The Suicide Song

The IMDb category "horror" and the DVD cover of a girl burning herself to death might lead you to believe that "Suicide Song" is, well, a horror flick about girls burning themselves to death.

Surprisingly not so. If you're expecting something like the iconic morbid social satires like "Suicide Club" or "Battle Royale", you might wanna look elsewhere. Instead what you get here is oddly light-hearted, funny, and perhaps even delightfully cheesy, despite staying very close to its dark subject of suicide.

How does it accomplish this? First of all, it shies away from gratuitous gore. Instead of the obligatory blood & guts & creepy girls crawling on the floor mired in blood & guts, as we may have come to expect from Japanese flicks labeled "horror", most of the death scenes are handled with a tasteful cut-away to a distant shot. At first, the bloodthirsty vampires amongst us may feel cheated, but sit back & have a tomato juice instead, you'll soon realize that this is a much more poetic and artistic way of handling death.

Next I gotta mention the humor. There's some really funny stuff here, and I'm not just talking about corny sight gags. The characters are really quirky (especially the mildly psychotic ex-soldier turned magazine reporter), and their rapid-fire banter is at times reminiscent of a Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn tit-for-tat thing. Just be prepared to read subtitles fast if you don't speak Japanese.

And thirdly I was impressed by what the film had to say under the surface. Granted, I missed a lot because I was struggling to speed read the subtitles, but the film's commentary on the epidemic of suicide is pretty interesting stuff. There's a line where one character expresses how suicide comes in fads, ever since ancient times, tying it in with the appropriate modern reference to suicide bombers in the Middle East, and to blame suicide on any new phenomenon, ghosts or demons or as the case may be, a song, is foolish.

If I had to fault the film for one thing, it would be the second half when we depart from these abstract thoughts, and the story settles on a more literal plot. I suppose this is required to give the film closure, and on that level it delivers. But I would've been just as happy without the traditional buildup, climax & resolution, since the film seemed to be heading nicely in the direction of a rhetorical mind trip (like maybe 2001: A Space Odyssey) rather than a linear story (like maybe Star Wars). But overall, the balance between philosophy & story was well handled, and I think most people will enjoy this flick. As long as you're NOT expecting horror!

At first glance the premise of this movie is very much that of J-horror, as the title entails: a song leads people to commit suicide. Other elements match the well known formula like urban legends and the fact the demographic of a cast mostly comprised of teenage girls. But 'Suicide Song' is not at all a clone of the new wave of Asian horror movies that has become somewhat sterile.

In fact, it is not horror at all. Or hardly. Instead this movie offers a skewed social commentary on what has been deemed one of Japan's greatest problems: the disturbingly high suicide rates. There is a sense of general paranoia that drives the characters in their quest for breaking the curse. And this includes a detached military otaku (played by the ever beautiful Ryohei Matsuda) who in his research for a shady magazine becomes involved with a group of high school girls that he ends up escorting to his home town to meet up with someone with spiritual powers. This could lead to plenty of squirm worthy moments but the entire thing is as innocent as it gets. Which seems to be a self conscious decision plot-wise since the otaku's mother probes the girls for a suitable marriage partner for her son, probably a jab at otakus and their well known inability for establishing romantic (or any) relationships.

The action moves from the city to the country and there to a mansion where they barricade behind blessed charms to ward off evil. So the solution is surprisingly traditional, it is steeped in returning to a very spirit-oriented religiosity with many Shinto undertones. And yet the supernatural is almost accidental. More than anything the movie is an ironic questioning of the reasons behind suicide all spiced with mystery and poking fun at superstition and self centered attitudes. This is achieved with a degree of satisfaction that is unfortunately thwarted by a conclusion that is too jarring. The movie degenerates into a Disney-like song sequence even as it delivers the explanation behind everything. The message is thus contaminated by a lapse of good judgment that strikes one as a compromise of sorts, almost as if to broaden the a target audience by pushing for a family movie device. Which is a strange choice given the subject matter.

