Hideo Nakata Movies
The most phenomenally successful Japanese horror film ever produced, Hideo Nakata's Ringu spawned no less than a television series, two sequels, and an American remake during the four short years following it's original release. In addition to igniting a trend of what many now refer to as "J-horror," Ringu propelled Nakata and such contemporaries as Kiyoshi Kurasawa (Kairo (2001), Korei (2000)) to the forefront of modern horror by emphasizing an overwhelming sense of dread and distrust of technology while avoiding the familiar horror pratfalls of gore, overuse of computer-generated graphics, and hokey self-references.Born in Okayama, Japan, in 1961, Nakata enrolled at the University of Tokyo to study Journalism. The relocation from the countryside to the city gave Nakata access to about 300 films per year, and numerous odd jobs on movie sets found him increasingly intrigued by the process of filmmaking. Following graduation, Nakata subsequently found work as an assistant director at the infamous Nikkatsu studios, and though he showed no particular interest in becoming a horror director at that point in his career, it was under the mentorship of Masaru Konuma that Nakata received his true education in the world of film production. Nakata came into his own behind the camera with his 1992 directorial debut, the made-for-TV God's Hand, which also paired him with future Ringu writer Hiroshi Takahashi. Although it was four years before the fledgling director would make Ghost Actress, that film found Nakata exploring themes similar to those of Ringu two years later. Approached by Ringu author Suzuki Koji about adapting his novel -- the so-called Stephen King of Japan had been impressed by the director's work on Ghost Actress -- Nakata once again joined forces with Takahashi and transformed the story into a landmark film that would change the face of Japanese horror cinema. A waking nightmare that traced the mystery of a cursed videotape to one of the most terrifying figures in modern films, Ringu was a phenomenon both at home and abroad, paving the way for a successful Nakata-directed sequel. Not wanting to be pigeonholed as a genre director, however, he next utilized his skill for creating suspense to create a staggering thriller concerning the kidnapping of a wealthy businessman's wife. A nail-biting mindbender that recalled some of Alfred Hitchcock's finest moments, Chaos proved to be yet another hit for Nakata. After exploring his roots with a documentary about Konuma entitled Sadistic and Masochistic (2000), the filmmaker stepped back into the world of menacing supernatural terror with 2002's Dark Water. Similar in tone and theme to Ringu, the tale of a mother and daughter haunted by apparitions after moving into a dilapidated tenement building chilled Japanese audiences once again. Following an American version of Ringu -- The Ring (2002) -- and a planned remake Chaos starring Robert De Niro and Benicio Del Toro in 2004, it seemed as if Nakata's reputation as master of the macabre was well established, leaving terrified audiences nervously pondering his next move. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
A handful of teenagers make the mistake of baring their souls to the wrong person in this thriller. Eva (Imogen Poots) is a young model whose good looks and poise disguise her aching doubts about herself and her wishes she could be more like others. Jim (Matthew Beard) is still wrestling with the demons brought on by a painful childhood and tries to beat back his fears with drugs. Emily (Hannah Murray) feels plain and unattractive and is filled with resentment towards her ambitious father and mother. And Mo (Daniel Kaluuya) struggles with his sexual desires for children, in particular the sister of a close friend. These four young people are frequent visitors to an internet chat room, where they can talk about their fears and anxieties while being drawn out by the compassionate moderator. But the man who runs the chat room is not all he seems. William (Aaron Johnson) is the unstable and neglected son of a successful author (Megan Dodds); he's grown to hate his more confident brother Ripley (Richard Madden) and has established the chat room in order to manipulate others to his own ends by getting them to share their secrets and using this knowledge against them. Chatroom was the second English-language feature from Japanese horror veteran Hideo Nakata. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Matthew Beard, Aaron Johnson, (more)
Sydney Wells (Jessica Alba) has been given the gift of sight, but it comes with a horrifying price in the English-language remake of Danny and Oxide Pang's The Eye. The double corneal transplant was to open up a new world for Sydney, a concert violinist whose blindness has plagued her since childhood. With the help of Dr. Paul Faulkner (Alessandro Nivola) and sister Helen (Parker Posey), Sydney's operation and recovery seemed to be on the road to success -- until horrific images start to tear their way into her newfound vision. What's worse is that these episodes appear to foreshadow future deadly events, leading Sydney on a mission to track down the person whose eyes she has inherited and discover what kind of mystery from beyond the grave lies before her. The film is directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud, the duo behind the acclaimed 2006 French terror flick Them, and is produced by Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner under their Cruise/Wagner production banner. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jessica Alba, Alessandro Nivola, (more)
