Dark Water

In the middle of a difficult custody battle over her 6 year old daughter with her ex husband, Yoshimi Matsubara takes a flat in an old building in order to get some stability in their lives. However the problems start with a constant and spreading leak in the ceiling of their flat and the sense of someone else being around the building. Yoshimi becomes increasingly on edge when Ikuko appears to be effected.

Setting out my stall from the start I really liked Ringu and was happy to see this film from the same director. I knew nothing about it when I sat in the cinema and I think that is the best way to see it (although my plot synopsis about will have spoilt nothing). Dark Water continues Nakata's ability of unsettling audiences with little devices. Here he stays with the child theme from Ringu and it works very well despite being a much simpler plot that isn't anywhere near as clever as the other film. However in terms of delivering scares Nakata builds with shadowy images and creeping effects – the spread of the leak across the ceiling is creepy and the reoccurring image of a child's pink bag becomes increasingly unnerving as the film progresses.

The direction is strong throughout with the camera preferring to turn to see what the characters see rather than having something leap into view or simply be cut to – this turning movement can take seconds where our tension is build by being kept waiting. Again the use of shadowy figures and fleeting glimpses of things is very creepy and it really worked for me much better than all the gore in the world. It is a little ironic that one of the biggest jumps from the audience came from the film's one use of CGI effects, but this worked well simply due to the build up of suspense all the way through.

To compliment this the film uses music and sound very well. On the odd occasional it does the tradition thing where the music builds to up the tension, this works but is not unusual. What works better is the use of music WHEN the creeps arrive! Whenever Yoshimi looks at the leak the music gives it an unnerving quality that may not have existed with the shot alone. The simple plot makes for an effective little ghost story – there is an element of mystery here but it is more about the suspense than the history. This is OK but the ending is a little more predictable than I would have liked (at first glance) and the epilogue didn't really work for me and I felt it needed a stronger close (not necessarily a jump though). I say `at first glance' because it appears predictable but really it changes where I thought the film was going and the whole basis for the creepy scenes – ie I had assumed that the girl was taking Ikuko for play etc – I'll say no more but you'll understand when you see it.

The cast were good. My friend said that Kuroki's Yoshimi was so sappy she wanted to slap her but I actually thought she played it well. She convinced me she was a woman going through an emotionally challenging time and was being pushed. There was an element of her overplaying (maybe? It could be taken as realism) the fear in order to heighten the audience's but really this was benefical to the film as a whole. Kanno's Ikuko is excellent – I can't imagine a child I know being able to cope with that sort of filming but she does it very well and is a million miles from the annoying brats that Western films seem to dig up when required. These two are excellent and have reasonable support characters but the real star is a character you only really glimpse and the creepy atmosphere created by Nakata.

Overall anyone who saw the remake of Ringu (and it was No1 for a while) should ignore the subtitles and go and see this. It lacks the depth of Ringu and the epilogue's search for a greater significance is a little plodding and out of place, but it is still an effective ghost story that is a painfully slow at times but only serves to make it genuinely unnerving and creepy throughout.

A story very similar in certain areas to another story by Hideo Nakata, but different enough to stand apart. Using similar techniques to the Ring series, Nakata employs askew camera angles, wide shots and the mixing of foreground and background, showing normality in one and abnormality in the other, often with the horrors in the background, unnoticed by the foreground characters. The use of audio, and indeed lack of in parts, heightens the tension and the feeling of unease even more. Throughout the film a nervousness grows, beginning with a slight niggle of something wrong, building to the final shocking realisations. Despite understanding the story before the end is reached, Nakato manages to pull you on through the story, in fact, even past where other films would have ended. Acting from the child is stunningly good, as is with the mother, with much of the story played out in the emotions of their faces rather than their actual words. This is perhaps what succeeds so well, the realism of the dialogue and the slow brooding story, with a distinct lack of action. Something Hollywood attempts to recreate in their unoriginal remakes.

My theory of why I responded so strongly with Dark Water is that it's about people that you can relate to. It isn't about a cop who searches for the serial killer leaving cryptic puzzles, nor a lawyer who defends a crazy murderer who may not be the real killer, etc. It's about a single mother who's on the verge of losing one thing she cares for the most - her daughter.

