You know you're getting something special and unusual when watching a Kiyoshi Kurosawa movie. Reason why I often like his movies so much is because they always start of as something formulaic and you're sure the movie will be heading in a certain direction but then suddenly it will completely turn around and the movie and its story start taking an unexpected approach.The movie pretty much starts off as a thriller, in which the police is hunting down a supposed serial killer. But it soon starts to become apparent that there actually is far more going on and the movie takes a more horror-like turn.But please don't watch this movie expecting a typical Japanese horror flick, with scare moments and such. This movie is anything but typical and it's just not really a straight-forward horror flick. It's more subtle and clever with its story and build-up. Some people might find it too slow but those were probably expecting this movie to be a more typical Japanese horror flick.It's really a movie that is heavy on its build-up. It can definitely get hard to follow and understand at times but this is basically always the case with a Kiyoshi Kurosawa movie. They allow you to think and interpret certain scenes and moments in your own way. Lots is always being left up to your own interpretation, so also don't expect the movie to just hand you all of the questions or to give a clear explanation of everything at the end.It's really a very well directed movie, that also focuses heavily on its visuals. It's a real fine looking movie, with nice cinematography and some great settings got picked, for the movie its story. Kiyoshi Kurosawa is also an horror director who often uses special effects for his movies. It's always very well incorporated into his films and all serves a purpose within the style and story of the movies, as is also the case with this movie.Really a movie you have to experience for yourself.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Kyoshi Kurosawa is a talented but maybe too prolific director. Since the early 90's, he had almost directed 30 movies. No wonder that, when Takashige Ichise, the master producer of J-Horror ("Ring", "The Grudge") asks him to direct one of the Jap-Horror trilogy movie along with Hideo Nakata and Shimizu, you get a little feeling of "Déjà-vu" in front of his new movie : "Sakebi" (Retribution). Of course, there's still lots of excellent ideas in the movie, and some parts are majestically directed : all the ghosts apparitions are really beautiful, and the movie take there and then an experimental approach in their representation. It almost looks like a modern art installation. Some shots are also really well thought, as the one of the interrogation of a suspect, filmed in continuation, with the help of a mirror in the back in order to create a double space. But the most original aspect of the movie is the depiction of the modern Tokyo, witch doesn't look modern at all. In the movie, the city looks like a post-war town, everything is rotten and lugubre, there's nobody in the dark streets. You don't often see such a representation of Japan, far from the clichés of the ultra-modern society it's supposed to be.But the problem is that all this was ultimately in others Kurosawa's movies, as if he wanted to offer a sort of best-of his previous works here. His style haven't change, and the story isn't really surprising for any "Kaïro"'s spectator. This lack of surprise leads to a feeling of boringness, and I couldn't get out of my mind, after the movie, the idea that it was clearly unoriginal (for a Kurosawa's movie, of course) and a little bit too long (maybe cutting 20 minutes of the movie would have been a good thing).But all in all, this movie is a good introduction to his tormented universe, and for those who already know it, well, a new Kyoshi Kurosawa's movie certainly comes out in 3 months.

A detective (Koji Yakusho) investigates a series of murders by drowning, while at the same time questioning his own possible involvement. Kiyoshi Kurosawa focuses mostly on the concept of abandonment here. This time, however, the consequences that lie behind the motive for the killings reach far beyond the primary characters. The horror sequences themselves are nicely done and incorporate a variety of techniques. The pacing is glacial but there's more than enough here to satisfy. Reading some of the negative reviews here only confirms that audiences are getting more and more stupid by the day. No doubt this is due to the endless flooding of Hollywood movies (if you really want to call them "movies") that are made for brainless halfwits who have completely abandoned their cerebral skills in favor of special effects and potty humor. That said, one can only shrug their shoulders at the mass of confusion expressed by some of the reviewers here who claim that this film "doesn't make a lick of sense." Allow me to explain. START OF SPOILERS The woman in red is behind every killing that occurs. The murders that the detective is investigating were committed by people, but the woman in red influenced them to kill because they experienced the same rejection that she experienced – they are not an integral part of the future of their loved ones. The detective is the only one who is forgiven, but the rest of the world must die, because she was abandoned by all. Therefore, her influence over the human murderers was simply a foreshadowing of the apocalyptic doom that would later befall the entirety of humanity.END OF SPOILERSThere are more specifics to the story, of course, but the synopsis above is rather simplistic and shouldn't be all that difficult to understand. Then again, if someone feeds their brain with dim-witted tripe like "Friday the 13th" and "Hostel" all the time, it's possible that their movie IQ has degraded to such an extent that even the slightest bit of indirect communication by a filmmaker will go unnoticed. For those of us who don't need (or simply don't want) everything spelled out in BIG RED LETTERS, "Retribution" offers a bit of interest. The rest of you Hollywood fanboys may as well not even bother with stuff like this. Just go and watch "Freddy vs. Jason" or "Alien vs. Predator" a few hundred more times until your brain turns into a quivering mound of jello.

Having seen "Cure" and "Kairo", I was prepared for another mildly confusing and oddly structured film from Kiyoshi Kurasawa, but the man really surpassed himself here! "Retribution" is downright freaking weird!! Not just the 'I don't get it' kind of weird, but inexplicably uncanny, haunting and perplexing. Kurasawa's style and stories already were a class above the rest of the Asian supernatural horror-industry, but "Retribution" might even be his absolute best effort to date. It's an engaging thriller with an extremely charismatic protagonist (director's favorite Kôji Yakusho), a continuously tense atmosphere and a handful of genuinely creepy moments that are guaranteed to send cold shivers down your spine. Summarizing the plot accurately is a nearly impossible task to accomplish, but I'll try anyway. In a relatively short span of time, inspector Yoshioka and his colleagues of the Tokyo police have to investigate three macabre murders where the victims were drowned in saltwater. The modus operandi is identical in all three cases, but there's no connection to be found between the victims and – moreover – the culprits aren't difficult to track down. Yoshioka arrests three different killers that immediately confess their crimes, but can't give a proper explanation for what it was that drove them to kill or why they specifically drowned their victims in saltwater. The more Yoshioka investigates the three murders, the more the evidence points out that he himself might be an important suspect. He's definitely guilty of something, as he's soon stalked by the creepy appearance of the first murder victim. The girl is dressed in a bright red dress and produces chilly screams that pierce you to the very marrow. "Retribution" is slow-paced and soberly filmed, but somehow Kurasawa manages to hold your attention simply with great dialogs and intriguing character drawings. There's no gore and not even that much action, but the tone of the film is constantly ominous and the Lady in Red is at least 10 times scarier than all the eerie kids of "Ringu", "Phone", "The Grudge" and all the other phony ghost-appearances in Asian thrillers combined! "Retribution" is an impeccably stylish and well-made film, containing enchanting photography and flawless editing as well as atmospheric music and great acting. The script is stuffed with ingenious little plot-details (like the constant wave of earthquakes and the significance of the saltwater) and the talented Yakusho is always a joy to behold. However, exactly like in "Cure", the exaggeratedly complexity towards the end of the film nearly ruins the whole viewing experience. I said it before and I'll say it again: just ONCE I'd like to see a Japanese occult-thriller that doesn't leave me scratching my head after the final denouement. The events in "Retribution" were fairly comprehensible for about three quarters of the movie, but then suddenly it seemed like everyone involved in the production lost interest and just came up with the most confusing finale imaginable.