Higanjima

I found "Higanjima: Escape From Vampire Island" to be a rather entertaining movie. And as for an Asian vampire movie, it was a nice change to see it not being those hopping vampires. I assume that being credited to this being a Japanese vampire movie, and not a Chinese.

The story in "Higanjima: Escape From Vampire Island" is about a group of young people being brought out to a mysterious island that isn't on any maps, where they are looking for Atsushi, Akira's brother who has been missing for two years. Something is very wrong on the island, however, and the young people soon find themselves surrounded by vampires. The entire island is controlled by Miyabi, the master vampire. Will the group be able to slay Miyabi and make it off the island alive?

Actually the storyline is a bit 'mainstream' and borrowing from various movies, so it doesn't really offer all that much new and innovating material. But still, it worked out well enough, because the storyline is well accompanied by lots of action, thrills and good acting.

Not being familiar with the Manga upon which this movie is based, I have no idea how true (or not) the movie is to the Manga. So I watched the movie without any prior information about it and without having been influenced by the Manga. I found "Higanjima: Escape From Vampire Island" to be fun and overall exciting. The fight scenes were well choreographed and the characters were nice and well cut out.

So if you like Japanese cinema and enjoy vampire movies (where vampires don't have sparkly skin, big hair, and are romanticized) then you should give "Higanjima: Escape From Vampire Island" a chance.

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

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.

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

If that particular thing is your thing, you will rate it higher.

If it is not, you will be underwhelmed as it caters to the tropes and conventions of Japanese comic books.

I found the villain outright ridiculous in a laughably bad way. Too many of the other characters are irritating too - just slightly less so. Like the whiny kid in the letterman jacket and the other two who seemed to find plenty of hair product while playing Japanese Undead Survivor.

Oh, and I wasn't impressed by the CGI either.

Even the action seemed mostly dull.

Also things are left unexplained. Like why the big guy was sometimes chained up in the village of the resistance.

I did like the heavy metal score though. And forklift lady.

It took me several years to finally clear this off my playlist. It was that little of a priority to watch. Finishing it just proved so.