Chaos

If you liked "The Lion In Winter," "Blood Simple" and "Memento," I can recommend this one highly. It's an incredibly contorted mystery story full of doubles-crosses and stabbings-in-the-back -- the kind of movie that leaves you so bollixed up that until almost the final frame, you are asking what's happened to whom and why, and if any of it is even real. The kidnapping and killing may or may not have happened, and the reasons gets less and less clear as time goes on. At the very end they pull it all together so you finally get what really happened -- WITHOUT resorting to having a character sit down and explain it to you. It may well be that the viewer understands more of what's going on than any of the characters in the story. My only complaint is that the pace is just a leetle slow for my taste -- it gave me a few hair-tearing moments of "Dear Cod, are they ever going to finally explain what's going on here?" I found it very satisfying, and was not sorry I stayed up late to see the end.

Hideo Nakatas "Kaosu" reminded me of "Memento". I've seen "Memento" way before American audiences saw it and have found zero reviews on the net (which sometimes is the best thing that can happen). I was stunned by "Memento" the second I found out that the whole thing runs backwards. "Kaosu" had a similar moment. After ca. 3 sequences, I realized that this movie is not built chronologically. It's not backwards but its scenes are arranged in a complex way - sort of like "Pulp Fiction" but without any marks that a new chapter/time frame starts or ends.

This construction is sometimes a little bit too confusing and I found myself rewinding the DVD two times to refresh a previous sequence. But after a while, you start figuring out what's going on. Only to find your whole idea thrown over again and again. In the end, it all makes sense. I went back to the first sequence and remembered the problem Komiyama had with his hand. Yes it all makes sense and is a very rewarding challenge of your mind.

However, there's a problem with the ending. Again. Many recent Asian movies had bad endings - I particularly hate the endings of "Tell Me Something" and "Cure" (both movies are fantastic until the terrible ending). Fans of Asian cinema always try to defend these bad endings by saying it's un-Hollywood, it's mind-bending, it's unconventional. Yes, but it also doesn't make zero sense and even though you find yourself reflecting the ending, it finally only leaves you frustrated. It's not that bad with "Kaosu". However, the ending is anticlimactic. It's not that it doesn't make sense like in the movies I've just mentioned, it just isn't satisfactory.

Still, it's a worthy movie experience and I recommend it to fans of thrillers and Asian movies in general. Another success for the director of the brilliant "Ringu".

Rating: 8/10 (being a bit generous)

Hideo Nakata, director of RINGU (1988), followed up his spooky international hit with this complex and compelling thriller in which a beautiful woman hires a handyman to kidnap her, with the hope of winning back her cheating husband's attention. But things soon begin to go awry when the amateur-kidnapper-for-hire returns to his hideout to find the 'captive' woman dead, and then receives a mysterious phone call instructing him to dispose of the body.

As the film gradually unfolds, we learn, via the use of various interesting storytelling techniques, that there is much more to his predicament than at first meets the eye.

With a choppy non-linear narrative that requires full attention from the viewer, Chaos is definitely not an easy film to follow (particular if you choose to watch with subtitles), but those who do make the effort to keep track of events will be rewarded with an effective and inventive slow-burner. With more twists and turns than a python doing the samba, this movie constantly surprises, and only a rather abrupt ending stops the film from being a truly 'great' experience.

If you're a not a fan of Nakata's supernatural work, don't let that put you off from seeing this intriguing movie; a different kettle of fish altogether, Chaos is well worth giving a go.

Japanese horrormeister Hideo Nakata took a break from his genre of choice to make this twisty, occasionally twisted, and highly effective thriller.

"Chaos" starts off seemingly with a nod to "High and Low" (1963) - an industrialist dealing with a kidnapping - but soon you realize this film worries not about complex moral ambiguities. Instead, "Chaos" has more in common with American film noir from the 1940s and '50s than anything by Kurosawa. Director Nakata and writer Hisashi Saito (adapting a novel by Shogo Utano) also adopt a Hitchcockian feel, borrowing rather generously from "Vertigo" (1958).

"Chaos" owes more to film noir in story than in style. We have the hoodwinked sap, manipulative femme fatale and rich husband, who might harbor his own secret. The performances are uniformly good, especially Miki Nakatani as the object of desire who knows exactly how to play the men in her life and does it to perfection.

This is a well-done, deceptive thriller that relies on a tightly wound plot to keep us guessing. What's gratifying is the characters seem to be on the verge of erupting into violence. There's always that sense of dread; we never know when something or someone will turn deadly. The film is smartly plotted, though there's one glaring plot point - involving the husband's sister - that isn't satisfactorily answered. In fact, I'm not quite sure why it was included.

But "Chaos" remains an intriguing film. To deceive us for as long as possible, because nothing is what it seems in this film, Nakata unravels his mystery in nonlinear fashion, never telling us when flashbacks are about to happen. Although this might confuse some viewers (though it shouldn't), the nonlinear structure isn't merely a gimmick. It works perfectly and, frankly, there's no other way this story could have been told as effectively. "Chaos" trusts its audience to keep up with the twists and turns - and there are many - and how refreshing that is.

Of course, because "Chaos" was a successful Japanese film and remaking newer Asian films is the rage in Hollywood, director Jonathan Glazer is remaking "Chaos," in the footsteps of two other remakes of Nakata films - "Ringu" (1998) and "Dark Water" (2002), which will be at your local multiplex early next year starring Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly and John C. Reilly. Although no official announcement has been made, it's perfectly clear Hollywood studios are now utterly devoid of original ideas and stories. Robert De Niro is to star in the "Chaos" remake, and as brilliant an actor as he is (though he has been phoning it in the last few years), I can't see how Glazer could possibly improve on the original.

After the huge success in recent years of the Ring movies and Dark Water, i was looking forward to watch this movie as I've become a big fan of those aforementioned films. Chaos though is not a horror, and is instead a taut thriller surrounding a kidnapping of a women by a young man which is not what it seems (which is what the "Chaos" title is referring to).

As expected from the director, as per his other movies, the direction and camera work is excellent, and the female lead is the main gist of the movie, haunting the viewer and being the centre-point of the action. The female lead is excellent but is well complimented by her male colleagues in the film.

The main drawback is though that the script simply is not as intriguing as the filmmakers believe it is, and to be quite honest, it can be very predictable. Twists and turns keep your attention, and you will enjoy it, but i find the movie was a lost opportunity for something stronger. It is not a disappointment, but the director here has produced something below his high standards.

Overall, a fair thriller which most will enjoy, just don't expect something to keep you thinking and talking for days on end like some of his other films.