KOMA (2004)

Country: China

Genre: Thriller / Horror

Running Time: 85'

Director:

Chi-Leung Law

Cast:

Karena Lam, Angelica Lee, Andy Hui

GHOUL RATING:

**

2

Story: An annoyingly noisy, drunk girl leaves a wedding party only to stumble upon a 'steal the kidney and run' victim. Instead of being cut up for her obnoxious ways, this broad becomes the lead character (her name is Ching). When sober, she's equally irritating, what with her pathetic whining about her illness (kidney failure) and uncontrollable bursts of anger. Then she's stalked by Ling (notice the rhyme there?), the main suspect in the kidney-case, who just happens to be her doctor-boyfriend's one night stand.  But, is Ching stalked by Ling? Perhaps Ling means well? Oh, the suspense! Who will survive and how many kidneys will be left of them?

Review: The publicity for KOMA is based on the fame of its two female 'stars' whose faces are blown over posters and DVD covers as the film's chief draw. Both of them became famous for seeing ghosts: Angelica saw them after THE EYE operation, while Karena was helped (or cursed) by her INNER SENSES. Both of these films were ludicrously overrated: if you believed the hype that surrounded them, you'd bee fooled to expect at least something above average. While decently directed (at least as far as slick visuals pass for good filmmaking these days), they both suffer from unbearably shallow drama, uninvolving characters and infantile, unimaginative 'scares'. In short, they are both dull attempts of Hong Kong and Thailand cinema to jump the bandwagon of Japan's and Korea's serious horror, leaving the obligatory Chinese comic reliefs and action scenes behind them, and embracing 'drama'. Nice ambition – slightly undermined by the lack of any purpose more serious than a pure economic one. The end results are mere aping of the approach mastered by the modern Japanese and Korean horror, but – they were both immensely crowd-pleasing, and therefore commercial.

And now they are joined by KOMA, a new flick by Lawrence Cheng, the perpetrator of INNER NONSENSE. The supernatural paraphernalia is left behind, but what his screenwriter, Susan Chen, has come up with is an even more unimaginative affair. Basically, what you get is a silly and utterly contrived soap opera 'enriched' by even sillier exploitation of the trite urban legend (a laced drink from a stranger in a bar, after which you wake in a tub filled with ice: the opposite wall offers a friendly advice to 'Call the police if you want to live!', the mirror reveals a nasty cut on your side, and you realize you're one kidney short). The above-described situation is responsible for KOMA's single exceptional scene, and you get it in the very first 10 minutes. After that, you're left with characters you'd rather see as victims in some elaborate slasher horror than as people you're supposed to care about and fear for. What's worse, there's not even a decent villain to root for!

 

Let me spoil the movie for you – if a turd can spoiled, that is. In a surprising twist at the end, it is discovered that the villain is – Ling, who's been the main suspect all along. She was also the ONLY suspect! Susan Chen's amateurish script did not even bother to provide a red herring or two so as to create a half-decent whodunit. No, ladies and gentlemen: what you see in the very beginning is what you get in the end (unless you fall asleep by then). Let me tell you how amateurish the script is. In case you don't get the nuanced relationships between these people, you're helped by the dialogues along the lines of (and I quote here): 'I hate you.' 'Why?' 'I'm jealous!' For the more profound psychology, Ching & Ling (who, unconvincingly, become friends for a while) at one instance go to some pseudo-self-help-rebirthing-whatnot group, where they sit on the floor and follow the advice to 'look deep into each other's subconscious'. After approximately 6 seconds of meditation, they manage to see their innermost secrets, and spell them out to the inattentive viewer: Ching is insecure because of her illness, while Ling is lonely because her mommy is in a coma. Somewhere in the background of it all is Ching's boyfriend, a zero character who's barely more than a plot device to have Ching & Ling meet and interrelate. This questionable type oscillates between faithfully protecting his sick girlfriend Ching and violently banging Ling (who's unable to pay her mom's hospital bills but the kind doc is willing to oblige); at least we're treated to his nice demise (involving an unexpected scalpel in the eye), which is more than could be said for the hateful leading ladies.

