Kaosu

Chaos (1999) was an nice follow up to Ringu. This film's a nice change of pace. One day a rich man and his wife are eating lunch. She decides to step out to get some fresh air, hubby goes outside to meet her and she's gone! Befuddled, Hubby tries to call the police but is contacted by the kidnapper. During this time we're introduced to a divorced handy man. He meets a young lady who offers him some money if she does a job for him. He wants him to kidnap her. What seems like easy money gets this guy into a situation that's way over his head.

This film would have made Hitchcock pleased. It's filled with a lot of plot twists, betrayals and confusion. The direction by Nakata is excellent, he creates a sense of chaos that's extremely effective. If you like movies that spoon feed you information then this is not for you. However if you're a fan of mystery thrillers, you'll eat this one up.

Highly recommended.

Hideo Nakata, director of RINGU (1988), followed up his spooky international hit with this complex and compelling thriller in which a beautiful woman hires a handyman to kidnap her, with the hope of winning back her cheating husband's attention. But things soon begin to go awry when the amateur-kidnapper-for-hire returns to his hideout to find the 'captive' woman dead, and then receives a mysterious phone call instructing him to dispose of the body.

As the film gradually unfolds, we learn, via the use of various interesting storytelling techniques, that there is much more to his predicament than at first meets the eye.

With a choppy non-linear narrative that requires full attention from the viewer, Chaos is definitely not an easy film to follow (particular if you choose to watch with subtitles), but those who do make the effort to keep track of events will be rewarded with an effective and inventive slow-burner. With more twists and turns than a python doing the samba, this movie constantly surprises, and only a rather abrupt ending stops the film from being a truly 'great' experience.

If you're a not a fan of Nakata's supernatural work, don't let that put you off from seeing this intriguing movie; a different kettle of fish altogether, Chaos is well worth giving a go.

Hideo Nakatas "Kaosu" reminded me of "Memento". I've seen "Memento" way before American audiences saw it and have found zero reviews on the net (which sometimes is the best thing that can happen). I was stunned by "Memento" the second I found out that the whole thing runs backwards. "Kaosu" had a similar moment. After ca. 3 sequences, I realized that this movie is not built chronologically. It's not backwards but its scenes are arranged in a complex way - sort of like "Pulp Fiction" but without any marks that a new chapter/time frame starts or ends.

This construction is sometimes a little bit too confusing and I found myself rewinding the DVD two times to refresh a previous sequence. But after a while, you start figuring out what's going on. Only to find your whole idea thrown over again and again. In the end, it all makes sense. I went back to the first sequence and remembered the problem Komiyama had with his hand. Yes it all makes sense and is a very rewarding challenge of your mind.

However, there's a problem with the ending. Again. Many recent Asian movies had bad endings - I particularly hate the endings of "Tell Me Something" and "Cure" (both movies are fantastic until the terrible ending). Fans of Asian cinema always try to defend these bad endings by saying it's un-Hollywood, it's mind-bending, it's unconventional. Yes, but it also doesn't make zero sense and even though you find yourself reflecting the ending, it finally only leaves you frustrated. It's not that bad with "Kaosu". However, the ending is anticlimactic. It's not that it doesn't make sense like in the movies I've just mentioned, it just isn't satisfactory.

Still, it's a worthy movie experience and I recommend it to fans of thrillers and Asian movies in general. Another success for the director of the brilliant "Ringu".

Rating: 8/10 (being a bit generous)

The other reviews are quite right--"Chaos" is a very confusing film that might necessitate a second viewing to understand all the plot twists. This confusion is deliberate and the film is OFTEN out of sequence--further muddying the plot. It also has MANY similarities to great suspense films like Cluzot's "Les Diaboliques" and Hitchcock's "Vertigo".

The film begins with a man getting a phone call from a man announcing that he's just kidnapped his wife--and to get her back he must give him 30,000,000 yen (about $300,000 American). The husband goes to the police and you assume that he'll either get the wife back or the kidnapper will kill her. However, NOTHING happens...no word...nothing. Now there is a TON of stuff that follows--but I don't really want to say more as it will spoil the film. Suffice to say, that what you've seen so far isn't exactly what's really happening...and to truly understand, you'll need to keep watching and keep paying close attention.

I like movies that make me think and offer twists. Although the twists are familiar (hence my mentioning the two movies above), the film is done very well. The only reason I don't score the film higher is that the very last scene in the film really made little sense and was not particularly satisfying. Still, it's well worth your time.

Having tried the two "Ring" films and "Dark Water", I had all but given up on the Japanese horror director, Hideo Nakata. The problem for me is that ("It's a Wonderful Life", "Portrait of Jenny" and the marvellous Japanese "After Life" excepted) I find the paranormal in cinema something of a turn-off. True, these examples are humanist not horror films but even quite respectable ghost stories such as "Blithe Spirit" and "The Ghost and Mrs Muir" don't exactly grab me. I suppose the "Monihara" segment of Satyajit Ray's "Teen Kanya" is the one great piece of supernatural horror cinema I know although one must never forget all those versions of "Hamlet" and Macbeth". If there are monsters out there trying to do unthinkable things to other people then I would prefer them to be human for the simple reason that their very believability makes them ten times more chilling than dreamt up phantoms. Imagine my delight therefore when I discovered an engrossing piece of Grand Guignol by Nakata, his "Chaos" of 1999. From comments and reviews there appear to be several that find the plot complicated to the point of incomprehensibility. I would caution patience as it is a work that needs to be seen several times to be fully understood. When one eventually gets there (for me on a third viewing) the rewards are enormous. Everything fits together in a most diabolically clever way. To give even an inch of the plot away could reduce the pleasure of untangling it. Suffice to say that there are echoes here of "Les Diaboliques" and "Vertigo". By placing "Chaos" on this high level I could not praise it more.