Tomie: Re-birth

Tomie: Re-Birth mainly focuses on the characters affected by Tomie. I enjoyed the changes in characters' nature: particularly for Shunichi and Hitomi. At first, Shunichi (Mazasaya Kikawada) comes off as a confident guy who likes to have a good time with his friends. Gradually, he becomes more unsure, paranoid, and even obsessed in a most manic way. On the flipside, Hitomi (Kumiko Endou) has an innocent, yet subdued nature. Questions and uncertainty beckon Hitomi down a road from which she may regret walking down upon.

Don't get me wrong..Miki Sakai does well as Tomie and is equally adept at producing an ominous stare; one enabling her to peer deep into the depths of inner souls. Although there are CG effects used, I thought the use of close-ups and different angle shots were more effective at establishing a mood of fear. Despite slow pacing and a few sappy (yet amusing) scenes, Tomie: Rebirth is darkly entertaining.

If there's one thing that can and should be said for the popular cult- franchise "Tomie", it's this: despite an extremely shaky and underwhelming start, the series does make a noted improvement each time with its first round of sequels. It's a franchise that can be well-worth investing in as a result, despite also being one that has the most extremes of up's and down's throughout it's numerous entries.

Yes, despite being a massive fan of the horror genre and particularly of Japanese creep-shows, I've never been particularly taken with the original "Tomie" movie. Based on a popular ongoing manga of the same name by author Junji Ito, the first entry in the film franchise was a messy swarm of under-developed ideas, sloppy attempts at atmosphere building, trite and hackneyed writing and direction and poorly established rules. It was a fundamental failure both as an example of horror and as a film in general. Thankfully, it's first sequel in "Tomie: Replay" was a marked improvement in virtually every capacity, with fun direction, decent writing and generally strong performances.

And I do think that this third entry, "Tomie: Re-Birth", is another step in the right direction for the franchise. With a nice, slow sense of pacing and a great sense of direction from famed director Takashi Shimizu, this entry has a lot going for it. It stands as one of the better early entries in the series, and can be a great deal of fun.

A young woman named Tomie is modeling for a painting by an artist named Hideo. After she defaces the painting in a jealous fit, Hideo kills her. But, as any fan of the series will know... Tomie will not die. And thus she returns to torment the artist and his friends, leading to an intense and disturbing story filled with twists, turns and subversion of expectation...

I firmly believe the main strength that sets this entry apart is the wonderful direction of Takashi Shimizu, who is best known for creating the very popular haunted-house series "Ju-On" and for also directing the first two entries in its American remake series "The Grudge." Shimizu is a fine director when it comes to slow-build, atmospheric horror, and he excels here with some great, creepy sequences of bodily terror. It's arguably the most disturbing of the first three films, and Shimizu it helps to give it a grand sense of dread and intrigue. Especially in some of the very trippy-yet-grounded visuals that he relishes in. We also have one of the best Tomie's of the series here thanks to actress Miki Sakai, who excels in the role in a way not many of the other actresses to portray the character have.

The film does have some faults to it, however. Much as many entries in the series do. I found that while it is a good time, it can often move a bit slowly. To the point it can be boring even. Some scenes feel a tad out of place and wonkilly inserted into the narrative. And much like virtually every other film in the series, it wrongfully assumes that the viewer is intimately familiar with the source material, causing some confusion with those who aren't. And it is a serious problem- adaptations should be able to stand on their own without knowledge of what came before. The films should try and explain the rules and goings on more than they have been to this point. It causes an unnecessary level of confusion for the viewer, and not in an intentional way.

That being said, I'd rank this one right about on par with the previous entry- the very enjoyable but mildly flawed "Replay." It's a lot of fun. It's very watchable. It runs laps around the sub-par original. But it still has a few faults holding it just shy of being a "great" movie. As it stands, it's merely decent. Worth watching for fans of horror and Asian cinema... but probably not for general movie-goers.

I give "Tomie: Re-Birth" a slightly above average 6 out of 10. Another step in the right direction for the series. But not enough of an improvement for me to call it a great film.