 

KOMA's inconsistencies, contrivances, strains of logic, suspensions of disbelief, psycho-babble and plot holes would require an essay to enumerate and analyze – but they're not worth the trouble. The despise it has for its audience's intelligence is most obvious in the following exchange. Ching: 'Did the woman have one kidney removed, or two?' The police inspector: 'One. Is there any difference?' Ching: 'With one left she won't die.' The police inspector has a look saying: 'Now is that so? Damn, every day on this job a man learns something new!' And this from an 'inspector' working on the kidney-case for 5 months now! Yes, dear viewer: this is the kind of film that treats you to the most basic Psychology 101, Medicine 101, etc. without having covered its bases in Screenwriting 101. Direction, on the other hand, gives its best to elevate this mess. The pace is OK, excellent cinematography makes the most of the good production values, and there are a couple of decent gore sequences. Nothing innovative, mind you: it's strictly 'been there, done that (much better), got a T-shirt' material. The stalk'n'scare scenes are created through the usual 'subjective camera' moves, and the action is overscored by the over-melodramatic music. Any self-respecting horror fan may expect only the mildest kicks out of this (say, on a dull wet afternoon), but otherwise – stay clean off KOMA. This is soap-horror directed towards the lowest common denominator.

THE MAN EATER (2004)

Country: Thailand

Genre: Horror/Thriller/Drama

Running Time: 90'

Producer: Panot Udom

Directors: Buranee Rachjaibun, Nida Sudasna

Cast: Long Duan, Premsinee Rattanasopar, Chatchai Plengpanich

GHOUL RATING: **(*) 2+

Story: Bangkok, 1946. A young Chinese, Li Hui, comes to Thailand in the hope of finding a job and a better fortune. The immigration officers change his name into Zee Oui, shave his head and throw him into a cell. His uncle provides a job: slaughtering chicken. His employer's wife and kids abuse and humiliate him. Other Thais are equally unfriendly. They stomp his asthma medicine into the mud. They destroy his crops. They remind him of his terrible war experiences... So, inevitably, he becomes a child-killing heart-eating monster. THEY made him do it!

Review: This film is, apparently, based on a true story. Zee Oui is a name that instills fear into little Thai kiddies: he became a boogeyman by killing and eating parts of several children there, more than half a century ago. Now comes a movie that tries to tell HIS side of the story: not so much exploiting the shock value (though there's that, too!) nor condemning the 'monster', this is rather a revisionist look, an attempt to stress the background of this man and a history of violence (against him) that turned him into a ghoul. So, if it weren't for copyright infringement, this could be rightfully called CANNIBAL RISING.

The progressiveness of horror film is often measured by its ability to instill sympathy for its monster; if not sympathy, then at least – understanding. This genre's best representatives undermine the black-and-white divisions and often question the morality of 'the good guys' together with 'the bad guys'. But ZEE OUI is ridiculous: it bends over backwards in its attempt to exonerate its protagonist from even the slightest shade of responsibility for becoming a kiddie-gutting, innards-chomping miserable wreck! Oh, he's so doomed! His army officers (during a WWII flashback) make him strangle a wounded soldier and then eat his heart, raw, 'to become a real man'.

His mother cooks an executed criminal's heart and feeds him the soup to cure his cough. She even provides a handy knife as a parting gift, 'to protect himself'. His uncle teaches him how to slit chicken throat, and departs from the picture. Everybody in Thailand (but especially children) derides him for being an alien. The entire world seems to conspire against this frail, flower-sniffing, Buddha-worshipping creature. That, at least, is this film's agenda: it was society made him do it! Who, in his place, WOULDN'T eat raw, still-pulsing children's hearts?

Like all movies with an agenda, this one sidesteps credibility and convincingness by forcing the moral, willy-nilly, down our throats. It's utterly simplistic in its refusal to deal with its protagonist as a character: Zee Oui is presented as no more than a tiny marble in the pin-ball machine, hit this way and that way with no will of his own. He doesn't act, he reacts: somehow, he sidesteps Buddha's teachings, and to violence responds with even more gruesome violence. This MAN EATER never eats a man: only the succulent kiddie flesh, but the movie never bothers with his transformation. In one scene, you see him run away from his abusive employers. In the next, we're already at a crime scene, with two kids lying near railway tracks, guts protruding from their stomachs. How's that for a transition?! You do the math! Never in the film do you see him contemplate his actions, or feel regret. Even in the very end, he confesses his crimes only because of the officials' false promise that they'll send him back home. The parents' grief is not dwelt on. No, only our poor Zee Oui suffered.

