Homunculus

Something must have been lost in translation, surely, as most of the characters in this film react in a way that is inconsistent to what people would do in a Western culture. You have a homeless person who acts all high and mighty when someone proposes shifty things for money, a medical student who is so annoying and arrogant yet no one kicks his ass, two women who just submit themselves when faced with minimal physical restraining and all kinds of extreme reactions to simple words uttered randomly by other people. One girl is practically raped as therapy (now you understand where the term comes from), then wound sucking and blood kissing followed.

The story itself combines the concept of homunculus with Jungian psychology, dodgy medical experiments that make no sense and parapsychology, but doesn't go anywhere.

There some interesting things in the plot, though. The idea that one particular trauma, that we probably don't (or won't) even remember defines so much of our persona that just nibbling away at it would unravel a person. They could have gone with that a lot, but instead the film wastes too much on exposition, then hurries over the interesting part, then ends in a convoluted and pointless ending. I understand it's an adaptation from a manga, but there is no rule that forces following it exactly.

Bottom line: a weird concept with some interesting details, but a poor cinematic implementation and I can only assume some bad translation as well.

Well starting from the Manga, it is way a hard piece to adapt, mostly because of his complexity and exploration of the human psyque, in this movie all the interesting charts between the charachters are just empty and as I said before that complexity is lost with this movie. It is not as deep as it should, but good try.

Those who are interesting in psychology and theories about trauma and such are most likely going to like this movie, and of course you have to be ready for a little Japanese trippy stuff.

I haven´t read the manga so can´t really compare the two but I was pleasantly surprised by this movie.

As others have mentioned, this new effort from JU-ON director Takashi Shimizu starts off on a very strong and original footing that reminded me more than a little of the cult classic R100. I do love the way that fantastical elements are brought into play to depict abstract concepts and the psychological background of trauma and the like is absolutely fascinating. Love the creative scenes too, like the Yakuza set-piece. Sadly this loses its way in the second half and becomes smaller scaled and long-winded; half an hour off would have helped that. But the ending is pretty decent and the acting great.

This Japanese film, based on a manga of the same name, is centred on Susumu Nakoshi. He is a thirty four year old amnesiac for appears to have plenty of money despite living in his small car near a homeless community. One day he is approached by a strange man with an even stranger proposal. He says that he will give Nakoshi ¥700,000 to take part in a medical experiment. He believes that by drilling a small home in his skull he will be able to unleash the brain's true power. He is initially rejected but eventually Nakoshi accepts. Soon afterwards he starts having disturbing visions. He sees homunculi, alternate versions of the person he is looking at that give him an insight into the events in their life that have been traumatic and repressed. Some of these insights prove disturbing for all involved.

It isn't surprising that this film is quite disturbing and more than a little twisted at times; the original manga was created by the man who created 'Ichi the Killer'. That said this is nowhere near as disturbing or violent as that film. The story is interesting and provides a few good twists. It is shot in a fairly matter of fact way that gives it a suitably drab feel that matches Nakoshi's lack of emotion. The acting is solid and the special effects, which aren't over-used, are really good. Some of the material means it won't be for everybody but if you enjoy subtitled horror, or understand Japanese, I'd recommend giving it a go.

These comments are based on watching the film in Japanese with English subtitles.