A detective has a tight deadline to crack a case that could claim the lives of millions in this crime drama, a spin-off from the Desu Notu (Death Note) franchise. L (Kenichi Matsuyama) is a cop with a serious sweet tooth and a fondness for gadgets who has been handed a very important assignment. A group of environmental radicals who want to decimate the Earth's population in the name of a greener world have gotten their hands on a potent man-made virus that could wipe out half the globe if it is released. It's L's job to track down the eco-terrorists and see that the virus is kept under wraps, but after signing his own name in the Death Book, he's given himself only 23 days to bring the radicals to justice. L: Change the World was the opening-night attraction at the 2008 Udine Far East Film Festival and was a major box-office success in Japan. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kenichi Matsuyama
Hideo Nakata, director of Ringu and The Ring Two, returns to terrify fright fans with this ghostly tale of supernatural vengeance. When the young victim of a terrible curse accidentally injures his wife - a jealous teacher - the woman quickly succumbs to sickness and dies. Ignoring the dead woman's warning that she will return to haunt him if he dares remarry, the undaunted widower runs away with one of her former students. He thought he was starting over; little did he realize that his new life would soon become a never-ending nightmare of unrelenting horror. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
A terrifying legacy haunts a single mother in this sequel to the frightening box-office hit The Ring. Hoping to leave their terrifying experiences in Seattle behind them, Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) and her son, Aidan (David Dorfman), move to the small town of Astoria, OR, where Rachel takes a job writing for the local newspaper. When Rachel learns of an unexplained murder, which occurred after a teenager watched a strange videotape with his girlfriend, she suspects her past is following her and she begins looking into the case. Rachel believes that the otherworldly Samara has come back; however, as she tries to convince others of the young girl's powers, her own son falls ill and is hospitalized, and Rachel's stories fail to convince either Dr. Emma Temple (Elizabeth Perkins), who suspects Rachel is guilty of child abuse, or David Rourke (Simon Baker), one of Rachel's colleagues who fears for Aidan's safety. Also starring Sissy Spacek, The Ring 2 was directed by Hideo Nakata; it was the first English-language project for the Japanese filmmaker, who previously made Ringu, the picture that was the basis for The Ring. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Naomi Watts, Simon Baker, (more)
- 2003
An elderly actor makes a belated effort to revive his career in this sentimental drama. In 1965, Ken Mihara (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is an young leading man whose career is on the rise after a series of increasingly successful movies in which he co-stars with actress Keiko Yoshino (Yumi Aso). However, that same year Ken's career is given a one-two punch -- Keiko decides to quit the business to get married, and the rise in popularity of television puts a serious dent in the sale of movie tickets. With the movie business on shaky ground, Ken's career goes into a downspin, and his reputation for professionalism is ruined after he gets into an argument with a stagehand which turns into a fist fight. After the death of his wife, Chizuru (Mayumi Wakamura), Ken vanishes from the public eye. In the year 2000, Ken (now played by Johnny Yoshinaga) quietly re-emerges; though his health is poor, he's able to land a small role in a low-budget drama playing a patient on the verge of death. However, Ken's joy to be acting again is tempered by his frustration with the soulless, assembly-line production methods which have replaced the fertile creative atmosphere he remembers. Last Scene was a change of pace for Japanese filmmaker Hideo Nakata, best known for his stylish horror films such as The Ring and Dark Water. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Hidetoshi Nishijima, Yumi Aso, (more)
Following up on his horror smash hits Ringu and Ringu 2, Hideo Nakata directs this supernatural psychological drama about a middle aged woman struggling to cling to her sanity. Yoshimi Matsubara (Hitomi Kuroki) is the midst of a nasty divorce with her thuggish, abusive husband over the custody of their five year old daughter Ikuko (Rio Kanno). In Japan's family court system, which is heavily weighted towards the mother, Yoshimi case would normally be a piece of cake. Unfortunately, Yoshimi has a history of mental imbalance as a result of her miserable, emotionally starved childhood. The transition from housewife to independent working woman has been stressful. She has moved into a fleabag of an apartment -- completely with a constantly leaking roof -- and has had little luck finding employment. Worse, Ikuko and then Yoshimi start seeing a creepy little girl dressed in yellow suddenly appearing in apartment. With a growing sense of dread, Yoshimi starts having outbursts not only in family court, but also at her daughter's kindergarten. When she slumps into a coma after the end of one such fit, she realizes what the girl in yellow is trying to communicate. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Hitomi Kuroki, Rio Kanno, (more)
