Premonition

Excellent Japanese psychological horror film.

Not a lot of blood or scariness; this film is a mind game.

Long time Japanese actor Hiroshi Mikami sees his daughter's death minutes before it happens. His wife, Noriko Sakai (star of the Japanese version of The Grudge 2), thinks he is crazy and they split.

But, she investigates further and finds a strange Japanese legend about premonition.

They find out what happens if you try to change it, and he has to choose his destiny.

Tense drama, slow at times, but a great ending.

Norio Tsuruta is one of those journeyman directors who has gained work from the recent reinvigoration of Asian horror. His Premonition is watchable enough even if, like the other work from this director, it hardly reaches the heights of more celebrated titles from the same source. Despite effective moments,it suffers from an atmosphere more often glum than truly terrifying, as well as structural disorientation in its last part which is at best a welcome change of pace, and at worst slightly incoherent.

Premonition's Twilight Zone-type central idea (even the source story's name, 'The Newspaper Of Terror' is reminiscent of pulp fiction) is of a demonic publication, extracted from the 'Akashic Record': "a place in the cosmos where all events, past and present, are recorded." The Record appears at disconcerting and unsettling moments to those with sight to see it and offers, to those few at least, dire warnings of the future. Its exact provenance is otherwise unexplored except in a couple of hushed conversations, but the ominous paper appears in time to offer its unfortunate recipients the chance, if at some personal cost, to change the destinies of others. In one of the more effective scenes, the Record is first seen and read by one Hideki Satomi (Hiroshi Mikami), a college lecturer who learns of the impending death of his three-year-old daughter. Unable to believe his eyes and use the foresight allowed, the tragedy duly occurs. Flash forward three years and the still distraught and distracted Satomi, now estranged from his wife, finds that the Record reaches him again, this time with news of a murderer's next young victim. Meanwhile his wife's scepticism is overcome when, through a medium, she discovers independent verification of the spectral broadsheet...

After the initial loss and the shock it engenders, for the most part the film now settles down into a mildly disturbing rut of dread and guilt brought by the expected off-world news. Satomi and wife, now brought back together by events, track down the earthly remains of a psychic who previously also had the curse of precognition. Working amongst his (amazingly dust-free and neatly racked) effects to reconstruct his warnings - a process including the use of a video as a moment of shock, a by now stock-in-trade of Japanese horror - the two soon confront the narrative's central dilemma: whether or not to change events, even when to do so inevitably leads to physical deterioration and madness.

The principal suspense factor of the film is thus predicated around the newspaper's expected arrival, which duly arrives in a few suspenseful moments (my favourite is of the publication, hovering like some bird of prey, hunting alongside a desperately speeding car) and there are some spooky moments set in an asylum. But a sustained atmosphere of terror is a difficult trick to pull off, and ultimately the film suffers in comparison to more effective productions with similar, dark atmospheres - like Dark Water for instance. Perhaps recognizing this, Premonition's most notable creative decision occurs in the last section of the drama when, as a climax to the piece, Satomi undergoes a series of frightening spatial and temporal experiences. It's rather a shock, especially after the linear construction dominating the rest of the film and, frankly, internal logic is a little strained. But these few minutes, right up to and including the end, have the merit of finishing with a much needed flourish. They also inject something of the disorientation of fear into proceedings, bringing a sustained and necessary sense that the human is at the mercy of a capricious cosmos that was missing previously. And, if this reviewer wished that matters had come to an end more darkly than the final, slightly-too-happy conclusion offered here - bringing up the credits on the abrupt death of a major character for instance, would have been more disturbing - these last, fast-moving scenes offer tension in a way which aptly harks back to the beginning.

The acting of the principals is adequate, even if there are no scenes that require complex emoting. The UK copy seen by this reviewer was cropped uncomfortably from what looks like an original ratio of 1.85:1. For a genre in which fear often lurks at the edge of the frame, this is an unfortunate choice, especially when some relatively undistinguished cinematography needs all the help it can get. No real extras either. If you're a fan of this sort of cinema, then the overall package will remain entertaining enough, and it will certainly serve until something better comes along.

