Premonition

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be able to see into the future? To predict events before they happen? Well, PREMONITION presents us with the darker, bleaker side of this concept.

What if you knew about an upcoming tragedy or disaster? Would you attempt to alter the outcome? Unfortunately, in this film, there appears to be a high price to be paid, regardless of what is done. Or, not done. If your itch is scratched by stories about otherworldly events and the creeping unknown, you've hit pay dirt!...

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.

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.

While stopped at a roadside phone boot for transmitting his work through Internet to the university, Professor Hideki Satomi (Hiroshi Mikami) finds a scrap of newspaper with the picture of his five years old daughter Nana (Hana Inoue) in the obituary. He sees his wife Ayaka Satomi (Noriko Sakai) trying to release their daughter from the seat-belt, when a truck without steer hits his car killing Nana. Three years later, Hideki is divorced from Ayaka, who is researching paranormal persons who claim to have read an evil newspaper anticipating the future still trying to believe on Hideki, and she finds that there are people cursed to foresee the future but without power to save the victims. When Hideki changes the future saving Ayaka, he becomes trapped in hell and he has to make a choice of his own destiny.

"Yogen" is another eerie Japanese horror movie, fortunately not spoiled yet by an American remake. The creepy story about a cursed professor that blames himself for not saving the life of his daughter, destroying his own life, is very weird, original and scary. The scene with the car accident is very impressive, and when Hideki is trapped in hell, the slow pace of the film changes to a frightening sequence. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Terror da Premonição" ("The Terror of the Premonition")

In Norio Tsuruta's Premonition, a malevolent supernatural newspaper selects victims at random and reveals to them disastrous headlines from the near-future. When family man Hideki Satomi finds himself haunted by the evil rag, he enters a nightmare world from which the only escape appears to be death.

Like Final Destination, the US horror hit that also dealt with foresight and cheating fate, Premonition is a supernatural chiller that opens with a bang: protagonist Hideki witnesses the death of his young daughter in an auto accident immediately after learning of her impending fate via a mysterious paper. It's an excellent beginning to the film: suspenseful, exciting and very harrowing.

Unfortunately, after this promising start, the plot slowly begins to lose momentum and despite great performances from its cast and one or two outstanding scares, the whole film looks set to be a huge disappointment. To his credit though, director Tsuruta picks up the pace again in the film's dying moments for a crazy finalé which sees Hideki leaping through time and space in a desperate bid to change history.

All in all, I found this inventive slice of J-Horror to be a reasonably fun ride, despite leaving me with a ton of unanswered questions (Why does the paper like to torment people? Why does it choose Hideki? Who prints the bloody thing? If it turns up on a Sunday, do you get supplements?) and fans of the Asian horror scene should still give it a go if they get the chance.

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.