If you're able to accept the film's strongly biased attitude towards its subject, you're still left with a lazily plotted affair: the killer is caught because of Dara, a female journalist who just happened to notice Zee Oui in the background of one crime scene; she followed him to his room, and it just so happened that his murder weapon was lying in the open. It also just so happens that Dara was almost killed by some sicko 20 years ago: she still has a scar on her chest and sweaty nightmares to prove it. However, she is not a character, but merely a plot device. The subplot about her affair with her editor is not even that, as it leads nowhere.

Technical credits are fine, even slightly above the average professionalism in the recent Thai cinema: nicely composed images, good sense for atmosphere, solid score (laurelled by the Thai National Film Association Award), decent pacing, good acting and special effects… Yet, who is this made for? As a horror film, it's not scary, nor gory enough (and considering the subject matter, it's better that way). As a drama it falls flat as there are no real characters, and the plot is forced to fit the preconceived 'moral'. As an art film, it's just too shallow and generic. As a thriller, it rambles too much with its episodic, non-linear structure, and is virtually devoid of suspense, other than two scenes of stalk'n'slash. For the general public the subject matter is too grim, and even among the true-crime flicks this one stands out as one of the bleakest. So, THE MAN EATER is a well-made film with a highly questionable attitude, and may be marginally interesting only for the lovers of shock cinema.

BLACK KISS (2004)

Country: Japan

Genre: Thriller/ Horror

Running Time: 133'

Director: Makoto Tezuka

Cast: Reika Hashimoto, Kaori Kawamura, Masanobu Ando…

GHOUL RATING: *** (3+)

Story: Asuka is a model and dancer, left without a place to stay in Tokyo. She starts sharing an apartment belonging to a frind's friend, Kasumi, who at the start is not too friendly, and obviously has a baggage of problems of her own. The troubles begin when Asuka witnesses a gruesome killing across the street from Kasumi's apartment: through the window she spots a lean woman dressed in black leather slicing a tied-up man with a scalpel. When the police arrive at the scene, they find a man meticulously disemboweled, with voodoo symbols carved into his skin. An inspector follows the psycho-cult lead by going to a mysterious expert on such matters, while a young paparazzo (Tatsuo) is always near the death scenes. Other bodies appear (some sent by regular mail directly to the police), all cut and decorated into morbid works of art, with a kiss left with black lipstick on white paper next to each body…

Review: BLACK KISS tries to be too many things at the same time and, naturally, fails because of its schizophrenic approach (and muddled script). However, the manner of its failure is somewhat interesting and makes for a fine viewing experience. It opens with several in-your-face Hitchcockian references: the characters go to a club called VERTIGO and the first murder takes place in BAT'S HOTEL (instead of BATES MOTEL). Asuka witnesses the murder peeping through her (rear?) window in a scene that is quintessentially Hitchcockian, but which also recalls his disciples, Argento and de Palma. The killer herself looks like Argento's leather-clad psycho who's at the same time an SM dominatrix with a fetish for (Batman's) Cat-woman. Thrown into the mix are photographs which, when enlarged, add new pieces to the puzzle (another Argento touch) and outrageously gruesome murders – shown not as Argentoesque set-pieces, but mostly in their aftermath, more akin to SE7EN. The director even goes so far to steal the famous jump-scare from SE7EN (when a 'corpse' is suddenly re-animated for one last gasp), but in this instance it feels just like a cheap (and unconvincing) trick, since the corpse in question is actually a torso cut up so badly there's no way in Hell it could live long enough for this brief resurrection.

Logic is thrown out of the rear window, but that's to be expected from someone inspired by Hitchcock filtered through sensibilities of Argento and de Palma. Old Hitch always claimed that his ideal film was not a 'slice of life', but compared it to a cake from which all boring parts are deleted. BLACK KISS, however, is a cake with too many layers of cream and sugarcoating for it to be edible: it's like one of those artificially colored cakes which are nice to look at, but are not nearly as tasty. The film is all over the place, lacking unity of tone and purpose: it opens with a strong sex scene more at home in a pinku flick, but its sensuality is irrelevant for the scene and is never returned to. The opening murder suggests a splatter, but later scenes lack gore and are beautified so much that any sense of gruesomeness is entirely lost: corpses are turned into mannequins and teddy-bear toys. From its pinku start and splatter opening it continues with a lot of drama, then goes into mild, un-thrilling thriller, then some more drama, sprinkled with an occasional, brief horror of new-found corpses of irrelevant side-characters.