Tomie: Rebirth is the weakest entry in the horror movie franchise about the evil girl that cannot die. Let's start with the few positive points. The film certainly has an uneasy atmosphere from start to finish. Sakai Miki might be the best actress to portray Tomie yet as she finds the right balance between human emotions and monstrous manipulations. The film shows a Tomie that is more powerful than ever before. She can come back to life through a picture, take possession of other people when they use her lipstick and even kill people with the help of her hair.

Despite a good lead actress, an intriguing atmosphere and a few clever ideas, the movie is boring and hard to sit through. Horror movies should be scary in one way or another but there isn't one single frightening moment in the entire film. The cast claimed that the film had humorous elements and were close to a dark comedy but that most certainly isn't the case as the atmosphere remains gloomy throughout the film and people die under terrible circumstances. Most of the acting performances are terrible since actors and actresses constantly move and speak in slow motion that would even make Inspector Mathias and Detective Chief Inspector Derrick look like dynamic characters. The story is also somewhat confusing as it shifts perspectives all the time and includes unnecessary flashbacks. The pace of the film is dragging and it certainly doesn't help that this is the longest movie in the franchise up to that point.

Tomie: Rebirth is a disappointment because it never lifts up, overstays its welcome and wastes all of its initial potential. Shimizu Takashi directed movies like Ju-On before this film and would later on create the marvelous Marebito but his involvement in this film is underwhelming. Only avid collectors and fans of the franchise can give this film a try. Anyone else should stick to Tomie or Tomie: Replay or just read the manga.

This installment of the "Tomie" series is, well in lack of better words, unnecessary. Why? Well, the story offered nothing new to the series that hadn't already been seen in "Tomie" or "Tomie: Replay". In fact, if you have seen the first "Tomie" movie, you can just as well skip this installment, as it is basically the exact same story, just with different characters and set in a different place.

The "Tomie" series was starting to rise up with "Tomie: Replay", and then this one, "Tomie: Re-Birth", comes along and pushes it right back down the ladder.

There was nothing scary about this movie, just like the previous ones. And the storyline, well basically it is about the undying Tomie girl who comes to torment those who love and kill her. Same old, same old.

The people in the movie did good enough jobs with their given roles, though there was nothing outstanding here.

The only outstanding part of the entire movie, was the crawling head with the weird arm-like appendages. And that was hardly enough to make up for the rest of the movie.

"Tomie: Re-Birth" was plain and rather uneventful at best, and it wasn't really a movie that was necessary in any way to the "Tomie" storyline. After having seen this installment to the series, I am starting to dread how the last ones in the series will turn out to be...

After seeing the first Tomie movie i lost all interest in seeing what the sequels in the serial would bring. For a horror movie, there wasn't a single chill or climax in it, which can only leave a horror fan like me very disappointed. But then i saw that Tomie: Re-birth was directed by no other than Takashi Shimizu (The man behind the four Ju-on movies), and i thought, and (i guess) expected, that he would add a lot of his creepy imagination from his former horror movies (i cant praise them enough) to this sleeping pill of a weird love story. I was, again, VERY disappointed. Though, i have 2 good things to say about this movie. First of all, this one IS better than the first. Second, there actually was one scene in Re-birth that made my hair on the neck to stand up, and that is where a girl is sitting in her bedroom in front of a mirror and suddenly sees a girl, white as snow, peeking out of her closet. Uuhhhhhh Mufasa!! It smelled a little like Ju-on, but then the girl turns away from the mirror and the ghostly lurker is gone. BUUUUUUH!! But besides this minor chill that lasts about 3 seconds, its really hard to see that this is a Shimizu creation. Instead of taking Tomie to a new level and making it to a real creep fest, it seems more like he just goes along with the dull and not THAT fascinating theme from the other Tomie movies. And on top of that, i saw interviews with the cast and the director himself describing this movie as a blend of horror and humor? Now, without sounding like a dumb racist, but do you have to be Japanese to notice the humor? It went over my head thats for sure. But maybe some of the moments that i found laughable and not creepy, like the crawling head, wasn't meant to be scary but fun? I guess i never find out and its not important anyway. I mean, Tomie IS a horror movie right? At least, thats what it says on the movie description. But how on earth is it possible to make a horror movie where the so called "monster" dies all the time, killed by all its "victims", and not the other way around? So far Tomie hasn't convinced me that it can be done...

Please Shimizu, stick to the creepy stuff. Thats what you do best.

I gave it 5 out of 10