I have it and if you like the whole Japanese Horror scene than you’d love it. It has some pretty disturbing images for it’s time but it takes a long time to build up to a cool ending. Once the film gets to the hell scenes (2/3’s of the way through) it really takes off. Personally I thought the film was okay, not my favorite by far. If I we’re you I would checkout other movies in the collection, but thats just me.
Thanks, Bellwhether, that’s great to know. As you can imagine, given my limited budget, I’m looking to be truly awed. And from what it sounds like, Jigoku, interesting as it may be from a historical standpoint, ain’t gonna cut it.
I actually liked it quite a bit from a visual standpoint but as far as Criterions go…theres definitely better choices.
I agree. I own the film and really dig it, but ultimately, it’s a fairly minor entry in the Criterion pantheon. I don’t think that many would argue that Nakagawa is probably the least important Japanese director in the collection.
Good J-Horror (oxymoron?) can be a lot of fun, granted, but for all the trash that the genre has produced, I wonder if it would’ve been such a terrible loss had it never come along at all. While Nobuo Nakagawa can’t be held entirely responsible for all of the genre’s unpardonable sins, as the “father” of the style, he certainly won’t be throwing any stones at it.
I like some modern j-horror. I like the brutal nihilism of a film like The Grudge, where — unlike a lot of traditional Western and Japanese ghost stories — the malicious ghosts can’t be appeased by helping them find peace, etc.: they are just relentlessly malicious. One Missed Call, asinine as its premise really is, has the same quality.
>>from what it sounds like, Jigoku, interesting as it may be from a historical standpoint, ain’t gonna cut it.<<
Bear in mind that it’s not KWAIDAN.
Of course it’s also not THE X FROM OUTER SPACE either …
It’s somewhere between the two.
please get it its so good
the last half hour is one of my favorite segments in film. it’s so underseen and for that price i can’t imagine you’ll regret it.
i might be hyping it a bit too much, but really give it a chance. i bought it right after i saw it, and i told my friend to see it and he loved it too.
ganselmi
Hey everyone,
The raging Criterion addict in me is coming out in full force as a result of the ongoing sale over at B&N. This is unfortunate because I’m in a period of transition (quit my job to go back to school in the fall) — that is to say, what I really need to do is save money rather than spend it on DVDs.
But then again, that is an insanely good deal. So I’m thinking just buying one, $15 single-disc. Usually what I’d buy is something by one of my favorite directors (Bergman, Tarkovsky, Bresson) in order to contribute to my effort to collect a complete catalogue of (available) films by each of these filmmakers. However, I’m in a mood for something different. I’m drawn to Jigoku just based on the synopsis and the few screen captures I’ve seen around the web. I don’t know anything else about the film or the director.
For those who’ve seen it, is it worth a mostly ‘blind’ buy?