Don't Look Up

Lots of effective, creepy moments building up in the first 2/3 of the film, but seems to putter out after that. Solid performances and great handling of the "movie within a movie (within another movie?)". Still, a good first effort from director Hideo Nakata ("Ring").

A worth-while watch for an introduction to the origins of modern J-Horror. As a Freshman directorial effort some aspects show through as "need improvement,"; continuity of story, backstory development, score, lighting - however, the concept of this film became the backbone of J-Horror and the foreshadowing of many of what we now call cliches in Asian Horror. That being said, by today's standards not a "scary" film nor one that will be memorable for younger audiences.

First a bit about the story. A young director working in the japanese studio system is making a WWII period film requiring strong emotional scenes from two young actresses. There is quite a bit of plot revolving around the casting of the actresses, as well as illumination of their very different personalities and maturation. The director has to fight against agents and studio brass to cast the actors he wants to cast, and this preoccupies much of the early portion of the film.

While screening dailies, the production crew stumbles upon a strange accident. Some of the negative they were using appears to have been previously exposed, and has portions of a much older Japanese film featuring a rather transfixing actress from the past. The young Director is particularly intrigued, as the film seems to trigger a childhood recollection of watching the film years earlier on TV. He assigns the Studio editor to dig up information on this film, to put his mind at ease, and the film production proceeds from there, although clearly now haunted by questions about this other film, and its mysterious star.

If you are a fan of Ringu, now remade in the US as The Ring, you will no doubt find it interesting how many of the same ideas and motifs are present in Ghost Actress. In many ways, in retrospect, Ghost Actress appears to be a working out of stylistic and narrative techniques which made Ringu such a huge success.

The problems with Ghost Actress can primarily be traced back to the muddy script, which poses many questions without answering any. As I mentioned, much of the early film proves in the end to be entirely irrelevant to the central plot, and there isn't a strong linear thread driving the protagonist of the film, namely the young Director. He simply seems to be reacting to the situational dilemmas confronting him, and despite the nerdy likableness of Actor Yuurei Yanagi, doesn't illicit a lot of concern for his predicament or obsessions.

The conclusion of the film however, is undeniably powerful, and hints at Director Hideo Nakata's talent for combining supernatural themes with striking visual and sound design to great unnerving effect.

'Don't Look Up' also known as 'Ghost Actress' is a well-made, atmospheric and occasionally creepy Japanese horror film that laid the groundwork for 'Ringu' and other genre defining J-Horror films that would dominate the sub-genre in the late 90's and early 00's. Directed by Hideo Nakata, the movie is solid and features an interesting story and a competent cast but lacks the scares, tension or the polish that would set it apart from other ghost stories and instead acts as more of a fascinating prototype than a well-defined horror movie.

The Plot = First time director Toshio Murai (Yurei Yanagi) discovers a sinister secret after strange and supernatural events occur in a movie studio.

The movie focuses more on atmosphere, creeping dread and subtle supernatural touches over on-screen violence and while I did enjoy these elements, the reveal and end climax left me wanting more story and felt way too brief and underdeveloped. Despite the short running time, the pacing still felt slow and dragged way too often, lacking hardly any tension or momentum to keep you invested. The use of the movie within a movie motif works well and felt quite innovative for its time and the mystery element was quite intriguing and reinforces the narrative's unsettling atmosphere, but other than that there's not much here to recommend for fans outside of J-Horror.

The direction by Hideo Nakata is decent and shows many of his trademark techniques that would show up in his later films and sets a strong visual tone for the movie which gives it a cool enigmatic quality.

Overall 'Don't Look Up' is a decent J-Horror entry that set the foundations for bigger and better movies to follow, but for viewers looking to seek these movies out then you'll be better off starting with the big titles first such as 'Ringu' and 'The Grudge' before viewing this.

Second feature film from the man who would go on to make The Ring and Dark Water, indeed his very first film if you exclude, as I see IMDb do, a 'pink'. but first or second it is a great effort and if it doesn't totally succeed it certainly has some very creepy moments and is breaking new ground for a ghost film. He is already using the media, ghostly images appear superimposed upon the film he is using to shoot a melodrama, and utilising the long haired maniacal girl/ghost image. Modest running time exactly in accordance with the requirements of the story; if only all directors would go short if the story did not warrant more. A little confusing now and again because Mr Nakata does not lay everything out that obviously but well worth catching.