[FANTASIA 2018] ‘THE VANISHED,’ ‘ONE CUT OF THE DEAD’ and ‘TOKYO VAMPIRE HOTEL: THE MOVIE’ Mini-Reviews

THE VANISHED

Park Jin-han (Kim Kang-woo) has lost his wife Yoon Seol-hee (Kim Hee-ar). Something, however, isn’t right at her funeral. This dude’s putting in eye drops in order to cry. Something is fishy, and we know very soon after that he has a girlfriend already in Hye-jin (Han Ji-an) and together they plotted to murder Yoon. Problem is that her body has seemingly disappeared from the morgue. Park travels there to meet a detective, Woo Joon-sik (Kim Sang-kyung), and his team. Suddenly Woo believes that Park was involved in her disappearing corpse and possibly more. Park, meanwhile, becomes more and more convinced that Yoon is in fact still alive, that the poison she was given wasn’t permanent, and she’s getting her revenge.

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Lee Chang-hee’s remake of Spain’s 2012 film The Body has you on your toes for a lot of the time. The movie looks like a modern take on classic Hollywood noir; lots of shadows, dim lighting flickers in the building, and atmosphere is solidly creepy. For a while we’re not sure who to believe, but watching Kim Kang-woo squirm like he’s on a hook while this mess of a detective unravels what’s actually happening. The final revelation is one that doesn’t entirely work if you were to watch the movie back, but it’s a surprising one that was there the whole time. I didn’t really buy it, but I think that’s more my issue than the film itself. If you enjoy murder mystery and suspense, this is one for you.

3 OUT OF 5 STARS

No word on distribution in North America, so aside from playing Fantasia 2018 there’s no telling when you’ll get to see this, but we’ll keep you posted!

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ONE CUT OF THE DEAD

The cast a crew of a low-budget zombie movie find themselves in the middle of an actual zombie attack. The director decides that the actors should do what they do best: use it! Taking place entirely in one large, remote location and using one take, we reach the bloody conclusion…and then rewind to before this was filmed, and follow the crew prepping. Then we go behind the scenes as they accomplish what it took to get the shot. What felt strange in the movie on screen is, in fact, the result of wacky antics. Things that happen in the beginning are paid off when you learn how and why they happened.

This is a pretty clever comedy that’s kind of like if they were making a horror movie in Bowfinger. A lot of beats are well timed and there are some pretty hilarious moments that you never would have imagined were happening off screen while the zombie movie was unfolding. Some odd moments are well explained due to technical gaffes, and everything comes together so well. The credits roll over the meta behind the scenes of shooting the crew that’s shooting the movie, which is really amusing. This wasn’t at all what I was expecting from this movie, and I was pleasantly surprised. It’s not a gimmick flick, and it’s pretty great! Check this one out.

3.5 OUT OF 5 STARS

In addition to playing Fantasia 2018, no information on distribution is available yet, but we’ll keep you posted!

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TOKYO VAMPIRE HOTEL

There’s been a battle between the Dracula clan and the Corvin clan since the 1700’s. The Corvins ran the Draculas underground and took over. In 1999, when the planets aligned into a cross, the Dracula family placed a curse upon 3 children born at 9:09. Now 2021, the three cursed have matured into vampires to finally do battle with the Corvins and defeat them once and for all. Sion Sono’s gonzo, bravura style has been wowing genre festivals for at least a decade now, and with Tokyo Vampire Hotel he’d taken on a less visited medium. See this movie is a severely edited down (142 minute) cut of a 9 episode, Amazon Prime series from 2017 (an approximate runtime of 384 minutes). The series wasn’t made available in the U.S. until April of 2018 (which until this month I wasn’t even aware of). To be completely honest, I’m not exactly sure why this movie cut exists other than to play the festival circuit. I initially thought this was the way it would be sold to the Western market, but with the show readily available now that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

This thing is ridiculously violent, first off. Great sets, vibrant color scheme, great practical effects, and so much gore. I enjoy Sono’s excess and crazy visuals that feel micro-budget and expensive at the same time. He’s a visionary, and this is a big vision. The title card doesn’t appear for 40 minutes (!), at which point I felt like I had watched a pilot for a series. It functions fine enough as a film, but watching it only made me wonder exactly how much of this story I was missing…and considering why I don’t just watch the series. Montage moments and flashbacks might have been fully fleshed out, and story and character elements are certainly lost. Naturally, this feels crammed and dense having to jam a lot of mythology and action into one package for what is meant to fill many packages. This is a tough one to rate and review, honestly, so I’m shooting right in the middle. I don’t know why one would recommend watching this over the series, but having not even seen it yet, and based on the strength of what I’ve now seen, I’d say it’s worth checking out.

2.5 OUT OF 5 STARS

Good news! While the film version played Fantasia 2018 and doesn’t have a release scheduled here, the series IS available to stream on Amazon Prime right now!