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Kyoko works as
a TV-reporter and has her own segment
called Rumour Control. She just got a letter about an
urban legend called The Wall Man and decides to check
it out, apparently legend has it that a man lives in
the walls and can see everything you do. At first she
thinks that it's just a silly rumour that will vanish
as fast as it came, but when her boyfriend gets
obsessed with the urban legend, her life turns into a
nightmare. Is the Wall Man real or is it all a prank?
I've said it before but in case you weren't aware,
J-Horror is dead. As dead as dead can be. Sure, other
Asian countries keep puking out several horror flicks
every month but Japan has completely stopped more or
less. Perhaps for the best because Japan did quit
while they were ahead. Unfortunately, a few directors
haven't realized this yet and every now and then some
low-budget Japanese horror flick crawls into a limited
release in Japan but obviously flops hard. Heck, not
even Hideo Nakata could lure audiences into his horror
drama "Kaidan" last year. Anyway, so here we are,
10 years after The Ring started it all and the long
haired ghost girl seems to have disappeared completely
from the dead (but twitching) Japanese horror industry.
It seems as if the few J-horrors we get these days are
trying to be as bizarre as possible and as original as
possible, and more often than not, it doesn't work.
The Wall Man is a perfect example of this. Rookie
director/writer Wataru Kayakawa has made a beautiful
film based on a manga but it's not scary, it's not
suspenseful, it's not thrilling, it's just bizarre.
If you ask me, it's not even a horror movie but since
that's the only genre that it even comes close to,
I guess they decided to market it as one. It's about
a young couple - Kyoko, a bubbly TV-reporter, and
Nishina, a fashion photographer who wants to focus
more on art than anything else. Kyoko runs a segment
called "Rumour Control" and receives a letter about
The Wall Man - a man who lives in walls and likes to
watch television. She doesn't think much of it, but
before she knows it, her boyfriend has become obsessed
with the urban legend and is convinced that the wall
man is in fact a real being.
This is one of those movies where you have no idea
what's going on simply because you're not supposed to.
Most of you will go "I don't get it" when the movie
ends and I think that was what it was aiming for.
Naturally, since it is based on a manga, it has a
group of very strange characters to go along with its
bizarre story but let's not get into that. Horror
movies based on mangas can be everything from outstanding
to awful and this comes somewhere in between. Wall Man
does have a few redeeming qualities - it's not a sloppily
made movie, it's certainly a good production with
beautiful cinematography and some interesting angles.
Also, the bizarre story kind of sucks you in for some
reason and you have an urge to find out what's really
going on. Unfortunately, the movie raises way too many
questions and doesn't answer a single one of them.
Certainly not a movie to watch on a Friday night with
your girlfriend, The Wall Man is probably only targeted
at fans of the manga that it's based on. Manga geeks
may get it but for the rest of us, this is just strange
and not Uzumaki strange, but "I don't get it but I don't
really care" strange. I wouldn't recommend it unless
you're a hardcore manga fan who's read the manga. For
me, this just didn't make any sense at all.
Nothing.
I haven't got anything to say here really. It is what
it is, certainly nothing to write home about like my
fellow reviewer YAK likes to say.
Here's a strange and bizarre movie for you which makes
no sense and doesn't even try to make you understand
what's going on. No wonder J-horror is dead. I'm not
saying that Japan should stop completely with making
horror flicks but hell, give us something we wouldn't
expect from you guys - like a gory slasher or a
werewolf film, anything that breaks the standards of
Japanese horror films. This just doesn't cut it.
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