Slideshow
DARK WATER
仄暗い水の底から
Japan, 2002
Directed by Hideo Nakata
With Hitomi Kuroki, Rio Kanno, Mirei Oguchi, Asami Mizukawa, Fumiyo Kohinata
Based on short story collection by Koji Suzuki
Approx. 101 min. DCP restoration.
In the middle of a nasty divorce, a single mother Yoshimi Matsubara (Hitomi Kuroki) struggles to start anew with her preschooler daughter Ikuko Matsubara (Rio Kanno) in a run-down apartment complex. Her pleas to the superintendent to resolve the ominous water leak on her ceiling from the floor above go nowhere. Yoshimi’s distress is further deepened by the frequent appearance of a red bag, which — despite her efforts to discard it — mysteriously seems to resurface. Following the massive success of Hideo Nakata’s RINGU franchise, the filmmaker plunges into a much more plaintive key.
Reviews
“Handling his set-pieces with real flair (Ikuko's disastrous game of hide and seek will leave those of a nervous disposition gibbering under their seats), Nakata buoys up the script's lulls with some memorable shocks.”
– Jamie Russell, BBC
“The movie's denouement delivers not just a flash of fear but a strange, sweet charge of pathos — and the combination adds up to the most disturbing spell in the cinema I've had in a very long time.”
– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“An honest, old-fashioned ghost story”
– Empire