She has to go for job interviews, she has to find a place to live with little money, and she has to see a divorce lawyer to fend off her rather nasty (yet not unreasonable) husband. Life's tough for Yoshimi, and who could not identify with her? I certainly did, and maybe it's the main reason why the movie worked on me so well.

I sympathised her character and her predicament. I cared for her choice. I kept thinking, 'God, please give this poor woman a break.', but as every good movie must, problems keep piling up on her already over-burdened shoulder, and the ghost haunting that old, damp apartment doesn't help her situation.

As many other reviewers mentioned, this is not all that scary. If you are looking for pure Asian horror to scare you s***less, this isn't it. But on some level it worked on me better than, say, Grudge, because the characters inhabit this picture felt real. Natural performances from the little girl were just amazing (except a couple of spots where her acting was just little off), but overall I totally bought her character.

When she says she needs no one but her mother, I felt a tingle of sensation in my eyes - I wanted them to be together as their love seemed so real. Hitomi Kuroki, playing the motehr, nicely underplays her role - she is polite and tries so hard to pull her life together against overwhelming odds. She is the center of this picture in every single sense.

Also consider the characters in Dark Water, they are all firmly grounded on reality. The divorce lawyer for example, when she tells him that she sees a ghost, he calmly examines the apartment and offers the most reasonable advice that any lawyer would give. Even the husband, while nasty, never oversteps the line of a villain. He after all does care for the welfare of the little girl, and concerns that she sometimes doesn't pick up the child in time.

This is a sad, tragic drama that deals with the souls of the children abandoned and lost by their parents. When that yellow flashback plays on the screen, I felt more pity than horror, so much so the last scene where Yoshimi held up that dead child, maybe it all made sense.

Ending perhaps was little weak - maybe because I cared so much about Yoshimi and her daughter, I just wanted them to be happy and together. Not like this. All great movies regardless their genre constructs human drama as its core. While this may not be a great movie, but a damned fine human drama with a streak of horror this is.

I know on the subject of the saddest scene in the film, the majority will immediately go for the elevator scene which, granted is TRULY heart breaking, especially when Yoshimi and Ikuko look at each other through the closed elevator doors, both crying, just before it goes up to the top floor, etc.

However, for some reason, I keep thinking about the 'final goodbye scene' set 10 years later when Ikuko is 16 - when she returns to the apartment complex, it would seem hoping to find her Mother.

When she goes inside their old apartment and everything is just as it was 10 years ago when Yoshimi 'disappeared' (as far as Ikuko was concerned).

She looks around the apartment, which seems abandoned and is about to leave when she senses another 'presence' in the room, and turns to see her mother standing in the bedroom looking at her.

Once they have talked and Ikuko suggests returning to with live with her again, Yoshima tells her that she is 'sorry, that they can't be together'.

Ikuko senses Mitsuko behind her, spins around to find no one there, then turns back to her mother who has also disappeared (to return with the ghost). Again, left alone calling for her mother. Gulp!!! Then the very last shot in the film of Ikuko walking away from the apartment complex - for the last time. It seems that truth of what happened 10 years ago has finally dawned on her and she's all the more saddened now knowing that she and her mother never will be together again, contrary to what she had hoped for.

A total tragedy for both daughter AND mother who I felt every bit as sorry for in the painful choice and sacrifice she had to make.

Then, that gorgeous piece of music as the credits roll. I saw the film two days ago and that 'final goodbye' scene is still in my head. I think it actually moved/saddened me more than the elevator scene.

The silence the newly divorced mother and her 6 year old daughter experience in an apartment block they have just moved into sets the mood here. We see how they are together realistically, that means lots of silence and little action. One aspect that makes this scary is this realistic depiction of isolation you can get in these houses. And you cant help but wish the best for the two, struggling with work, the divorce rights and beginning school. And it rains.

Water starts dripping from the ceiling and soon it permeates the whole building creating an uneasy and nervous mood that sneaks in on you and when you're not ready for it makes your nerves scream. You know its gonna happen and you get a good idea of where its leading, but its so well made that it doesn't matter.