Essentially, BLACK KISS lacks discipline: it is too inconsistent to work as either horror, thriller or drama, because horror loses its edge when its promising premise is treated as an intrusion into a quirky drama-thriller. It feels almost out of place and is diluted by the disproportion that drama gets. On the other hand, both drama and thriller are pointless since there are no real characters in this stew: they are either empty clichés (like the bland aspiring model Asuka, poorly acted by Reika Hashimoto) or they remain enigmas until the very end, like Kasumi. It must be said that the latter at least shows signs of promise due to exquisite features and body language of Kaori Kawamura, who perfectly embodies someone who's been around and tasted some of the bitterness of life. However, even these two are lost for a long while during the dead-end police procedural subplot, particularly with an insecure detective's pursuit of psycho-cult leads. The same can be said for the thankless role of the paparazzo: Masanobu Ando (memorable as Kiriyama from BATTLE ROYALE) is practically wasted as a two-dimensional red herring in the silly excuse for a plot.

The director, Makoto Tezuka, is the son of Osamu Tezuka, a legend of Japanese animation thanks to titles like ASTRO BOY and KIMBA THE WHITE LION. Tezuka Jr. has yet to fill his father's shoes: in his previous film, HAKUCHI THE IDIOT (1999), he has already expressed a tendency towards rambling, over-long, self-indulgent exercises in style, unsupported by any real substance or coherence, and BLACK KISS is all that, too. Tezuka has a good eye for visuals, and his films are a joy to watch: however, his lack of interest for storytelling or rhythm is a serious deficiency. You cannot but be mad when, after 2 hours and 10 minutes, you reach what must be one of the most frustrating 'revelations' in any Japanese horror/thriller I can think of. I won't spoil it for you, but will only say that, once the killer's identity and motives are revealed (or are they?), little if anything in the preceding plot makes any sense. With all this in mind, BLACK KISS remains a mixture of occasionally interesting parts which never coalesce into a meaningful or at least effective whole – watchable, but unremarkable, except for its flamboyant style.

DVD [NTSC, Region 2] : Uplink delivers a special, 2-disc edition, and its technical aspect is matchless. The film itself is in 16:9 ratio, with vibrant colors, deep blacks (where needed) and sharp image. The sound is in Dolby Digital, only in Japanese, with no commentaries or other sound options, while English subtitles are quite decent. The second disc offers the usual extras: short interviews with the director and two main actresses (but, strangely, not with Masanobu Ando, top-billed and prominent in the advertising material). Of course, none of this is subtitled, so I have no idea what they had to say about the film. There are also some (deservedly) deleted scenes, a brief feature about (not really top-notch) CGI sequences, but, sadly, there is no alternative ending. I was hoping for a more meaningful one, but it seems that the nonsense which ends BLACK KISS was the best and only thing they could come up with.

BLACK KISS (NTSC, R1)

Here comes MEDIA BLASTER'S DVD of BLACK KISS, and I'm happy to say that its visual presentation (anamorphic widescreen 1.85 : 1) does justice to the rich color scheme and vibrant visuals of the film. Audio (in Japanese) is available only in Dolby digital, and the English subtitles are fine. In terms of extras it's not as rich as the previously reviewed Uplink's 2-disc edition (which had no subtitles in the extras department), but it has some meaty features to offer. The highlight is the interview with the director, which goes into many details about planning and making the film, and reveals his devotion to details (hints about the killer's identity in the very first shot of the film; esoteric meaning of the numbers 4 and 9, etc.). You'll learn that the ending was hidden in the script even from the main players, and that may be the reason why the interview is divided in two parts: "Mystery of Black Kiss" (about the general idea of the film, with no spoilers) and "The Truth of Black Kiss" (discussing the ending and killer's motives: better watched after the film). This last feature must be the most valuable, and certainly clarifies the muddled ending. It does not make more sense, but at least you finally get to learn what they were thinking! Other extras include: a solid trailer, scene selection, Tokyo Shock trailers and an extremely poor Stills gallery (made of photos which look as if they'd been captured off a pirate VHS copy).

All in all, if you're not speaking Japanese, this is a solid DVD version for the English speakers.