanation for it all (the journalist's investigations into the snake-mirror thing) but fails, and then just ends. I don't mind that it doesn't ever get explained, I like the openness of it, but it's a weak film for the reasons above.

Seriously, read the manga. They're good. Well written, -and- well drawn. They don't explain anything either, but that's part of what makes it so creepy. Vampires, zombies, demons, cultists, Godzilla, alines, etc. can all be fought and killed, but how do you defeat a conceptual changing of reality? How can you understand something -truly- alien?

Just my two cents.

D.J.

[–] dasprofezzional 19 years ago

Just one point of that argument that I'd like to call out, the thing about the journalist's investigation. I think that that in itself was actually a very important part of the movie. We don't get an explanation of whatever the journalist found, because nobody in the movie ever got an explanation. The guy died, and Kirie and Shuichi never had a clue as to what he wanted to say.

Same thing with the final question as to what happened to the town. Nobody outside the town ever knew exactly what happened, and neither did those who died. Watching the movie, we're just outside observers, and if you want to make any sense of this movie, you'll probably have to think about it for a looooong time, and give it your own personal interpretation.

As for me, I just watched it; I'll be thinking for a while.

[–] UberNoodle 19 years ago

"I'm with rollinstock18

What's this movie about?
Some spirals drive people in a town crazy.
Why?
I dunno. something about a snake or was it a tsunami...
And then what happens?
uhh... nothing. that's it.
Nothing else happens?
Nope. more people die, more spirals - that's pretty much the jist of it.

so no. i wouldn't call that great story telling
and it has nothing to do with A.D.D. since this film was pretty short "
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But that is more or the same amount of story as the average film. This film is a snapshot in the life of a town, and as such doesn't need any "1 year later" type devices to enable some huge plot, or unveil some grand scheme to destroy the world as we know it. Imagine how you would feel in that sistuation, be drawn into the msytery of it all, and you may see that PLENTY happens in this film, but it's all in the head ... not in the scenes.

[–] the_faery_fox 19 years ago

it's Japanese Horror

that's all the "why" you should need. take off your western blindfold if you want to enjoy japanese movies.

japanese horror doesn't follow the scooby-doo logic we grew up with...it's not about "solving the curse", finding who killed the ghost so it can finally rest in peace, or killing the monster.

the movie is simply about evil taking form.

"Well, if you can't get the message to me IN the film, then you failed to make a good movie"

perhaps the problem is not that they didn't put the message in the film, perhaps it's not even that you failed to perceive the message(though with your attitude i'm sure it's often the case).

no in this case there simply ISN'T a message...novel concept i know...making art for the sake of art, not to force messages down our throats.

[–] rossatdi 19 years ago

I second the above motion. It's not about the why or the how specifically. Ringu and Ju-on, (and for that matter the Eye, etc) are scary because you don't really know how, even at the end. It simply is. By not laying out an internal logic the audience is left contemplating the unknown, which is fundamentally more scary than a well plotted/explained curse.

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[–] UberNoodle 19 years ago

"Uzumaki is creepy, has wonderful effects and a unique style, and that is to it's credit. However, these ideas alone don't justify this film being made. It is never explained WHY this curse is happening."

That's one reason why I and many other people like it. I think that we are being labotomised by having everything explained to us in mainstream western film. In Uzumaki, it is explained, but only to the level of the character's understanding - some old mirrors found in the lake, tied to the ancient worship of snakes, are causing the the vortex phenomenon in the town, presumably some ancient god is upset for some reason.

BUT the characters only find out a little, and rightly so - they are not occult experts, and there is no convenient "I have dealt with this evil before" old wise man, and there is no "god's eye view" zoom out for us viewers. The film stays consistantly with the characters and keeps us as mystified as they are. MANY asian films are like that, and I for love it.

[–] smashsmack 19 years ago

I personallly thought the movie was great and all the characters were all unique and colorfull.

As for a why?

The dramaqueen said that the first kid that died wanted to be rememberd in a way that nobody would forget and that should would want the same thing. The kid that jumped out everywhere said the same thing right before he died, so for atleast the kids they all wanted to be rememberd because they were afraid of being forgotten after they died.

The guy whith all the spirals got obsessed with them and was possibly looking for a reason to live? The same goes with the girls father and the bowls he made, at the end he's just stuck staring at them in the kiln and the girls boyfriend was obsessed with leaving the town and kept on saying the town was cursed.

So maybe it was all about obsession with their own inner desires and how it all eventually lead to their downfall. Infact the only two people that seemed remotely normal were the girl and her friend at school and they were the only ones who didn't seem to have any kind of desires.

That's atleast my explanation of it, but with these movies no explanation can really be exact and everyone has their own which is why I love these movies.

[–] barkerintokyo 19 years ago

I'm Japanese and I thought this movie was terrible. It was a B-movie and it came out as a C-movie.

Some people have given this argument about how Asian movies don't give explanations and that's why it's scary but that's bull. I'm Japanese and I would like an explanation.

Ring and Juon DID give explanations that maybe westerners or even Asians would not have understood but to Japanese, they did.

Uzumaki is just plain stupid. No explanation, cheezy acting (especially the Shuichi's), corny plotline. I saw this movie for free and I want my money back.

[–] rossatdi 19 years ago

The film isn't great. Its entertaining though. Its actually a discussion about the repression of obsessive behaviour in society. As such a cause for the curse is unnecessary. The strength of the film is its visuals, the pacing is pretty poor though.

I'm not going to say this is the best film ever, it isn't even close, but it is enjoyable if you just accept it as a genre piece.

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