Stanley ’15: Over Your Dead Body

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.

Miike has probably already made ten films since wrapping OYDB, but it would be an awful shame if it was lost in the shuffle. It is one of the most darkly sophisticated life-parallels-art films you will see, easily putting to shame Polanski’s overhyped Venus in Fur and the very odd but well-intentioned 1915. Highly recommended, Over Your Dead Body screens tomorrow (5/2) and Sunday (5/3) as part of this year’s Stanley Film Festival.

Stanley ’15: 12th Assistant Deacon (short)

Demonic horror can be profoundly unsettling, but it largely validates a Christian (particularly Catholic) framework of good and evil. After all, William Peter Blatty is admirably serious about his Catholic faith. While it definitely follows in the thematic tradition of The Exorcist, Jang Jae-hyun gives the possession horror story a distinctly Korean identity in 12^th Assistant Deacon, which screens during the 2015 Stanley Film Festival.

Father Kim is determined to exorcise the demon possessing comatose teenager Young-shin. If he can liberate her spirit, her body might start responding as well. Tragically, the demon is particularly cruel and belligerent. Despite his repeated efforts, many of his appointed assistants have been scared off by its mocking torments. Yes, it is safe to say Deacon Choi has more than ten predecessors. To his credit, he has deep faith and can pray in multiple languages, but he too has painful memories the evil one will exploit.

On the surface level, 12^th Assistant resembles any number of possession films, but its atmosphere and execution are considerably superior. It gets decidedly tense, but what really sets the film apart is its unequivocal embrace of faith and spiritual resiliency. Father Kim explicitly argues the darkness they witness necessarily implies the existence of the light. He is quite convincing, in the context of the film.

Park Ji-il is absolutely terrific as the battle-hardened Father Kim. He handles the surprisingly impressive special effects scenes quite well and completely nails his big speech. Likewise, Lee Hak-joo hits all the right notes as the earnest but unprepared deacon.

This is one of the rare films Catholics, Evangelicals, and cult film connoisseurs can enjoy in equal measure. Its depiction of demon-exorcising Catholic clergy is particularly interesting, considering it was produced in South Korea, where Christianity is the largest organized religion. Yet nearly half the country is agnostic and many regard Christianity with suspicion or worse. That thorny dynamic is directly reflected in Father Kim’s complex interactions with Young-shin’s very different parents. It is a serious film, but also seriously scary. Highly recommended for horror fans, 12^th Assistant Deacon screens this Friday (5/1) as part of Short Program II, at this year’s Stanley Film Festival.