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Shibuya Kaidan |
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Six friends tell each other ghost stories around a
campfire late one night and they decide to see if
the urban legend about the coin locker which will
grant your wishes is true. Soon the friends start
to act weird and it seems as if Reika is the only
one who still hasn't gone completely mad. What's
happening to her friends? Why are they committing
suicide and why do they always look so scared?
I'm always excited when a new Japanese The Grudge
rip-off comes out as even if they're not always
original, they're usually very scary. Shibuya
Kaidan is not. In Shibuya we get the creepy
long haired ghost chick as usual, however, this
time it's gone from scary to stupid. The girl's
hair is so long and thick that she looks like
the girl from The Addam’s Family, nothing very
scary about that. The story is basically the
same as in Ring and The Grudge and The Sisters
and all the other recent Asian horror flicks,
only this time the girl is haunting a coin locker,
now how stupid is that? Seriously, a toilet would
have been scarier.
As I wanted to see a subtitled version of this I
had to track down a cheap Hong Kong VCD so
naturally the picture quality was anything but
good, however, I doubt that the DVD looks much
better. The movie's too dark and the photography
is dull and pale which creates a depressing layer
over the entire movie. The acting is all right
but they're DTV good, not cinema good. Honestly,
if I didn't know that this had went to theatres
in Japan, I would've thought that it was a
made for TV flick. It just didn't seem as if a
lot of time was spent on making the movie and
the fact that it's barely an hour long didn't
exactly help. Though I'm pretty happy that it
didn't last much longer since this was a snooze fest.
Remember when you could just order just about
any new Asian horror flick on DVD, even if you
hadn't heard of it, and you just knew that it
would be good? Those days are sadly over, it
seems harder and harder to find good Asian horror
flicks these days. Shibuya Kaidan wasn't a
complete waste of time but I still don't know
why some people like this so much. It's unoriginal,
not in the least scary and it's barely even
entertaining at any point. There's just not a
lot of things going on in the movie and the
characters aren't very likeable which doesn't
leave us with much left to like.
Nothing.
This was the best part of the movie. The piano
music is beautiful, atmospheric and original.
Very nice score which probably saved this movie
from being a total disaster.
As Asia is losing their touch I will have to
start looking for a new continent to find good
films from, maybe Africa should be next.
Shibuya Kaidan is a perfect example of the
fact that Asia is running out of ideas. They're
all just the same these days and when they
don't even scare you, there's not a lot left
to feel thrilled about.
Review By: AnthroFred
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