Psycho Shark

JAWS IN JAPAN (PSYCHO SHARK) While America has produced 100's of killer shark B-movies Asia surprisingly hasn't. Shark attacks are actually very rare in Japan and this is the only J-shark movie I've been able to find.

Have you ever wanted to watch a film that captures that feeling of boredom of sitting, sleeping in a hotel room with nothing to do? Then this movie is for you! Unfortunately for most who seek out this movie they weren't searching for an Asian or Euro Art film. NO they came for a shark film. And if it weren't for the title you'd be forgiven to think you were watching an incompetent J-horror found footage film, a student film attempt a psychological thriller OR more likely you'd think you were just watching someones raw video footage of their Okinawa beach vacation.

The protagonists are two young women on vacation in Okinawa. They aren't your scrawny Japanese types but full bodied, vivacious women. They're hard to distinguish from each other as they both have similar facial features, body types and long hair. Even tho there's lots of scenes of them bantering with each other we learn nothing about them and we're given no distinct personality traits to tell them apart. Tho we do get lots of cleavage shots.

All the scenes last way too long - with no story points or plot and many scenes are repeated adding more padding to the movie. Most of the movie is video 'found footage' but the movie also switches to locked off omnipresent-view shots. 30 minutes in nothing much happens, it's honestly like watching someones unedited vacation footage. There is a serial killer Psycho POV type shower scene (is it a land shark? the spirit of the shark?). About 36 min we finally see a bad CG shark fin indicating that indeed this is supposed to be a shark movie (filmmakers using VFX pay attention to EYELINE! Where is your actor looking at)

One of the main characters then spends much of her time watching a video tape she finds in the room and in RINGU like scenes watches another group of young Japanese beach vacationers who also become main characters - tho none of the characters are given any personality traits.

The women are seduced by a young local guy named Kenji and we are hinted this has something to do with a shark. Watch out for those charming local beach boys! There's some evil afoot but did the filmmakers really want to make a shark movie?

At 1 hour 10 min JAWS IN JAPAN could prob be re-cut into an artsy 5 min psychological thriller short.

Wow…what a dud.

A word of advice to filmmakers…if you have a movie that features many well endowed bikini clad Japanese girls and a script with a bizarre shark cult and a real big shark…show the shark for more than five seconds and show some freaking t&a!

What a colossal bore overall. By reusing the same found footage over and over, you may have helped the running time, but not the viewers enjoyment. The viewer will be hard pressed not to use the fast forward button to get to the "action" scenes or scenes that they think may carry some weight or gravity to further the razor thin storyline.

All that being said, the Free Willy moment at the end was a laugh inducer.

I don't know about you, but I always enjoy seeing pretty girls on vacation, giggling and posing for the camera in their bikinis. Maybe that's just me, though. Lots of suspense, not much horror, although the evil psycho "shark" is very wicked indeed. And it's a shame the cuties have their vacation spoiled. It just goes to show that if you're going to plan a trip to an exotic local, you really should make reservations and know where it is you are going.

All in all, this movie seemed a lot longer than it was, since nothing much really happened until the very end. And it was odd that those bikini tops never even came off; that might have livened things up a bit.

Just to clarify. The film has a running time of one hour and six minutes, which is set entirely on land. Not an exaggeration, just a fact. This should warn you how little shark action there is. NONE!

This film is based on the false premise that even a bad 'Jaws' rip off is still a 'Jaws' rip off. How hard can it be? All you need is a giant killer shark eating people. Cut, print!

After seeing over 30 sharkxploitation films I know this isn't true. 'Jaws' rip offs can be bad. Really really really bad!!! Like 'Cruel Jaws' or 'The Last Shark.' This one takes the prize.

It's more a rip off of 'Paranormal Inactivity' than it is 'Jaws.' Hence it's really really bad. It's a "found footage" film of girls on vacation filming themselves. So it's not as painful as 'Paranormal Activity' because they're speaking Japanese so the characters are less annoying.

Scary music plays when the girls are either taking a shower or alone in their hotel rooms. Begging the question, who's filming this? Why is scary music playing? The killer isn't Jason, it's a shark. The shark isn't going to break into their hotel room! We know this!

This might actually have made sense of the girls were out on a yacht where the shark could attack them. But chartering a boat would require actual money from the film makers.

The rest of the film is also ON LAND! The first rule of a sharkxploitation film is to get your characters out on the water where they can be eaten! The shark can't come ashore!

The supposed "action" scenes are also on LAND! That's right. They're in three feet of water on the beach when the shark shows up! This isn't scary! They can walk away! A great white can't get you in three feet of water! This isn't scary!

Just to clarify. The film has a running time of one hour and six minutes, which is set entirely on land! Not an exaggeration, just a fact. This should warn you how little action there is.

At least the film does barrow from 'Baywatch's success. Silicone, silicone, and even more silicone! This is exploited for all it's worth with tons of scenes of the girls jumping up and down screaming for help and even a scene where a knife is held by cleavage. Yes, they're all Japanese girls which makes this even funnier.

Don't watch this film!

You know how irritating it is, when watching a horror movie, you have to wait an awful long time before something significant or even remotely horrific happens? Tension building is a good thing, but depending on the type of movie you rented, you sometimes just want to see blood and carnage, like it's illustrated on the DVD cover and the stills on the back of the box. Well, "Psycho Shark" brings this sentiment of annoyance to a whole brand new dimension… Please, if you're not familiar with this title, I invite you to perform a search via Google Images and have a good look at the poster image. You will most likely encounter a poster of a shark emerging with wide open jaws, ready to swallow a victim in bikini, as well as stills from a ridiculous over-sized shark practically eating an entire wharf. Looks pretty cool, doesn't it? The painful truth, however, is that all these images are a bunch of shenanigans. "Psycho Shark", or "Jaws in Japan" as it is also known, isn't about raging sharks at all. More than an hour of this already relatively short movie centers on two beautiful and (very) young girls on vacation. The girls have fun and film each other in their too tight bikinis while a sinister young man observes them from a distance. For you see, the shark in the title is probably symbolic as we're dealing with a pervert with a little plastic shark on his key ring. Lame! Until suddenly and completely out of the blue, two minutes before the ending, the worst computer engineered fake shark in the history of bad horror cinema emerges from the water. The few courageous viewers who managed to last this long will be amazed at how awful the digital shark looks. I bet director John Hijiri has a profound explanation about the psychological depth and metaphors hidden in his film, but quite frankly I don't think anyone cares. When people rent a film with a bloodthirsty shark on the cover, they want to see just that!