If
you are playing the part of an unfaithful lover who meets a grisly supernatural
end opposite your real life lover, it is bad karma to betray her off-stage, especially
if she arranged the gig for you. Unfortunately, Kousuke Hasegawa is exactly
that sort of cad. Life will duly imitate art in Takashi Miike’s Over Your Dead Body (trailer here), which screens
during the 2015 Stanley Film Festival.
Hasegawa
and Miyuki Goto have the leads in the classical macabre kabuki drama Yotsuya Kaidan, adapted for the screen
many times, including as Nobou Nakagawa’s pretty awesome The Ghost Story of Yotsuya. As the cast rehearses, a great deal as
meta-ness unfolds backstage. Like his character, the sociopathic ronin Tamiya
Iemon, Hasegawa is cheating on Goto (cast as the tragically trusting Iwa) with
the younger actress playing her younger on-stage rival, Ume.
Iemon
will do cruel and evil things to destroy Iwa to be with Ume. In ostensive real
life, Hasegawa is maybe not as proactively duplicitous, but he clearly has no
regard for Goto’s feelings. However, there are ominous portents of a malevolent
force afoot. Eventually, even Hasegawa starts to pick up on the bad vibes.
Despite
the bring-it-on title, OYDB is a
remarkably restrained horror film, especially from a master of mayhem like
Miike. In truth, it represents a return to the austere elegance displayed in
his moody Jidaigeki tragedy Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai. That might disappoint the faithful at the Stanley, but
it certainly constitutes distinctive filmmaking.
Indeed,
the play within the film would be well worth seeing in its own right. Watching
the massive sets created by co-art directors Yuji Hayashida and Eri Sakushima
rotating on and off the stage is quite an impressive sight. There is also a
really creepy doll used as a surrogate for the play’s infant. Frankly, it is
surprisingly easy to get caught up in Iwa and Iemon’s story.
Kô
Shibasaki scores a knockout punch as Goto, coming undone like Glen Close in Fatal Attraction, but with far greater
subtlety. Likewise, well-regarded kabuki actor Ebizô Ichikawa is appropriately reptilian
as Hasegawa and Hasegawa in the role of Iemon. There is a cast of dozens on the
set within the film. Yet, only Miho Nakanishi gets much screen time of
substance, but when her entitled Ume gets caught up in Iwa’s wrath, it is a
great scene.
