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Kairo (Pulse) Blu-Ray Review
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Cast:
*Haruhiko Katô as Ryosuke Kawashima
*Kumiko Asô as Michi Kudo
*Koyuki as Harue Karasawa
*Kurume Arisaka as Junko Sasano
*Masatoshi Matsuo as Toshio Yabe
Story: 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?” After the unexpected suicides of several friends, three strangers set out to explore a city which is growing more empty by the day, and to solve the mystery of what lies within a forbidden room in an abandoned construction site, mysteriously sealed shut with red packing tape.
Asian horror had a big boom in the late 90s and early 00s, especially when it came to interest in the country from the US. Horror fans on message boards would trade messages about films like Ring, Ju-On, The Eye, or Audition. The interest likely caught the attention of major studios, as many of those movies ended up getting remade for American audiences. The Ring kicked that off and after it was a hit, we saw Dark Water, The Grudge and One Missed Call, among several mediocre-to-awful revisions of films that didn’t need them. One of the absolute worst of these is the 2006 film Pulse, a nonsensical mess with cheap jump scares and a muddled script, among other things.
The only good things about these remakes is that they opened more eyes to the foreign releases, as studios released them stateside to capitalize on the Hollywood fame. The release of The Ring saw Ring (renamed Ringu) get a DVD release, followed by an anthology of all four films. The Grudge‘s success got a DVD release of Ju-On: the Grudge from Lions Gate, who otherwise might not have bothered, a month later. The same thing happened with Kairo, the 2001 Japanese film that Pulse was drawn from, as it was released a few months prior.
The story of Pulse concerns a group of young people who soon become aware of ghosts that are using the internet to cross dimensions. Once they do, they haunt people and drain them of their will to live. This results in an outbreak of suicides worldwide, as well as sometimes people just disappearing or dissolving into ash. We follow a couple of young people as they try to save their loved ones, avoid the ghosts and generally survive the end of the world.
There’s something about the mood of Kairo that sets it apart from its contemporaries at the time. In something like Ring or Ju-On, there’s a definite sense of dread. In Kairo, that changes into something akin to hopelessness and depression. Not that it’s a depressing film, but the scope of the outbreak and the inability of our heroes to stop it can make one feel bad for the characters that are still alive. Perhaps the ghosts have it right. If they’re dead and with the spirits, they won’t be alone in a world that’s rapidly becoming devoid of life.
In addition to a bleak atmosphere, there are quite a few scares and creepy images to get under your skin. The ghosts in general move in a way that’s not jittery like modern Hollywood ghosts. Instead they move in an unnatural and distorted way. And their very appearance crosses into the uncanny valley as they don’t quite look real enough. It’s actually a case where if they are bad CGI effects, they actually accentuate the film to give the spirits an alien feel about them. It also helps that they’re mostly seen in shadow, to avoid demystifying them.
Of course, this film doesn’t really bother with demystifying anything. Details of the story, such as how the spirits suck the life out of people, why red tape stops them or why every victim eventually disintegrates into ash, are never really explained. The gist of the story makes sense, but thinking too long about it will make one’s head hurt. Perhaps that’s why it was so difficult to translate. It’s more about evoking a mood and feeling than it is telling a coherent story. While that doesn’t always work, even in this movie, the best parts of it manage to overcome the weakest.
It’s actually quite a shame that except for hardcore fans, most will only know this story as the American flop that starred Kristen Bell instead of what Kairo actually is. While Kairo is, at times, style over substance, it packs enough creepy visuals and haunting atmosphere to make up for several of its story shortcomings. It’s also miles ahead of the American remake, which should never be seen by anyone.
Film: 7.5
Arrow Video presents this movie in Japanese LPCM 2.0 audio. It sounds good, the voices are clear (particularly the haunting whispers of the ghosts) and there were no real issues.
Audio: 7.5
The video on the other hand, is where this release is at its weakest. However, that doesn’t appear to be the fault of Arrow. It seems that the original source material was just shot in a way that makes it look dull and lifeless. Maybe that was the point. It seems especially grainy in spots and has a video-like quality in others. That may just be a stylistic choice and it does seem that Arrow did the best with what they had. It has an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1.
Video: 6.0
Special Features
Kiyoshi Kurosawa: Broken Circuits: The writer and director of Kairo talks about his career and this minor horror classic. This was my favorite feature on the disc, mostly because it’s always interesting to hear from the director when a film is as unique as this is.
Junichiro Hiyashi: Creepy Images: The director of photography goes into the various shots of the film.
The Horror of Isolation: An odd choice, as Blair Witch director Adam Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett talk about how the film influenced them. It’s nice to see the film’s impact but it seems out of place.
Archival Making of Featurette: A 40-minute, somewhat extensive making-of documentary from one of the film’s earlier releases.
You also get some NHK station IDs (actors introduce the station and promote their movie), TV spots, footage from the Tokyo premiere and footage from the film’s screening at the Cannes Film Festival. There’s enough here for fans to be satisfied, although the lack of a trailer is surprising (albeit not a dealbreaker).
Special Features: 7.0
