Tomie: Re-birth (2001)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

Takashi Shimizu

Writers:

Yoshinobu Fujioka (screenplay)
Junji Ito (Tomie comics)

Release Date:

24 March 2001 (Japan)

Genre:

Horror

Plot Keywords:

Policeman | Hallucination | Gore | Reincarnation | Cigarette Smoking

Cast

Miki Sakai	...	Tomie Kawakami
Satoshi Tsumabuki	...	Takumi Aoyama
Kumiko Endou	...	Hitomi Kitamura
Masaya Kikawada	...	Shun'ichi Hosoda
Shûgo Oshinari	...	Hideo Kamata
Yuri Hachisu	...	Yumiko Sano
Yutaka Nakajima	...	Tomoko Hosoda
Tarô Suwa	...	Haruo Aoyoma
Ganko Fuyu	...	Takako Aoyama
Yoshie Ootsuka	...	Sachiko Kimata
Masako Itou	...	Norika
Shin Kusaka	...	Masaru
Shunsuke Itou	...	Yutaka
Hiroaki Muchima	...	Hiroaki
Emi Itou	...	Sawori

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Certification:

Australia:MA | New Zealand:R16 | Germany:16

Movie Connections:

Followed by Tomie: Saishuu-shô - kindan no kajitsu (2002)

Tsk, tsk, tsk... Bow your head in shame Shimizu.

After seeing the first Tomie movie i lost all interest in seeing what the sequels in the serial would bring. For a horror movie, there wasn't a single chill or climax in it, which can only leave a horror fan like me very disappointed. But then i saw that Tomie: Re-birth was directed by no other than Takashi Shimizu (The man behind the four Ju-on movies), and i thought, and (i guess) expected, that he would add a lot of his creepy imagination from his former horror movies (i cant praise them enough) to this sleeping pill of a weird love story. I was, again, VERY disappointed. Though, i have 2 good things to say about this movie. First of all, this one IS better than the first. Second, there actually was one scene in Re-birth that made my hair on the neck to stand up, and that is where a girl is sitting in her bedroom in front of a mirror and suddenly sees a girl, white as snow, peeking out of her closet. Uuhhhhhh Mufasa!! It smelled a little like Ju-on, but then the girl turns away from the mirror and the ghostly lurker is gone. BUUUUUUH!! But besides this minor chill that lasts about 3 seconds, its really hard to see that this is a Shimizu creation. Instead of taking Tomie to a new level and making it to a real creep fest, it seems more like he just goes along with the dull and not THAT fascinating theme from the other Tomie movies. And on top of that, i saw interviews with the cast and the director himself describing this movie as a blend of horror and humor? Now, without sounding like a dumb racist, but do you have to be Japanese to notice the humor? It went over my head thats for sure. But maybe some of the moments that i found laughable and not creepy, like the crawling head, wasn't meant to be scary but fun? I guess i never find out and its not important anyway. I mean, Tomie IS a horror movie right? At least, thats what it says on the movie description. But how on earth is it possible to make a horror movie where the so called "monster" dies all the time, killed by all its "victims", and not the other way around? So far Tomie hasn't convinced me that it can be done...

Please Shimizu, stick to the creepy stuff. Thats what you do best.

I gave it 5 out of 10