Kuroyuri danchi

Maybe you've seen this or something similar before and the story itself won't surprise you that much. But the movie is more than decent. The horror does work on quite a few levels, even if you can see the jump scare coming. Plus there is a story (even if it might feel a bit like a cheat in the end).

The acting is nice, the characters well defined. There is some of the usual things you've come to known from horror movies from Asia. If you didn't get sick of it (some people can't see another woman with long hair hiding her face crawling on the floor or looking scary in general), you will get entertained and have a really good scary time

"The Complex" does deviate a bit from the standard Japanese horror genre with some pretty interesting twists, which was a very welcomed change of pace to the genre. However, the movie was nowhere near being scary, or I am just too seasoned and hardened to horror, and that resulted in a mediocre result.

The story is about Asuka who moves into an older apartment complex, and soon after strange things start to happen which threaten to send Asuka's mind down a spiral of despair.

Story-wise then "The Complex" was following a stereotypical 'how-to-make-a-horror-movie' blueprint, but it has some interesting twists and turn of events.

The acting was good and helped the movie along quite well. Atsuko Maeda actually carried the lead quite well.

The effects in "The Complex" were adequate, but not overly impressive or dazzling. But they did serve the purpose well enough.

However, the lack of proper scares was the downfall that plummeted the movie into mediocrity. And as such, what could have been a unique movie ended up as a movie that you will Watch once and then never again.

This is an astonishingly inept movie. Plot lines appear out of nowhere, the characters are barely developed, and aside from one or two creepy visuals there is nothing to take away from this film. I loved Ringu and Dark Water, and apparently the director does as well, because this is basically a retread of both of those stories. I rented this thing on iTunes and I want my 4.99 back. Don't waste your money!

There are good twists and bad twists. Good twists are the ones which enrich the story with surprise without demolishing it. Bad twists are of the "It was just a dream" sort and just annihilate everything that happened so far. "The Complex" by director Hideo Nakata, maker of the famous Ringu movies, appears to have both kinds of twists. Any way, it has too many.

Which is unfortunate because "The Complex" has a lot things going for it. Like the talented Atsuko Maeda, who plays Asuka, a girl who just freshly moved with her family into an apartment complex. Much to Asuka's distress, she's disturbed at night by strange noises coming from the apartment next door. Not much to our surprise, things are getting worse.

I liked the camera work and editing. Like, at the beginning, a few effective camera moves and cuts introduce us to the main characters and give us a good sense of location, how the apartments are placed and what the environment of the building is like. Acting is well throughout, too. As for the pace, it is a bit slow at the beginning, but that's fine since it allows us to become familiar with the characters. And the characters are ones that I could care for.

Everything was going fine, so I don't understand why Nakata had to add twists, which at times felt forced and disrupted the mood. In the Ringu movies, Nakata established ambiguous characters without sudden changes. Maybe he thought "The Complex" would otherwise have been not exciting enough? Actually, I liked its calm parts.

Second Japanese movie in a row for me, in the hope this one would be better than the previous one, but unfortunately it was of the same mediocre level. The cinematography just could have been much better. But even with a better directing and filming I don't think I would have rated it much more. Sure there were some interesting twists but I found them a bit predictable so really nothing that wowed me. As for the acting, it was average at best. Korean actors are most of the time good, which can not be said from Japanese actors. As for the horror I guess some people of the audience might find it scary, I found it a bit boring. Tonight not another Asian movie as I need a break from it.