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Tokyo Psycho (2004)
Dir: Ataru Oikawa
Yumiko Osawa (Sachiko Kokubu) is a pretty young woman who works with her old
School friend Moe Masumoto (Mizuho Nakamura) as a graphic designer.
And while Moe has a new boyfriend, Osamu Komiya , and is happy to show him off
to Yumiko, Yumiko herself seems rather uptight about anything sexual, or in
fact about anything to do with love, and drifts through life with a resigned
loneliness.
Bizarre events seem to haunt Yumiko and they lead up to her receiving a stained,
ripped letter with wire stuck in it. That simply says “You were born
to marry me”.
Scared at what is happening Yumiko tries to forget matters by going to a high
school reunion, but when an old photo is shown to her the fear returns.
In the background of the school photo is the figure of Mikuriya , a lad who
only stayed at her school for one term and ended up in a reform school.
Upon seeing him Yumiko looks upset and nervous and starts to wonder if Mikuriya
and her stalker are one in the same because the mysterious letter was the one
she ripped up years ago at school after Mikuriya gave it to her.
When she then receives a mutilated photo of her face, with twisted wire threaded
through it, Yumiko decides to look up Mikuriya on the internet where she discovers
he was arrested for killing and mutilating his parents but was too mentally
ill to stand trial.
Soon a terrified Yumiko, as more bizarre post arrives for her and as she digs
deeper into Mikuriya‘s life (with the help of her friend Mika who works
in a detective agency, Yuka Hayashi) , finds herself being drawn into a psycho’s
twisted web of obsession….
Director and co-writer Ataru Oikawa (with Noriko Tanimura, from a short story
by Yumeaki Hirayama ) has very loosely taken two real life Japanese serial killer
cases and twisted them, as well as sadly watered them down, into a story of
psychopathic obsession and loneliness that has many of the hallmarks (of the
now prolific in Japan) shot on digital video horror film in general and of his
own “Tomie” movies in particular.
This is not always a good thing though, as video looks like video and the medium
seems to stifle many artistic stylings with clinical coldness.
The movie gets off to a startlingly effective and disconcerting way with Yumiko
being terrified in her flat by what looks like a woman, in a white dress, with
a parasol, wild hair, a surgical eye patch and bright red lipstick smeared over
lips and teeth, who rams their hands through the letterbox and tries to grab
her!
The visual jolts of this sequence, and their excellent musical accompaniment,
would seem to herald a truly balls-out exercise in high tech, warped terror,
but this opening is pretty much the only thing in the film that reaches such
demented heights until well into it’s running time.
The majority of the film is a very slow burning thriller/drama that follows
Yumiko’s stalking, and her investigations into it, in a very normal and
staid fashion.
This is where many people have a problem with the movie because of the false
assumptions built up not only by the opening, but more importantly because of
the movie’s extremely misleading (though admittedly striking) ad campaign.
The image that adorns the posters and DVD covers throughout the world is of
Yumiko’s staring face wrapped in barb wire with a line of it crossing her
mouth. It’s a powerful image and seems to hint at a twisted, extreme psycho
flick full of perversion and violence.
This is simply not the case (the trailer also hints at a very different film
from whet you get) and for about 45 minutes of it’s lean running time there
is no violence, blood or gore.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, but built-up assumptions are hard to shift
and the fact that some fine chances at extremity are missed tends to inject
impatience and disappointment into the audience.
Which is a shame, as the film still manages to hold the attention if you can
push such feelings to the back of your mind. And having lovely Japanese ladies
to look at does no harm either and in fact Sachiko Kokubu (one time AV Idol)
gives a very likeable and dedicated performance as Yumiko.
Also doing a good, if perhaps slightly over the top at times, performance is
Masashi Taniguchi as the obsessive, ruthless psycho of the piece.
All in all, it’s a shame the film does not exploit the horror elements
more during this period, but there is still enough to hold the attention thanks
to the performances and the use of music.
45 minutes in though the film does finally move into the horror/psycho field
and although it’s a long time in coming the first murder is wonderfully
out of the blue and backed with a very effective musical sting.
