the only reason that i give this movie a 2 rather than a 1 is because it is so amazingly terrible that it carries comedic value along with it. the story is so absurd, and i mean absurd in a bad way, that the very mention of it makes me, and anyone else who knows about it, explode into a pitying laughter for whoever decided to undertake this masterpiece of failure. i mean really, think about it, a person's mitochondria??? rising up in rebellion???? that belongs in a comedy or a comic book, not a serious movie. they took it seriously like there was a scientific possibility that this could happen. that approach may work for something that actually sounds cool, but this strayed away from that possibility the moment the writer put his fingers to the keyboard. again i say that the only purpose that this movie serves is to laugh hysterically at; and i meant that in the worst possibly way

I really enjoyed this film. I'm a BIG fan of the game and it was interesting to see how they blended elements of the original story into the storyline of the SquareSoft title.It is an interesting concept... and perhaps one that could have been explored a little move fully. The ideas that the film presents are original, and displayed in a pretty original way. I chalk most of my "huh?" factor (mostly in relation to character motivation) to the difference in cultures.Some of the effects are pretty groovy, too! It's a little slow moving at first, but it does start to pay off towards the end. Hang in there.And then go and play the game!

Japan in the last decade has made some pretty challenging horror films that require your constant attention and while I'm the first to admit that this is clearly not one of the best it's still an interesting story that's worthy of being checked out. Story is about a scientist named Toshiaki Nagashima (Hiroshi Mikami) who works with cells and he has a theory that ancient surviving cells called Mitochondria symbiotically live within other cells that inhabit our bodies. Toshiaki's wife Kiyomi (Riona Hazuki) is involved in a traffic accident and declared brain dead by doctors but Toshiaki learns that a young girl named Mariko (Ayako Omura) needs a kidney transplant. Another doctor named Tatsuro Ohno (Goro Inagaki) convinces him to get his wife's kidney but Toshiaki tells him that he wants Kiyomi's liver.*****SPOILER ALERT*****Tatsuro transplants the kidney into Mariko and Toshiaki starts to culture Kiyomi's liver cells in his lab and before you know it the cells in the culture grow into this gelatinous goop that takes the form of Kiyomi. Meanwhile, Mariko is having problems of her own as her uterus is changing and Toshiaki learns that the Mitochondria need Mariko to give birth to a new life form!This film is directed by Masayuki Ochiai who gives the viewer a film that is very visually stimulating and in one shot during an operation the camera is looking up through the incision at the doctor! This story is taken from a novel by Hideaki Sena but it also became a popular video game and some of the events that take place are from the game itself. Ochiai shows patience in the way that he tells this story and at certain points the film does tend to drag with a few scenes that go on a bit long. The story itself I found reminiscent of the films that Hammer Studios use to make in the 1950's and 1960's and I think both Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing would be very much at home working with a script like this. The film benefits from two performances and the first is from the radiant Hazuki who is so beautiful that we understand her husbands obsession with trying to keep her alive. But the best performance comes from Mikami who is a very good and respected actor in Japan and it's interesting to watch his character go from bookish doctor to obsessive scientist and then to a state of desperation trying to save the world. This is certainly nowhere near as intriguing as "Audition" but it does play well if your a sci-fi buff which I am so on that merit it's a film that deserves a look.

~~~I only vaguely remember the playstation game this movie is related to. I have never read the original novel. However, I have sat thru the experience of this DVD, & I must say that it is an interesting film indeed. I like the fact that it takes some real, tangible scientific data, & uses it for the basis of a well-written, well-acted piece of cinema. I thought that the relationships were kept simple enough to allow the audience to draw their own conclusions, yet were complex enough to keep the audience guessing as to what those conclusions should be. This gave a dynamic to the relationships between the Drs, & their respective patients, as well as the links between all of the main characters.The camera & light work was exceptional, & I look forward to watching the movie again, just so I can pick one aspect to focus on at a time, allowing me to absorb them systematically.I recommend Parasite Eve to anyonwwe,without a doubt is one of the best foreign films I have seen in a long while.A++