Over Your Dead Body

Over Your Dead Body

Starring Ko Shibasaki, Ebizo Ichikawa XI, Hideaki Ito, Miho Nakanishi

Directed by Takashi Miike

The Story:
While rehearsing for a 200-year-old play, real-life couple Kousuke (Ebizo Ichikawa XI) and Miyuki (Ko Shibasaki) find themselves intertwined with the story taking place on stage.  As the play revovles around murder, betrayal, and vengeance, Kousuke and Miyuki face their own turmoils that slowly escalate to deadly consequences, and the lines between reality and fantasy get irreversibly blurred.

The Synopsis:
Asian horror is rooted firmly in the nation's deep connection to the spirit world.  Unlike Western cultures, the Asian culture holds the afterlife in high regard and often feel that the physical and spiritual exist side-by-side.  The films that come from Asia (and Japan in particular) reflect these views, and have given us some chill-inducing talent such as "Ringu," "Ju-On," and "Kairo" - all of which have been remade for American audiences to differing levels of success.

One of the great Japanese horror films is called "Audition," directed by Takashi Miike, and it's not like anything you've seen before.  While the film takes a long time to get to the terror, when it comes, it's relentless and unforgettable.  Miike is a professional, who doesn't cater to the American audiences who demand scares at every second, a spoon-fed story, and bucket-loads of gore for no reason.  He's precise, like a fine surgeon, slowly carving out his story in a way that leaves you forgetting what you're watching until the final cuts are made, resulting in a truly shocking, terrifying experience.

One of his most recent works is "Over Your Dead Body," and while it doesn't achieve "Audition" levels, it's still got Miike's signature all over it.  The film is about a couple who are rehearsing a play, and find their lives intertwined with that of the characters in it, resulting in a blurred world where the reality and fantasy are co-existing, and the terror slowly builds to an epic crescendo.

Yet, despite that, and maybe because I had to read the subtitles and neglect the action on screen, I didn't find the film all that interesting.  Yes, the final moments are very memorable and shattering, but the events that led up to that were marred in confusion, at least to me.  Maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind at the moment, but the ending definitely saved it from a mediocre memory.  I really wanted to enjoy the story, and maybe I will if I see it again, but from my first viewing I was often bored by what was happening, and maybe that was Miike's plan all along - because it left the ending so shocking I wasn't expecting it.

The Summary:
Despite a boring story that didn't seem to have a point, "Over Your Dead Body" concludes with an explosion of shock and awe, seemingly serving as a way to not make up for a boring story, but being the finishing touch on a subtle masterpiece.

The Score: B