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A burnt-out cop
is investigating the murder of a young
girl who was drowned in a puddle of saltwater and soon
starts to realize that he may be connected to the murder
in some strange way. All the clues lead up to him
being the killer. At the same time, more bodies are
turning up and the victims all seem to have been killed
the same way. Is someone trying to frame him for these
murders or is he the one responsible?
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is famous for making complex and
confusing movies and this time he's really outdone
himself - he's managed to do a movie that is almost
impossible to understand. Just like with his brilliant
movie "Kairo" (aka Pulse), Retribution is a moody
drama with a touch of horror in it, only this time
the horror doesn't come through as much. In fact,
I don't think that this movie was originally intended
to be aimed at the horror crowd and perhaps that's
why it did so poorly at the Japanese box-office.
Either that or the fact that the movie simply isn't
very good. I love Kurosawa's work for most of the
time but I just didn't get this one. A cop is
investigating a string of murders and it seems as if
he's got a serial killer on his hands, the only thing
is, the murders all seem to be connected to him in
some bizarre way. To make matters worse, he's also
having ghostly visions of a woman in a red dress. Who
is this woman, and what does she want? The ghost of
the woman in red is the only horror aspect to be found
in here and while she is creepy in her own way (she
feels more like a ghost than all the recent ghost
girls with heavy white make-up on do), it's not really
enough to keep us on the edge of our seats. If anything,
I was on the verge of falling asleep throughout the
entire movie. It just wasn't for me.
Kurosawa borrows heavily from his previous movies with
creepy mirrors, stained walls and a subtle sense of
terror. But as I said before though, the terror doesn't
break through this time and the movie never becomes
even remotely frightening. So what we've got here is a
drama about a burnt-out cop who's in some desperate
need of therapy that tries to solve a string of murders.
It's almost like watching an odd Japanese version of
CSI - only this episode doesn't last for 45 minutes,
it lasts for 103 minutes - which is always too long
for a horror flick. Horror movies should remain under
95 minutes unless they're extraordinarily great, and
even then it's a big risk to take.
Ultimately, Retribution does have some great qualities
about it, but it's too disorienting and weird for
most people (such as myself) to be able to fully grasp
the concept. I can see what Kurosawa tried to achieve
here but I don't think that it worked very well. Still,
some of you may love it, especially if you're a fan of
moody drama thrillers - but that's just not my cup of tea.
Nothing.
If you've seen Kairo, you know what to expect. Slick
strings and moments of complete silence. Doesn't work
as great this time around though.
You can't help but to feel that Kurosawa has started
repeating himself. Retribution is a less terrifying
and much more confusing version of Kairo more or less.
It doesn't have the atmosphere that Kairo did and it
doesn't have enough horror in it for me to be able to
call it a horror flick. To me this is dull, to
others this might be genius. It's really up to you
to decide as this is a love it or hate it film.
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