Universal Storytelling in Japanese Horror

Still from Kaneto Shindô’s ‘Onibaba’ — *Still from* Kaneto Shindô’s ‘Onibaba’

One of the most common phrases I’ve heard throughout my life when recommending a foreign film is ‘is it subtitled?’, which is a bummer of a question if I’m being honest. There are just so many wonderful movies out there from around the world and, honestly, if you avoid them just because you just ‘don’t want to read’ while you’re watching a movie, you’re just shortchanging yourself. What’s worse, in my opinion, is waiting for an American remake.

For those of you who don’t know me, which is probably a lot of you, hello, I’m Mike Thompson and I’m a Japanese-American filmmaker here at Marquee. When I say I love movies, you have no idea, but I hope this article and those that follow will demonstrate it.

That brings me to kyo no toppiku or topic of the day.

A COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP

I think it’s safe to say that most Americans’ idea of Japanese horror stems from the period of the 2000s when Japanese horror, or J Horror, remakes were being released more frequently than Marvel movies are today. The Ring, The Grudge, Dark Water, The Eye, Shutter, etc.

And honestly, I’m incredibly conflicted about this.

I guess I should be excited and grateful to these remakes for spurring an interest in Japanese horror, the simplicity of making American audiences aware of films from other countries, however, I feel like the remakes have an opposite effect.

These remakes are often higher budget than the originals and they are often made several years after the original, so, if an adventurous viewer does seek to watch the original, they’re often disappointed with special effects or cinematography quality or whatever other problems may exist due to comparison.

So, as a result of this, my question is simple: Why can’t we just watch the originals? Sure, they’re in another language and another locale that you don’t recognize with people whose features are likely different from yours, but, is that so bad? No, really, read that question again and answer it.

Got your answer? Cool, let’s move on.

One thing I think is important to understand before we go any further is that this isn’t a bashing session, what I really want you to take from this little roundup is that storytelling is universal.

In his book, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, Christopher Booker posits a Jung-influenced idea that there are only seven basic story ideas: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Once you take a look at these ideas, even if you’re not a die-hard movie fan, you can probably think of at least one movie to fit into each of these, if not more.

So, for a little October fun, my own cultural bias included, let’s play a game with five Japanese horror movies to see just how universal storytelling truly is, and which, if any, of the seven plots they fit into.

Ringu (1998)

Let’s start things off with a familiar name, The Ring or Ringu, directed by Hideo Nakata is based on a 1991 novel of the same name by Koji Suzuki. Hopefully, by now, we all know the plot. You watch a mysterious videotape and die seven days later.

Starting with a premise that every culture shares, the vengeful spirit (known as Onryō in Japanese culture), Ringu builds into a terrifying journey in which our main protagonist, Reiko, with the help of her ex-husband, Ryuji, sets out to find out the origin of the cursed VHS tape after her niece becomes a victim.

Stream it on Amazon Prime, Tubi

Onibaba (1964)

Onibaba, written and directed by Kaneto Shindo, is an interesting entry in Japanese horror, mostly because there are those who don’t consider it a horror film, but William Friedkin does and he directed The Exorcist so that’s good enough for me.

The film focuses on two women, a mother and her daughter-in-law who, sometime in the 14th century, have been left on their own after Kishi, the older woman’s son, is drafted and taken away to fight in a civil war. This separation causes the women to fall into desperation, killing soldiers that pass through and robbing them of their possessions to survive.

When a former neighbor, Hachi, returns, having abandoned his post, a rift forms between the two women and their newfound purpose.

Stream it on The Criterion Channel

Woman In The Dunes (1964)

Part of Japanese New Wave cinema of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, Woman in the Dunes shares a lot of characteristics with Onibaba, mainly because the films can appear as dramas to some viewers despite the horrific content within.

An adaptation of Kobe Abe’s novel of the same name and directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara from a screenplay by the author himself, Woman in the Dunes tells the story of an entomologist, Niki Junpei, who journeys to a beach to study beetles that live in sandy soil. When he misses his bus back to Tokyo, a group of villagers invites him to stay in their village for the night and lead him to a mysterious rope ladder that places him in a hut at the bottom of a sand dune, which is the home of a young woman.

Though the first night seems normal, Junpei’s experience slowly spins into a tale of terror as he wakes up the next morning to find that the rope ladder has been taken away and the woman and villagers have a different, more sinister purpose for him.

Rent it on Amazon

Cure (1997)

Written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Cure is a police procedural thriller a la Se7en. The film follows a detective named Kenichi Takabe investigating a bizarre series of murders in which each victim has a large ‘X’ carved into their neck, but the killer is different each time and they are caught close to the scene of the crime with no motive or explanation of why.

This film is an interesting piece in that, due to its release date, it became quickly overshadowed by films like Ringu that received American remakes. Fortunately, the fine folks at The Criterion Collection have restored the original print and given it a proper release.

Watch on The Criterion Channel

Noroi: The Curse (2005)

Noroi: The Curse, is a film I’d recommend to fans of The Blair Witch Project or Lake Mungo. Directed by Koji Shiraishi, the film first tells us that during the process of making a documentary, a paranormal researcher named Masafumi Kobayashi disappeared after his house burnt down and his wife, Keiko, was found in the ruins. Then, much like The Blair Witch Project, we, as an audience, are shown the documentary and taken down the rabbit hole with Kobayashi as he investigates a series of deaths surrounding a young woman, her son, and a demonic entity named Kagubtaba.

Watch on Shudder

I could give you a million reasons to watch foreign films rather than their remakes or overdubbed versions.

I could tell you that actors’ performances are lost when overdubbed. I could tell you that sometimes something gets lost in translation between Japanese culture and American culture. I’d even argue sometimes that it’s as simple as the original just being a better film. But, the reality is that it really comes down to respecting other cultures.

These filmmakers wrote and directed these films from their own unique perspectives and worked with their teams and talent to craft something for you to watch, to be entertained by, to absorb. They crafted stories within their own culture with hopes that others would not only be attracted to those stories enough to watch them but that their culture would be what made the film interesting, not serve as a barrier to foreign audiences.

When we choose the American counterparts of these films over the originals, we’re telling these filmmakers that we view their films as a burden, an inconvenience, instead of an opportunity to learn. We’re telling them that their perspectives and hard work are not important.

We’re telling them that they don’t matter.

I’m here to tell you that they do. Their time matters, their craft matters, and most of all, their culture matters.

This article was written to encourage further exploration and learning. Most of the hyperlinks included within the text lead to detailed explanations of terms or articles about the cultural impact made by a specific film or director.

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