Honogurai mizu no soko kara

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.

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.

The reviser Yoshimi Matsubara (Hitomi Kuroki) has just divorced from her husband and is disputing the custody of their five years old daughter Ikuko Matsubara (Rio Kano) in the justice. She is looking for an apartment and a job to restart her life alone with Ikuko. She finds a small old apartment, and she does not pay attention to a stain of water on the ceiling. When she moves to the apartment, she notes that there is a drip of water in the bedroom, and she asks the landlord to repair the leakage. Meanwhile, Ikuko finds a red bag on the terrace, and Yoshimi returns it to the administrator. Yoshimi sees the creepy shape of a girl wearing a yellow coat, and she finds that she resembles a young girl that has been missing for two years in the neighborhood. She becomes afraid that the girl might be a ghost.

"Honogurai Mizu no Soko Kara" is a tense low-paced horror movie, with a frightening and original story. The characters and the situation are slowly developed, the climax is scary, but I did not like the conclusion. I was really a little disappointed, since I expected much more. However, this film is another great Japanese horror movie, the best producers of this genre in the present days. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Dark Water – Água Negra" ("Dark Water – Black Water")

Director Hideo Nakata's 1998 offering, "Ringu," based on a book by the so-called "Stephen King of Japan," Koji Suzuki, was one of the scariest movies I've seen in years. Thus, it was with great expectation that I popped the same team's 2002 effort, "Dark Water," into my DVD player at home. And while this latter film may not be the horror masterpiece that "Ringu" is, it still has much to offer. The story here concerns a newly divorced mother, Yoshimi Matsubara (sympathetically portrayed by Hitomi Kuroki), who moves into a run-down apartment building with her 5-year-old daughter, Ikuko, while at the same time starting a new job and engaging in a custody battle. We really come to care about the plight of these two characters, especially when some decidedly creepy incidents in the building start to pile up, and this gradually escalating sense of there being something "wrong" with the building turns out to be fully justified. Whereas "Ringu" provided us with that truly terrifying TV crawl-through scene, "Dark Water" offers a scene that is also absolutely guaranteed to raise the hackles on the back of any viewer's neck (I'm thinking here of the one in the elevator near the end, natch). Similar again to "Ringu," a water container turns out to be the site of a childhood tragedy, and a lank-haired ghost girl makes for one very creepy presence. Special kudos must be given here to young Rio Kanno, in her role as Ikuko. Kanno is just remarkable, and surely one of the most adorable kids I've ever seen on film. I'd give her a 9.8 on the Cute-O-Meter. With an involving story, excellent acting, some genuine chills and that great novelist/director pedigree mentioned above, "Dark Water" is a fine example of "J-horror" indeed, and if nothing else underlines the importance of having a really good building super!

Yoshimi Matsubara (Hitomi Kuroki) is in the middle of a nasty divorce from her husband, Kunio Hamada (Fumiyo Kohinata). The biggest issue of contention is their daughter, Ikuko (Rio Kanno). Kunio accuses Yoshimi of being unstable, and he seems to have a point. Still, Yoshimi is awarded at least temporary custody of Ikuko. We see her finding an apartment for her and Ikuko to live in. They pick a less-than-ideal apartment, because it is affordable. Soon after, strange occurrences begin. Yoshimi's bedroom ceiling is developing a water stain. Mysterious puddles of water appear in different locations. An unusual item keeps appearing, despite attempts to discard it. Yoshimi periodically sees a strange girl, but only in glimpses. Ikuko begins acting oddly. On top of all this, Yoshimi is trying to go back to work, and she's having trouble balancing that with taking care of Ikuko. Things are spiraling out of control. Are the problems due to Yoshimi's divorce, or is there also something more sinister or supernatural going on?

Despite Dark Water's relatively overt similarities to a number of other filmic works, this is one of director Hideo Nakata's most successful films--at least as good as his famed Ringu (1998), if not better. I came awfully close to giving Dark Water a 10 out of 10, and can easily see myself raising my score on subsequent viewings. Many facets of the film do not open up until you see them again. For example, when fact checking something about the film shortly before writing this review, I re-watched the beginning; the opening credits are extremely eerie, but the full impact doesn't hit you until after you've seen the film once and more fully realize what you're looking at while watching the first shot.

The similarities include quite a few thematic resemblances to Ringu, which shouldn't be surprising considering that not only is Nakata the director for both films, they are both based on novels by the man who is often called "The Japanese Stephen King", at least in the Japanese press--Koji Suzuki.

Like Ringu, Dark Water's menace comes in the form of a young, long haired Japanese girl who makes frequent, mysterious appearances. Girls may be the focus because of irony--they're supposed to be cute (as is Kanno, who turns in a great performance along with her more adult fellow cast) and innocent. A girl menace should therefore be that much more unnerving.

The menace is often accompanied by water. Water was important symbolism in Ringu, too. I would venture a guess that Nakata and/or Suzuki have a fear of water. It might be more impersonal, too. Water is a powerful force, both easily adapting to its surroundings and easily molding them. It permeates much of the world. As such, it's a good visual symbol for kami, which is the Shinto "essence" or "beingness" that permeates everything, and (among many other things) can be godlike, or the soul of a dead human, or tsumi, a "pollution" form of kami which could perhaps be also at least symbolically cleansed by water.

Another important symbolic commonality shared by both Ringu and Dark Water is that of claustrophobic spaces. These occur in Ringu in forms like the well, closets and crawl spaces. Dark Water has the elevator and a structure for which you'll only realize the importance near the end of the film. Water combined with the elevator also enables Nakata to give a nice nod to Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980) in one scene.

A further similarity to Ringu is that Dark Water is just as concerned with familial problems as it is concerned with horror. In fact, the horror may only be symbolic or may only be a metaphor for familial problems (in the Ringu/Ring films, this is made even more clear in Nakata's latest, American Ring film--The Ring Two, 2005). Both feature a young mother struggling to maintain a normal existence with her only child. In Dark Water, it is particularly easy to see the horror elements as mere metaphors for Yoshimi's psychological decline and the effects it has on her daughter, which echo her own problematic childhood--we learn that her parents were also divorced when she was young, and the opening dramatic scene of the film shows Yoshimi as a child, waiting at school for someone to pick her up. We also hear her comment that her mother was "bad".

This is not to say that Dark Water has no focus on horror. Nakata's well known deliberate pacing is perfect here. The spooky events are subtle but unnerving, and Nakata achieves some amazing build-ups, such as the scene in the elevator near the end of the film, with a particularly frightening reveal. This reveal works as well as it does because Nakata takes so long to get there. He builds tension through stretching out pregnant pauses until the viewer is ready to burst. There are many such scenes throughout the film.

Dark Water also succeeds because the story is kept relatively simple and straightforward. Unlike typical American films, much of the story is "told" through implication. As a viewer, you are frequently left to figure out decisions and events based on seemingly innocuous comments in an antecedent scene followed by relationship and scenario changes in a following scene. In other words, you have to make assumptions about what has happened. That might sound complex, but the aim, which is wonderfully achieved, is actually to simplify the events on screen. Although that famous Asian horror film dream logic is still present in the supernatural events, it doesn't usurp the plot, which continues to gradually hone in on and build up the tension between Yoshimi, her husband, Ikuko, the mystery girl, and the apartment complex. The ending, which comments on all of those elements and the profound ways that they've changed, is particularly uncanny and poignant.