Higanjima

Doesn't it just annoy you when an at first promising film slowly slips in the wrong direction? This one starts out with a swordsman dressed up heavily in some waterproof clothes taking on an onslaught of vampires whom are wearing old fashioned Japanese attire. We then skip to Japan where we meet a group of friends. It's witty, well shot, the acting is great and there are a lot of unanswered questions; it breaks out like a good action horror movie. It also wouldn't be a stretch to say it carried shades of another well known J-horror, Battle Royale. It has that same camaraderie and wit, with subtle moments of horror, but at the same time being very down to earth. It slowly begins to slip though. The brother of the swordsman is amongst this group that we met, and they all go to find and help him. After much melodrama and annoyingly overacted teen angst, after meeting some strange women whom tells them of a situation involving vampires on her home island, it all begins to get a bit grating as we are hammered with ridiculously over the top nonsense.

It was still promising though. It was still fun. Then we get to the island. Every bit of wit and good dark horror seemed to have been swapped in favour of pure overkill in the melodrama and overkill in trying to build the characters in particular of the main vampire. It's what I call too much talk not enough action; anyone who has seen some of the modern shounen anime such as Bleach will understand. Big bad guy is insurmountable. Big bad guy has 300 attempts to wipe out our protagonists. Big bad guy spends those 300 spots fitting in his little quips, going on about something to do with why he's so special, and how he's unbeatable. Put that together with the fact that the main vampire is the most androgynous and strangely attired bad guy I've ever seen, and put together all of these overkilled overly melodramatic moments, and its momentum slowly dripped away. Still good mindless fun, but it could, and should have been more.

Wow, Higanjima if considered a horror movie is a total fail (except for he fun head smashing opening scene). If taken as a comedy this movie is pure genius... you get some of the funniest over-acting, staged shots of the coolest nerd-losers in movie history, some of the gayest smart-ass vampires, some of the most annoying screechy ghost grannies, the Korean version of Harry Potter as a sidekick funnier than even the cliché fat dumb funny guy.... and don't even start with the "cool" main characters. Akira is the handsome nice guy who tends to sit down for misplaced scenes of unfitting sadness and staring at the horizon, his brother is some kind of a nerd who watched too many Rambo movies and decided killing vampires is fun and makes you look cool and then there is a cool rocker dude (love the staged scenes with the baseball bat) who seems to have been snatched from a bad 70ies rock gang movie. He tends to appear more retarded than the obviously retarded Pong character.

Anyway... that gang of idiots for unexplainable stupid reasons heads of to retardation island Higanjima where they fight a bunch of vampires, exploding winged vampire sluts, cheap CGI dragon-meets-Giger-style-Alien monsters and zombie degenerates like the kick ass brain dead "Reaggae" zombie who is by far the funniest. The whole movie doesn't make an inch of sense and the random editing adds to the ridiculous funny bone of Higanjima, mixing shaky cam fight sequences that are barely watchable without throwing up with endless shots of Akira sitting on a wall and being sad for 20 minutes or having some romantic puppy-flashbacks before turning into a bloodthirsty fighting machine that splits flying leaves in slow motion.

The fight sequences are always accompanied by misplaced epic heavy rock music and tend to recycle the basic ideas of smashing heads, chopping off arms or driving swords through hollow vampire-zombie heads in a repetitive fashion. They really just had these 3 ideas, so even a massive monster dragon has to have his head smashed first and then stabbed just to make sure its really dead. Of course this movie is 2 hours long to elaborate on the exquisite plot and thrilling fight sequences. On higanjima heroes die slowly so they can scream the names of their loved ones for minutes even after having a samurai sword driven through their nerd-brains.

The director is either a total comedy genius or a lobotomy patient... anyway, put on your diapers when watching this.

Higanjima otherwise known as Vampire Island was a recommendation and not something I'd ever heard of. It was an absolute beast to find an English subtitled copy of but I'm very happy I managed it.

It tells the story of a young man who learns that his missing brother is on a mysterious island that has been taken over by vampires. With friends in tow he sets off to find his brother and combat the undead force.

Japanese made with a little help from South Korean production Higanjima has plenty of the usual over the top Japanese tropes and is all the better for it. Very gory, action packed and perfectly paced it exceeded all expectations that I had.

On the flipside the lack of budget shows in places, when CGI is required it really looks quite bad. The movie is also oddly a bit camp, I'm not sure why that approach was used and our vampires look like extras from Big Trouble In Little China (1986).

Despite its flaws Higanjima is a lot of fun and though I'd argue against it entirely being classed as a horror its certainly something I'd have liked to see more of. It could have easily been turned into a television series and one that I really would have watched.

Silly violent fun.

The Good:

Some great moments

Looks the part

Very well constructed

The Bad:

Some ropey cgi

Some unanswered questions

The vampires could have looked a tad better

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Banishing vampires is as easy as locking them in a cupboard

Pong was right, they were terrible friends

"Higanjima" is not a great movie by any means, but it is quite entertaining and offers almost two hours of fun.

The story is simple enough. Hideo Ishiguro's Akira is a high school student that has his group of friends and a regular life. The only bitter point is the death/disappearance of his older brother a few years ago. But then, one day, when he is running away from some bullies, he meets a mysterious woman that tells him his brother is still alive, in a out-of-the-maps island... full of vampires. Will Akira believe her and decide to go the island with her, or will he decide that she is just crazy and a liar?

From that moment on the movie offers a nice mixture of horror, action and humor. It never raises the bar too high, and some of the acting is a little bit shaky (good enough, though, in general), but it keeps the action going. The plot is simple, but the characters, even if caricatures, are well developed and the actors made them interesting and charismatic. The CGI is meh, but it is not really important.

Too bad that it becomes a little bit repetitive and overlong, and that some moments could have been greatly improved if they had tried just a little bit. Otherwise, a trip to "Higanjima" is absolutely worth it.

So it tries to be funny and dramatic at once. I think it does not achieve it's goal, but of course you might feel different. It's a shame, because there are quite a few good scenes in here. But it drifts into melodrama at times, when it is completely unnecessary. Not to mention that the acting (even for that sort of a movie) is bland, if you are being nice to the movie.

Then again, since this is based on a Manga, it is always difficult to put the complexity of those onto one film. Unfortunately I have not read any of those "comic books" (hope you are not offended by me calling them that, but not everyone might know what a Manga is). Still I'm sure they are far better than this one, that can be enjoyed at times ... especially with low expectations