It is a shame that this mars an otherwise solid movie. The characters are actually likable, from the main otaku to his highly volatile colleague with his conspiracy theories without forgetting the main girl whose backstory is later revealed. Considerably less famous than 'Suicide Club', 'Suicide Song' manages to offer a bemused perspective on the same subject in a manner that is much more interesting. Perhaps because there is a greater connection between the viewer and the characters and because it does not stray off into muddled soliloquies that sound deep but are more like white noise than anything else.

'Suicide Song' may not be a work of genius but it knows how to distribute comedy and drama in almost equal amounts in a frame of social critique that does not hinder the fun element of it all.

From what little I've heard about "Suicide Song", I was expecting an uninspired horror film on the lower end of the Japanese spectrum – ala "Shikoku" (1999) or "Death Water" (2006). Fortunately, it's far better than those films and actually carves out a little niche for itself in terms of originality.

The prominent misconception about "Suicide Song" is that it's a straight-up horror movie. Well, when schoolgirls evaluate the power of ghosts by FIFA ranking and an epitaph spells "ugRy", you can be confident that you're watching a comedy. Such is the case here, as the primary intent of this film is to make you smile, not to scare you. The humor is very dry at times, but it's still rather obvious that this is a comedy first and foremost.

I've never understood why some viewers find it necessary first classify a film safely within a particular genre before sitting down to actually watch it. Perhaps these viewers are unfamiliar with genre-bending cinema to the point where they simply must judge films by a set of qualities that reside in a tiny conceptual box. If a film is supposed to be "horror", then the basic requirement is to instill fear. If a film is supposed to be a "comedy", then the basic requirement is to provoke laughter. A viewer who takes this point-of-view will surely be perplexed when they "gear up" for a horror flick and end up with a non-stop assault of dry humor instead. I personally thought the comedy worked, so maybe it's best for mainstream viewers to go into this film expecting a slower-paced comedy with a distinct Japanese style.

So, what's the story about? A number of schoolgirls commit suicide and may have been inspired by a pop song. Yes, the premise is very similar to "Suicide Circle", but this title has almost no blood, choosing instead to pile on quaint satire in truckloads with a pinch of light horror and even some melodrama near the end. Somehow, it works. Even at 125 minutes, it chugs along rather quickly and is actually satisfying when all is said and done. The actresses are charming and well-acted too.

In a nutshell, this is a very cute, family friendly comedy/horror movie with some memorable, chuckly-worthy moments.

Story revolving around Japanese teen pop group AKB48 about their song that supposedly drives people who've sang it to suicide. Producer of AKB48 Yasushi Akimoto is the writer for this movie as well.

I'm fluent in Japanese, so I watched this movie in Japanese dialog. Even so, I couldn't understand what the heck the story was all about for the first 2/3 of the movie. Many scenes cuts in and out but there isn't a thread that holds the story together.

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised as the originator of this movie is Yasushi Akimoto. This guy can be blamed for single handedly lowering the quality of overall Japanese entertainment business by mass marketing untalented teenage girls as "idols" (AKB48 being a prime example) since the mid '80s just for his fame and money. He genuinely believes that any negative comments about his work is due to stupidity of the person who doesn't understand the greatness of his talent (in his own actual words). Just watch this movie. Can you see any talent in any of the girls who are cast in this movie ?

Because there's no central focal character (none of the girls would be able to carry a leading role), the movie itself tends to wander around girls going here and there, with not much happening. Towards the end, some light is shed on why the girls are dying and a resolution to the problem is suggested, so there's some story that starts emerge, but the rest of the movie is just a mess. If you see other movies Akimoto has written, he has a schizophrenic style to writing which doesn't help with a story that already lacks focal point like this one.

Quality takes time and effort, and just like the difference between a cuisine of a three star restaurant and an instant noodle, this movie is a proof that trying to make instant success just doesn't work.

Watch this movie for the "Huh ?" factor, and if you've wondered about it's low quality, you know why.