Kairo (2001)
Genre: Horror
Duration: 118 minuten
Alternative titles: Pulse / The Circuit / 回路
Country:
Japan
Directed by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Stars: Kumiko Asô, Haruhiko Kato and Kurume Arisaka
IMDb score:
6,6 (31.400)
Releasedate: 3 February 2001
Kairo plot
"Do you want to meet a ghost?"
Young Michi works for a small computer company in Tokyo. One day she tries in vain to reach her colleague Taguchi. When Michi visits him, she finds him hanging from the ceiling. No one can understand his suicide. Then a strange image is found on Taguchi's hard drive. One by one, Michi's colleagues are captivated by the image. For fear of being harmed himself, Michi runs away. She bumps into Ryosuke, a university student whose friends were also enchanted by the statue. They discover that a rapidly spreading computer virus is responsible for the strange behavior of their environment.
Actors and actresses
Ryosuke Kawashima
Michi Kudo
Harue Karasawa
Junko Sasano
Toshio Yabe
Yoshizaki
Taguchi
Boss (uncredited)
Convenience Store Employee (uncredited)
Doroningen (uncredited)
Reviews & comments
Filmkriebel
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- 10133 messages
- 4740 votes
Weak and too vague. Definitely not an exciting movie. On the contrary. The beginning was still oppressive but you soon saw it afterwards. It hardly goes one way.
The bucket is full.. there are too many souls in the realm of the dead (or so the theory goes in the movie) and they creep into the world of the living in all sorts of ways. The palpable transition from a world of life to a apocalyptic conclusion is the best I could get out of the film over the two hours. The flat characters who walk around aimlessly in the film, the ugly direction and the lack of a fun(er) plot pull the film to an unsatisfactory level.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Shadowed
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- 11558 messages
- 6803 votes
Meh.
I can spend a lot of time and effort opening my review with a substantive "analysis" about what I didn't like about the movie, but I'd like to just say why I really didn't like it first, then I won't get into that at least not around. That's that I just find this movie boring through and through.
I really couldn't get through it. This slow, long horror film nevertheless has an interesting premise that is thoroughly explored and has a surprising ending. In the beginning the ominous and alienating images still had my attention, but as is often the case with these kinds of mysterious horror films, the story got boring after a while.
Mainly because I didn't like the film audiovisually. Sometimes nice camera movements, but overall it is looking at boring settings without a bit of color. Even the beautiful Asian environment is hardly used. They've probably kept walking into houses that have just been built, because the depressing and empty atmosphere gives me the wrong impression. Instead of having to feel the sad atmosphere, I mostly felt... nothing.
Characters aren't interesting enough either and the threats nonetheless. The only thing that makes the ghosts a bit disturbing is that the film plays very well with shadow and light, so that the fact that you can't see everything works well. Sometimes the film wants to get under your skin and I appreciated the finale, which is why the film also gets a 2.0*.
Other than that, well, I barely made it through. The story may have content, but presenting it in an interesting way is another task. Very boring design, boring settings and tension that only occurs during alienating images. If it has to come from the construction itself, the film will simply fall flat.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Fisico
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- 10039 messages
- 5398 votes
I expected a bit more from this. Pretty disappointing result for me. It could also be the DVD, but for a film that is barely 20 years old, I found it striking that the image quality was not great either. Might be a piece of authenticity to reflect the era of the early nineties, but still.
I didn't find the movie particularly attractive either. Rather cold and distant with those ugly dark rooms or concrete bunkers where the computer lab was located. Also the characters were barely fleshed out so you didn't care what happened to them.
The oppressive feeling I still had at the beginning of the film melted like snow in the sun as the film progressed. Not too good for a horror print. The ideas behind it may be fine, but the execution itself was only mediocre. Unfortunately...
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