JU- ON (THE GRUDGE)
Japan, 2003, 92 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Takashi Shimizu.
In recent years Japan has produced a succession of horror films that have been popular at home and have travelled well. The best known are The Ring films which have also been remade by Hollywood. Others include Chaos, Deep Water and Into the Mirror. Ju- On was originally a commission made for video by student director, Takashi Shimizu. He then made a sequel, then this version for the cinema screen.
Ju- On is big on scares but is not always easy to follow. That does not seem to matter too much for Japanese sensibilities. The plot is presented in jigsaw pieces, making demands on the audience to work out what has happened in a mysterious house, who are the dead, who are the ghosts and why are they acting in this vengeful way. A verbal prologue explains that when someone dies with rage, that anger lives on and is destructive.
The rage lives on in the murderous behaviour of the ghosts, especially a mother and child. It is visualised as a murky black shadow that haunts and terrifies the victims. This means that the film has an eerie atmosphere, some shocks and screams and an immersion (especially for a non-Japanese audience) in a strange world of spirits and curses.
1.The popularity in the 1990s and onwards of Japanese horror films? The genre and conventions? This film using them?
2.The Japanese settings, the town, the apartments, the homes, the social welfare centre? The eerie house, the special effects for creating the atmosphere of the house?
3.The title, the explanation of the grudge, the anger of a dead person, its remaining? The use of shadow and special effects to indicate the present power of the grudge? Its destructive influence?
4.The focus on different characters, the piecemeal screenplay, the jigsaw, the puzzle about the characters, their fates? The police, the explanation of the experiences? The deaths?
5.The focus on Rika, the social welfare centre, her age, experience, volunteer? Her going to the home, the ugly house, squalid? The old woman, her staring? The noises, the boy in the closet, his name, Toshio? The appearance of the black shadow?
6.The transition to Kazumi, the wife of the son of the old woman? Her meeting Toshio? Her husband finding her paralysed, the dark force killing her, possessing him?
7.The two sisters, the visit to the house, the husband and his comments about his wife, her infidelity, the child and it not being his? His sister menaced by the shadows, her escape, her rushing home – and the presence of Toshio in her room, in the bed?
8.The police, the discovery of Rika, the dead old woman, the bodies of the husband and wife in the attic? The information that all the families from that house have died – or disappeared?
9.Rika, her trying to find out who Toshio is, the information that he vanished five years earlier? The police response, the ex-detective, his giving help, the earlier investigation? His breaking into the house, his vision, his daughter? His wanting to burn the house – but the police being terrorised and killed by the shadow?
10.The passing of time, the young girl, the school friends and their deaths, her hiding herself in her room, taping up the windows? Her dreams, her father – and the ghosts pursuing her, catching her?
11.Mariko, her discussions with Rika, the problem student – and the irony that it is Toshio? Rika, her concern, wanting to save her friend – but their being destroyed by the shadow?
12.The use of special effects for scares? Japanese belief in ghosts and spirits? Western response to this kind of spirit and ghost story – just a horror film, belief or disbelief?
