Purei

Purei (2005)

** (out of 4)

Japanese horror film has an interesting set up but half way through the film hits a wall and never recovers. Two drug dealers in desperate need of cash decide to kidnap a young girl and ask for a ransom. When the dealers call the girls parents they learn that the girl died a year earlier. I had really high hopes for this ghost film and things started off well but went straight downhill pretty quickly. The storyline is very interesting and should have made for a creepy film but the director never really builds any atmosphere and the screenplay is full of annoying characters that it becomes hard to really care what happens. The first twenty-minutes contain a few creepy scenes but after this the film relies on flashbacks and a side story with the girls parents, which move at a snails pace.

PRAY is another ghost story from Japan, and is therefor compared to its predecessors (i.e.: RINGU, JU-ON, PULSE, etc.). However, it deserves to be judged on its own merit.

As a supernatural tale, it has many chilling scenes and plot twists that help to move it along. The abandoned elementary school setting is perfectly barren. The main characters are solid, though, as expected, the side characters are basic ghost fodder.

The idea of kidnappers grabbing a child, thinking they're in control, only to discover that they're in danger themselves, is effective. Said "child" is pretty creepy.

Enjoyable, and worth watching...

Japanese ghost story movies tend to be long on atmosphere, chills and short,sharp shocks, and short on coherent plot development and characterization. Pray is no exception. Actually, when you think about it, those are really the defining qualities of ghost stories everywhere. The point of the ghost story is to scare, not involve you in an uplifting literary experience. Pray does its job well, just don't expect it to be more than it needs to be. A group of young hoodlums does a kidnapping caper but things begin to fall apart when the victim turns out to be something spooky. The film keeps several plot developments hanging around unexplained until the end, and this helps keeps the suspense level up. There is a lot of running around in dark hallways and in and out of empty rooms with the wind whistling eerily in the background. There is not much gore unless the sight of a severed hand is particularly disturbing for you. The denouement is a little flat when the nature of the creepy little girl is explained but it's very Japanese.

a really interesting movie but i didn't quite get the end.. let's see who can understand the ending :P I mean, the story line is interesting even if at the beginning nothing really happens... or at least that's what it seems there will also be a scary moment but I won't say where at the beginning you believe there is just one ghost but the event will take a sudden turn and the one that is very intriguing is the ending pay attention at what the small girl says at the end and what happens to the other girl? I guess you have to see the movie and maybe then you will tell me what's the whole point with the ending... you should watch it... anyway about the title "pray" i guess the real pray must be the friends of the main character; the main character seems bad but in the end you will understand why he behaves like he does.. I also found this comment about the movie: This is better than a lot of the very recent straight-to-video horror I've recently reviewed. It is easily superior to Ghost System in both plausibility and impact, and comes across as far more mature and developed than even the best of the Kadokawa Horror series (in which Mizukawa Asami likewise appears) or any similar collection.

But this remains squarely in the B-Grade tier, leaving a bit to be desired in terms of narrative creativity, overall dramatic acting, and cinematic style. Regarding style, this film seems quite dark (literally) throughout. The stylistic reason for this, of course, is to juxtapose the brilliantly lit flashback/supernatural scenes so as to create greater visual/emotional impact. But that said, you will undoubtedly wonder why the vast majority of this storyline takes place in incredibly under-lit settings. In terms of acting, I felt Tamayama Tetsuji did a fine job. This was the first time I've seen his work and won't be surprised if he reappears in future films reviewed here within the hallowed halls of SaruDama. The other cast, by and large, come across as mediocre at best and I myself was about to start haunting Mizukawa Asami due to her over the top hysterics and constant scream-whining. And finally, as regards narrative creatively, I won't go into detail any further than I already have when I noted that the creativity here involves solely the (perhaps unique) interweaving of otherwise established themes into an interesting whole.

This movie is really creepy and gory! It's kind of stereotypical on a lot of levels, which I will explain below, but still seriously freaky! Basically, it's about these two people who want money for drugs, so they decide to kidnap this girl and ransom her back to her parents to earn money. The only problem is - the girl is dead. She died a year ago!! In my opinion it's a really cool premise. Now, here's where the stereotypes come in. The little girl has long stringy black hair, there's obviously a supernatural element to her, she seems invincible, the sight of her means potential death, etc., etc. We have all seen this type of stuff before. Remember the Ring? But, it really does never cease to freak me out, or a lot of other people, which is why I guess it has become such a successful and consequently stereotypical villain –particularly in Asian horror. But anyway, in my opinion it works well as a good horror film, not so much as an original piece of work, despite the intriguing premise.