From then on the film starts to exploit it’s central idea (and real life
influence) a lot more and we are soon ‘treated’ to a mutilated body
placed in a red rose and Christmas light decorated wire cage (with nursery rhyme
chimes playing) that makes for a suitably macabre sight, though the harsh Video
picture means very little visual atmosphere is captured via the clinical cinematography.
Not all things during this period are as well done though. A later surprise
involving a flesh mask is basically ruined due to some truly dire FX and CGI
work that turn what should have been a nasty and twisted revelation, into a
rather embarrassing joke.
And it comes as no surprise (but is still a disappointment) that the audio commentary
is going on about something completely different when this scene happens, because
quite frankly only brutally negative comments would have been honest at this
point!
Thankfully a later sequence involving a victim in a bath tub manages to claw
back some of the shock value this mask idea should have had in the first place,
and it’s even more nasty because by this point we have discovered something
about the victim that truly adds to the cruelty.
Sadism in keeping with the basic idea effectively rears it’s head during the finale with a rather unpleasant use for some very unpleasant looking worms and general psychological and physical abuse being dished out to Yomiko (top marks to Sachiko Kokubu for going through it all in fact!) and there is some genuine tension built up during the final minutes as Yumiko discovers that she must be very careful about what she says to the raging, screaming, maniacal psychopath who now holds her life in his hands.
It all ends to the viewers satisfaction for the most part, but certainly many little questions are left not only unanswered but frankly not even asked. Like the point brought up that Mikuriya may have changed his face (though no one has seen him since he was a child anyway, so who knows) and the sub-plot of a mistreated young girl and her Mother in Yumiko’s apartment building (though this is used at the very end to marginal success) and much of the driving force that has made Mikuriya so amazingly obsessed over Yumiko seems very sketchy. Confusion seems to surround the bizarre woman at the start as well, but I saw 'her' as simply Mikuriya in grotesque drag. Decide for yourself.
Basically then “Tokyo Psycho” (again, perhaps the title was misleading too, being in itself too brutally simplistic) is a solid little psycho thriller with some good performances, attractive actors and some effective visual and aural ideas, but is perhaps too slow burning for it’s own good and is hampered by not only it’s cold and flat digital video origins and some huge FX failings, but also by it’s misleading advertising image.
Yet again ‘Panik House Entertainment’
have delivered wonderful packaging for their film.
In this case it’s a real, 20 piece, jigsaw reproduction of the cover photo
(limited in number and stuck over the normal cover) that looks great and is
wonderfully unusual. A sticker of the cover photo is also included inside the
case!
A nice clean transfer in it’s intended 1:85.1ratio (which, despite what the cover says, is not anamorphic. But this is supposedly a purposeful, artistic decision according to the commentary track) captures plenty of detail and the 5:1 Japanese soundtrack (or 2:0 if you prefer) is crisp and loud and delivers the effective sound FX and music perfectly and the English and Spanish subtitles are excellent.
Extras consist of the usual bios, production/ad stills and trailer, but also two text studies of the real life psycho’s that loosely inspired the film (which are full of the kind of grotesque detail, sensationalism and warped psychosis, especially the first case of a truly sadistic child killer, that the film itself mostly lacks), footage of the premiere which is very short but contains an amusing talk with the makers, a short interview/behind the scenes feature, an English language commentary track (featuring ‘Panik House’ President Matt Kennedy and the Japanese licensor of the movie Ko Mori) which is a bit dry but makes some interesting observations that actually add greatly to the film, and even a Spanish only commentary (sadly with no English subs) from Enrique Calvez of ‘Cine-East.com’.
Also well worth a look, not linked to the main feature, are two wild trailers for “Wild Beast vs. Killer Dwarf” (!!), which looks totally insane to say the least, and the sleazy and weird “Screwed”. And both contain more flesh, blood and perversion in a couple of minutes than “Tokyo Psycho” does throughout it’s entire running time!
Yet again ‘Panik House’ have delivered some great DVD packaging
(get those limited edition jigsaw covers now folks!) and have once more spent
time and money in giving their customers something unique.
And if “Tokyo Psycho” itself is not the film it could have been, it’s
still well worth a look and comes with just enough extras (as well as that weird
and wonderful ‘Panik House’ presentation) to warrant a purchase, as
long as you know it’s probably not the movie you thought it was going to
be.
