Pulse - Kairo

A group of young people in Tokyo begin to experience strange phenomena involving missing co-workers and friends, technological breakdown, and a mysterious website which asks the compelling question, "Do you want to meet a ghost?"

Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa spent years working in the world of "pink" films and direct-to-video movies. He was at this time best known in the west for "Cure" (1997), though it was "Pulse" that would make him an international sensation. Assisting him is cinematographer Junichiro Hayashi, known for two other J-horror modern classics, "Ring" and "Dark Water".

"Pulse" was released at the right time for American audiences to latch on to. The American version of "The Ring" came out in 2002, and sparked a wider interest in Japanese horror, kicking off a wave of remakes. This also helped get the originals a wider distribution in the States -- "Pulse" being among those, as well as "Audition" and many of the Takashi Miike films that had previously been very niche.

Kurosawa uses this film not just to tell a good ghost story, but to explore "the horror of isolation" in a world of increased inter-connectivity. With its dreary, depressing color palette and empty space, we find this story about the Internet to truly be about loneliness. Whether intentional or not, it is a clever social commentary that may be more true today (2017) than it was at the time.

Some early reviews were critical because the film is heavier on style than substance and the narrative is not completely coherent. But since then, praise has only grown. In 2012, Jaime Christley of Slant magazine listed the film as one of the greatest of all time. In the early 2010s, Time Out conducted a poll with several authors, directors, actors and critics who have worked within the horror genre to vote for their top horror films. "Pulse" placed at number 65 on their top 100 list.

The Arrow Video Blu-ray is a fine package and a great excuse to re-visit this film. Contents include (but are not limited to) new interviews with writer/director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (at an astounding 43 minutes!), actor Show Aikawa and cinematographer Junichiro Hayashi (24 minutes); "The Horror of Isolation", a new video appreciation featuring Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett; an archive 'making of' documentary, plus four archive behind-the-scenes featurettes.

A cold, creepy & confounding horror that unfortunately overstays its welcome in the end, Pulse (also known as Kairo) is downright eerie during the first act as it creates an ominous aura of dread & uncertainty with its uncanny premise, freaky imagery & inexplicable body counts but thanks to its glacial pace, uninviting quality & overlong runtime, sitting through it is a slog.

Written & directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the film is devoid of cheap tricks & clichéd elements that plague most horror films and makes for an interesting examination of isolation & loneliness. Kurosawa allows plenty of space for the plot to unravel but it also slows down the narrative by a considerable extent. And with no deftly scripted character to latch on to, it becomes an infuriating journey.

Also lessening the overall impact is the uneven script & seemingly opaque structure that has our curiosity at first but slowly loses it as the story crawls towards the finish line. An added focus on a single storyline instead of two, a steadier pace than usual & a bit more transparency could've enhanced the overall experience without diluting its effectiveness. It is 119 mins long on paper but feels twice as lengthy.

Overall, Pulse isn't going to appeal to everyone's taste but for those who have the endurance to sit through this chore and patiently connect with what Kurosawa was going for here may find the ride rewarding. The snail-paced narration is probably a deliberate choice but it also alienates the film from a wider viewership. Nonetheless, for those who are sick & tired of the typical, predictable & thinly layered horror films, Pulse might just be what they are looking for.

What could have been just another RING rip-off turns out to be one of the most thought-provoking and genuinely eerie films I've seen come out of Japan: it's a film in which the door between the living and the dead is accidentally opened, leading to all manner of sinister events as it transpires that the dead are returning to Earth.

Like most J-horrors of the past decade, PULSE is a slow burner that moves almost glacially, gradually slotting in the various pictures of the jigsaw as its final game plan becomes apparent. Saying too much would spoil the intriguing, dream-like narrative, suffice to say that this is a film that doesn't disappoint at any stage during its progress. The 'ghost' segments are supremely creepy and disturbing, countered neatly by shock suicide scenes and a clever bit of FX involving a plane that was later cribbed for Alex Proyas's Hollywood movie KNOWING.

The cast give typically understated performances that increase in intensity as the character list is gradually whittled down, leading to one heck of a grim climax. Altogether, I can't fault the direction, writing, acting as all three combine to deliver an imaginative and thoughtful ghost story that's extremely different from most of what's come before.

This film starts out well, doing all the right stuff. It had me going for awhile.

But it get's slower, and slower, and slower--not to mention murkier. It is one of those films that would have worked fine as a 90 minute movie--even with some flaws.

But , anyway, this film goes on for about two hours, long after the viewer's interest has begun to wander and you've started scratching your head, wondering exactly what is happening.

Toward the end it kind of degenerates into overly long scenes of people running around in blasted, derelict industrial buildings breathing very hard into their microphones and shouting uninspired, predictable dialogue.

Some things just aren't very dramatic. Longish scenes of people poking around in pretty much abandoned industrial settings looking for stuff and breathing hard into their microphones isn't dramatic.

By the end, we are working our way through a checklist of horror movie clichés in excruciatingly slow motion. Ancient horror movie clichés have to be executed with a certain cleverness, a certain panache, and perhaps a little inventive camera work/cutting. Some snappy dialogue, some attitude. Or maybe you just have to get them out of the way fast. That's not what happens in this film.

The premise is rather interesting, but some of the exposition kind of conflicts with the stated premise--unless the stated premise was a red-herring. It's hard to tell from what they give you on screen and the film didn't motivate me to try to figure it out.

So, nice idea, good start ... really, really slow, pretty much unimaginative ending.

Maybe if they had had a bigger special effects budget ...

I don't want to give away anything about this wonderful, haunting film. If you liked "The Sixth Sense", "The Others" or "Ring", this will show you how those films pale in comparison. I felt my skin crawl so many times, and the movie has been haunting my thoughts for days now. I sincerely hope that a wider audience has a chance to experience this dark, beautiful film.