Retribution
by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
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Actor: Hiroyuki Hirayama, Ikuji Nakamura, Kji Yakusho, Manami Konishi, Tsuyoshi IharaDirector: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Brand: YAKUSHO,KOJI
Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Japanese (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 104 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-04-15
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Lions Gate
DVD Reviews of Retribution
DVD Review: Not Kurosawa's best by a pretty wide margin, but interesting nonetheless.
Summary: 3 Stars
Retribution (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2006)
Kurosawa may be no relation to Akira Kurosawa, but there's no denying that he's created some of modern Japan's most enduring and distinctive cinematic artifacts (Cure, Charisma, Bright Future, and Eyes of the Spider were all Kurosawa joints, among others). Retribution, his second-most-recent film as I write this (and I am camping at the bit to see his newest, which I'll get to do in about three weeks), is a rare miss from the talented director, but even when he misses, Kurosawa's style is enough to at least make the film watchable, if not memorable.
Noboru Yoshioka (Kurosawa regular Kôji Yakusho, who might as well be giving us the reason his character ended up leaving the police force in Charisma; it's amusing to think of this as a prequel) is a police detective on the hunt for a serial killer. Once we've gotten a while into the movie, we start to realize that something's weird here--all the evidence is actually starting to point to Yoshioka as the prime suspect. About the same time this makes itself known, Yoshioka starts seeing a ghostly woman in a red dress, who he quickly realizes is one of the killer's victims. But is she here to aid Yoshioka in finding the killer, or take retribution on him for killing her? (In case that seems obvious, I'll mention that the title can be read either way.)
If you've seen a few of Kurosawa's films, you're probably used to the seemingly unique way he structures his movies, so that even when they're remakes (Séance) or ripoffs (Cure, which is a direct descendant of Silence of the Lambs), they're unmistakably Kurosawa. That said, in every Kurosawa movie I've seen except this one, there's more than that structure to make it work--the story takes an entirely unexpected turn, the settings are so perfect that you wonder how many years Kurosawa spent scouring aerial photographs to find them, the acting is beyond Oscar-quality, what have you. This one's missing it all; the actors are competent, but no one save Yakusho really stands out, the locations are generic, the story is an amalgam of a few different recent Asian ghost flicks and western mysteries (for which Kurosawa has a distinct fondness). And, of course, there's the ghost with the long black hair and the weird movements. Man, she does get around, doesn't she? I don't think there's a single fan of Asian horror movies who can't rattle a dozen movies in which ghosts like this have appeared off the top of his head. We get it, guys, but you know what? It just ain't creepy no more.
If you're a Kurosawa junkie (and we all should be), obviously you'll have to see Retribution at some point. If you're new to his movies, however, there are many, many better places to start, a number of which I've already mentioned in this review, any of which are worth your time. (My personal favorite is Charisma, but I started with Cure and it remains one of his strongest films, in my estimation.) Get to this one later on. ***
Description of Retribution
No Description Available.Genre: Foreign Film - Japanese
Rating: R
Release Date: 15-APR-2008
Media Type: DVD
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