Following up on the wild success of Ring and Ring 2, Hideo Nakata takes a break from spine-chilling horror to direct his labyrinthine postmodern crime thriller based on a book by Shogo Utano. After wealthy businessman Takayuki Komiyama (Ken Mitsuichi) finishes lunch with his beautiful wife Saori (played by pop star Miki Nakatani) at a tony Western restaurant, he discovers that she has disappeared while he was paying the bill. When he returns to his office, he gets a phone call informing him that she has been kidnapped, and demanding a huge ransom. With police detective Hamaguchi (Jun Kunimura) looking on, Komiyama sets out to a lonely highway to drop off the money, only Saori is not there. Cut to a flashback where the kidnapper named Kuroda (Masato Hagiwara) gets a call from Saori. Being in the profession of doing strange and shady things for all kinds of people, he agrees to fake Saori's kidnapping for a cool million yen. Saori apparently feels that her husband is looking elsewhere for affection, and wants to get out while the getting is good. Flash forward to Kuroda returning to his office with ransom money in hand, only to find the trussed up dead body on his floor. The phone rings and the anonymous caller tells Kuroda that he knows he killed Saori. But is Saori really dead? ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
Hideo Nakata follows up on the phenomenal success of Ringu -- the highest grossing Japanese film up to that point -- with this effort. In the previous film, Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) was a television reporter doing a piece on a videotape that seemed to kill those who watched it. Not long after learning that the cause of the killing was a vengeful spirit named Sadako who inhabited the video, Reiko's researcher ex-husband (Hiroyuki Sanada) died a painful death, and the fate of Reiko's son, Yoichi (Rikiya Otaka) -- who watched the tape -- was in doubt. Ring 2 opens with an autopsy of Sadako, whose supernatural rage was sparked when she was dumped in a well. Sadako's powers affect Yoichi, who survived the video and has become a medium of sorts for the wraith. Also affected is Reiko's dead husband's mistress, Mai Takano (played by pop star Miki Nakatani), whose life has become a living nightmare. Also under Sadako's power is Masami Kurahashi (Hitomi Sato), who was a schoolmate of one of Sadako's first victims. Though many try to get to the bottom of the problem -- including a psychologist (Fumiyo Kohinata) and a police detective (Kenjiro Ishimaru) -- the bodies start piling up. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Miki Nakatani, Hitomi Sato, (more)
In this psychological horror story from Japan, a legend circulates among teenagers that if one watches a certain video at a certain time of the night, the telephone will ring right afterward, and one week later, you will die. When Masami (Hitomi Sato) tells her friend Imako this story, she scoffs -- but a week later, Imako dies in an auto accident. Imako's aunt, a television journalist named Reiko (Nanako Matsushima), hears that not long before she died, Imako was watching a strange video with her friends -- all of whom have turned up dead. Reiko tracks down a copy of the video, and as she watches its strange, spectral images, the telephone begins to ring....The next morning, Reiko begins a desperate search to solve the mystery of the video, convinced she has only seven days to live; assisting her is Ryuji (Hiroyuki Sanada), a mathematics expert and her former husband. Ringu was a box-office success in its native Japan, and a surprise blockbuster in Hong Kong, where it became the biggest grossing film of the first half of 1999. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Nanako Matsushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, (more)
- 1996
Hideo Nakata, director of the Japanese horror phenomenon, Ringu, made his feature debut with Joyurei, or Ghost Actress, also known as Don't Look Up. Nakata worked from a screenplay by Hiroshi Takahashi, who also wrote the screenplay for Ringu 2. On the set of a dark WWII drama, a young director, Murai, works with two actresses playing sisters. He clearly has a bit of a crush on Hitomi, the older actress, and keeps a photo of her by his bedside. The younger actress, Saori, is inexperienced and playful. One day the production uses discarded tail ends from other productions to shoot, and when they're looking at the dailies later, they see the scene they were shooting interrupted by a scene (with no sound) from an earlier film. There's a horrified woman onscreen, with another woman, out of focus, laughing maniacally in the background. There's also a shot going up a dark stairway to an attic. The footage looks strangely familiar to Murai, who insists that he saw it on television as a boy and was haunted by it. "Have you ever seen a movie and not been able to get it out of your head?" he asks his producer. Murai and Hitomi begin to have strange visions of a ghostly woman around the studio. Murai, obsessed with the footage, gives it to an old editor and asks him to find out its origin. A crewmember tells Murai of another soundstage he worked on that had a ghost in the rafters. One day there's a tragic death on the set, and the production shuts down for a formal investigation. Murai looks into his own past, and finds a frightening connection between the film he's shooting and the strange footage he's uncovered. The film stars Ren Osugi, Yurei Yanagi, and Yasuyo Shirashima. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi
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