Don't be fooled people. Even though this movie starts off like your basically standard Japanese horror movie featuring ghosts, the movie is actually much more than that. This only starts to become apparent in the movie its second halve and it was quite a big and pleasant surprise really.
It's quite a deep film that features symbolism and metaphors. It's probably a movie that you should definitely watch more than once, to try and catch new things within in the movie and understand some of it better. It's a quite hard and complicated movie to watch, largely due to the movie its second halve but it's an ultimately very rewarding one, even though you won't understand all of it.
Even though it may not be your average mainstream Japanse horror flick, it's still a movie that features this distinctive kind of atmosphere, build-up and tension. It's still a pretty creepy to watch therefore, despite all of its deeper intentions. I would still therefore call this movie an horror, though some people seem kind of reluctant to do so. It still is kind of hard to describe this movie and to put it under one label. The movie mixes different kind of styles with its story and approach and you therefore don't really need to be into Japanese horror to appreciate this Kiyoshi Kurosawa film.
A great pleasant surprise!
8/10
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