Premonition

Excellent Japanese psychological horror film.

Not a lot of blood or scariness; this film is a mind game.

Long time Japanese actor Hiroshi Mikami sees his daughter's death minutes before it happens. His wife, Noriko Sakai (star of the Japanese version of The Grudge 2), thinks he is crazy and they split.

But, she investigates further and finds a strange Japanese legend about premonition.

They find out what happens if you try to change it, and he has to choose his destiny.

Tense drama, slow at times, but a great ending.

An effective combination of 'change the future'-style sci-fi thriller and traditional Japanese horror. PREMONITION tells the story of an ordinary man caught up in some extraordinary events…and the dark avenues to which he is eventually led as a result of this.

Things kick off with a shocking set-piece in which a young girl is killed in one of those accidents that are filmed so well in Asian cinema. Years later and the father blames himself for not saving her, as he was warned by a newspaper article in the moments before her death. Soon he becomes convinced that he can go back in time to save her, and becomes involved with various psychics who claim to be able to see the future.

What follows is both familiar and unpredictable at the same time. Director Norio Tsuruta, hot off making RING 0, shoots this as a horror rather than science fiction film, so incorporates various scare sequences that end up being very effective. There's little to no gore here, just a creeping psychological approach that pays dividends as the story progresses. I defy anyone not to jump in their seat at the 'faceless ghost' scene.

The pacing is rather slow – when isn't it in a J-horror? – but it gradually picks up as the film builds momentum, culminating in a blistering climax involving our protagonist hopping through realities at a dizzying pace. It reminded me of the hilarious extended fight climax of Wes Craven's SHOCKER, although of course it's treated seriously here. Hiroshi Mikami is excellent as the haunted protagonist – think of the calibre of Hiroyuki Sanada in Ring and you'll be close – and the film as a whole never pulls its punches.

While stopped at a roadside phone boot for transmitting his work through Internet to the university, Professor Hideki Satomi (Hiroshi Mikami) finds a scrap of newspaper with the picture of his five years old daughter Nana (Hana Inoue) in the obituary. He sees his wife Ayaka Satomi (Noriko Sakai) trying to release their daughter from the seat-belt, when a truck without steer hits his car killing Nana. Three years later, Hideki is divorced from Ayaka, who is researching paranormal persons who claim to have read an evil newspaper anticipating the future still trying to believe on Hideki, and she finds that there are people cursed to foresee the future but without power to save the victims. When Hideki changes the future saving Ayaka, he becomes trapped in hell and he has to make a choice of his own destiny.

"Yogen" is another eerie Japanese horror movie, fortunately not spoiled yet by an American remake. The creepy story about a cursed professor that blames himself for not saving the life of his daughter, destroying his own life, is very weird, original and scary. The scene with the car accident is very impressive, and when Hideki is trapped in hell, the slow pace of the film changes to a frightening sequence. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Terror da Premonição" ("The Terror of the Premonition")

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be able to see into the future? To predict events before they happen? Well, PREMONITION presents us with the darker, bleaker side of this concept.

What if you knew about an upcoming tragedy or disaster? Would you attempt to alter the outcome? Unfortunately, in this film, there appears to be a high price to be paid, regardless of what is done. Or, not done. If your itch is scratched by stories about otherworldly events and the creeping unknown, you've hit pay dirt!...

Skillfully edited and highly tensioned, Yogen is one every so often discussed psycho-horror. It's been produced from the idea of the same titled Japanese comic book of 1950s' and follows the storyline of a solid Japanese novel from the same decade. The comic book creates a heroic theme out of a psychic family man who saves his family from a traffic accident, while the novel focuses on precognitive newspaper delusions seen by ordinary people.

In the opening scene, giving a little clue of the main idea, we're being introduced to a middle-aged female victim of a paranormal incident taken from a newspaper article. She is being tested over her newly acquired supernatural skills at an university research laboratory. The second scene, where main characters are introduced, has the heart-wrenching traffic accident that gives cause for a chain of more alike accidents. The common trait of each accident is that they both have precognitive warnings to their survivors. The survivors of this first accident were parents to a 5-year-old singleton, who got killed in the accident. To their surprise their daughter has been the only vein that holds them together. Atfer the death of their daughter they get parted. They both keep receiving precognitive warnings for next alike accidents of their colleagues, disciples, friends and relatives.

Over the last few years we've seen likes of this idea in Hollywood. With Sandra Bullock, also with Nicolas Cage there were either action or drama based films displayed. Among all, Yogen has the most influential message: Everyone has tremendous abilities hidden inside that might become surfaced once in a while for everyone. But we're not born to behave like angels or daemons. To have psychic skills is no means of becoming stronger or wiser. Uncontrolled power is not power at all, and we're not born to have such powers.

With extreme usage of melodrama and surrealist pen-portraits, Yogen is a one-way ticket for travelling into a metaphysical world of limitless secrets, symbols, dreams and intuition where time has lost its permanence.