Shady

Shady (2012) (Japanese Drama/Horror).

Two lonely, bullied highschool girls become friends, but their future may be darker than they expect. This film does a great job at developing the friendship in a realistic, endearing manner. It reminded me in some ways of the South Korean film "Memento Mori" (1999). These realistic teen dramas are a strong point in the Asian film industries, and "Shady" is yet another example of it. The film then slowly shows cracks in the foundation of the friendship while at the same time creating suspicion about the one girl's mental stability. A sense of unease is expertly established. Performances by the young cast are impressive. This film reminded me of the anime "When They Cry", only executed much better here.

The movie is a bit oppressive and claustrophobic; the palette colors are dark and grey (I felt a bit anxious at some point; but was not for the director; very possible because I do not watch too often this genre) but in the end follows the line or motive of the script. The director lay out a duality and it s very well done. -There are persons that have inherent problems and sometimes you have the bad luck of stumble upon them then you (and the good-hearted people) be trapped in a spiral of situations that are very difficult to get out due to fear or to be knee deep involved in its. The sordid machinations that a disturbed mind could work out The actors are very well chosen; yes; wait to the end. The very final after the credits is scary...sometimes is not so good to try to meet strangers.

Well there's a LOT of suspense and revenge and vengeance movies from South East Asia and every time I discover a fresh movie with a different angle I'm gladly surprised.

This one is even more refreshing giving the sheer lack-of-experience from the leading cast protagonists; both being female and extremely young but beyond their years in the movie.

Not only are the cast inexperienced but the director is as well as he was in his early 20's and still with high school fresh in his mind. I'm tired of reading so much emphasis on 'experience' now when it's so much more than that. Natural talent and ability and passion is more important.

The suspense of the fast-draw editing sequences is beautifully done. The bedroom scene when the discovery is occured is quite something.

It starts off very slow and casual. Typical aggressive high-school bullying and the culmination of a bizarre yet special friendship between the two leading protagonists begins to emerge.

One is being bullied and one is the hidden perpetrator and aggressor who becomes the victims best friend. There is a missing class mate and the story unravels fabulously. It goes from a steady high school drama film to an intense suspense movie extremely quickly.

It's quite short at an hour and a half so the madness is very quick. The big issue I have with the movie is that it didn't show all of the madness. You watch the end to realise this and the cuts are so aggressive that you soon realise that there could have been so much more violence in an extended feature Director's cut.

I'm sure it's about the budget. The movie had little budget and the director was using all sorts of resources to assemble a new team for this job.

It must have been very stressful hiring people with no experience as a director. Only being in his early 20's to make this is quite something as well. I'm very pleased that he made it as it is a great film.

Extremely strong debut. 8/10.

In the States there are many films set in their schools or colleges and in Japan it is just the same but, of course, they are both very different. Here we have a girl called Misa and nobody likes her because she is rather stocky and looks a bit different so she gets bullied. The other girl, Izumi is cute, smiles all the time and giggles, she says that the other girls don't like her because she is too pretty. When they get together it is rather wonderful at first and they go out in the rain with a busted umbrella and seem happy, especially on the see-saw in torrential downpour and it looks splendid. Later on their friendship looks a little 'shady', Izumi seems to giggle too much and Misa still loves her animals but the smiling one seems that maybe she only likes to kill.