An effective combination of 'change the future'-style sci-fi thriller and traditional Japanese horror. PREMONITION tells the story of an ordinary man caught up in some extraordinary events…and the dark avenues to which he is eventually led as a result of this.

Things kick off with a shocking set-piece in which a young girl is killed in one of those accidents that are filmed so well in Asian cinema. Years later and the father blames himself for not saving her, as he was warned by a newspaper article in the moments before her death. Soon he becomes convinced that he can go back in time to save her, and becomes involved with various psychics who claim to be able to see the future.

What follows is both familiar and unpredictable at the same time. Director Norio Tsuruta, hot off making RING 0, shoots this as a horror rather than science fiction film, so incorporates various scare sequences that end up being very effective. There's little to no gore here, just a creeping psychological approach that pays dividends as the story progresses. I defy anyone not to jump in their seat at the 'faceless ghost' scene.

The pacing is rather slow – when isn't it in a J-horror? – but it gradually picks up as the film builds momentum, culminating in a blistering climax involving our protagonist hopping through realities at a dizzying pace. It reminded me of the hilarious extended fight climax of Wes Craven's SHOCKER, although of course it's treated seriously here. Hiroshi Mikami is excellent as the haunted protagonist – think of the calibre of Hiroyuki Sanada in Ring and you'll be close – and the film as a whole never pulls its punches.

Skillfully edited and highly tensioned, Yogen is one every so often discussed psycho-horror. It's been produced from the idea of the same titled Japanese comic book of 1950s' and follows the storyline of a solid Japanese novel from the same decade. The comic book creates a heroic theme out of a psychic family man who saves his family from a traffic accident, while the novel focuses on precognitive newspaper delusions seen by ordinary people.

In the opening scene, giving a little clue of the main idea, we're being introduced to a middle-aged female victim of a paranormal incident taken from a newspaper article. She is being tested over her newly acquired supernatural skills at an university research laboratory. The second scene, where main characters are introduced, has the heart-wrenching traffic accident that gives cause for a chain of more alike accidents. The common trait of each accident is that they both have precognitive warnings to their survivors. The survivors of this first accident were parents to a 5-year-old singleton, who got killed in the accident. To their surprise their daughter has been the only vein that holds them together. Atfer the death of their daughter they get parted. They both keep receiving precognitive warnings for next alike accidents of their colleagues, disciples, friends and relatives.

Over the last few years we've seen likes of this idea in Hollywood. With Sandra Bullock, also with Nicolas Cage there were either action or drama based films displayed. Among all, Yogen has the most influential message: Everyone has tremendous abilities hidden inside that might become surfaced once in a while for everyone. But we're not born to behave like angels or daemons. To have psychic skills is no means of becoming stronger or wiser. Uncontrolled power is not power at all, and we're not born to have such powers.

With extreme usage of melodrama and surrealist pen-portraits, Yogen is a one-way ticket for travelling into a metaphysical world of limitless secrets, symbols, dreams and intuition where time has lost its permanence.

A very creative Japanese horror movie, in the style of Ju-On. It's fairly slow-paced, being character and plot driven, but this is the right approach due to its clever, intelligent, and emotional script.

A man starts receiving a newspaper which predicts tragic future events, sort of the "Early Edition" TV show's premise, except in the case of the E.E., the purpose was to give the paper's recipient ample warning to prevent the tragedy. Here, by contrast, the intention is clearly evil. The newspaper appears in an always sinister way, even "chasing" the man sometimes, and forcing him to see future events, which he learns he is not allowed to interfere with; if he does, he will unleash grotesque consequences. Then the paper torments him with a story about his own family.

The characters are very easy to identify with as innocents who have been cast into this danger, and have done nothing wrong, rather than the usual horror movie victims who are evil and/or stupid. The story unfolds in a the fashion of learning new information along with the main character. The terror of the people in jeopardy is well defined, and the story reaches a touching and poignant denouement. Worth watching.