In Norio Tsuruta's Premonition, a malevolent supernatural newspaper selects victims at random and reveals to them disastrous headlines from the near-future. When family man Hideki Satomi finds himself haunted by the evil rag, he enters a nightmare world from which the only escape appears to be death.
Like Final Destination, the US horror hit that also dealt with foresight and cheating fate, Premonition is a supernatural chiller that opens with a bang: protagonist Hideki witnesses the death of his young daughter in an auto accident immediately after learning of her impending fate via a mysterious paper. It's an excellent beginning to the film: suspenseful, exciting and very harrowing.
Unfortunately, after this promising start, the plot slowly begins to lose momentum and despite great performances from its cast and one or two outstanding scares, the whole film looks set to be a huge disappointment. To his credit though, director Tsuruta picks up the pace again in the film's dying moments for a crazy finalé which sees Hideki leaping through time and space in a desperate bid to change history.
All in all, I found this inventive slice of J-Horror to be a reasonably fun ride, despite leaving me with a ton of unanswered questions (Why does the paper like to torment people? Why does it choose Hideki? Who prints the bloody thing? If it turns up on a Sunday, do you get supplements?) and fans of the Asian horror scene should still give it a go if they get the chance.
6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.
