Hideo Nakata

After divorcing her husband, Yoshimi gets into a legal battle over the custody of her daughter. Her husband never really cared for her, but now he wants to take her away from Yoshimi. They need to find a flat quickly, so Yoshimi picks the first one she comes across. The place isn't great, and it may be haunted.

The start is slow, but the build-up is competent and things get progressively more tense. It's not exactly scary anymore and if you've seen a couple of these films you can easily predict the underlying drama, but the final third of the film contains some haunting and memorable scenes. Very solid, but a little dated.

Baku overplays his hand when he tries to become the leader of the Kakero organization, a wealthy club that oversees large bets. He is exiled and flees Tokyo, but a few years later he sees a path to rejoin the organization. For that, he will need all his skills and cunning because his adversaries are just as crafty as he is.

The elongated gambling scenes are pretty fun, the problem is that the outcome is always very predictable and the little twists aren't really all that genius. Performances are decent and the production values are high, but it's not really enough to make this one stand out. Solid and decent entertainment though.

Makoto is late for a meeting and stuck in traffic. He decides to take the train instead, but he forgets his phone in his cab. Shortly afterwards his girlfriend receives a call for a man who has found Makoto's phone. She picks it up and everything seems back to normal, what she doesn't know is that Makoto's phone got hacked.

Stolen Identity isn't a bad film, Nakata's direction is competent and a couple of minor twists keep things interesting. On the other hand, it's not a very notable film. Performances are decent, so is the cinematography and score, there's just little here that makes a big impression. Entertaining filler though.

Urano is safely locked behind bars, but new bodies turn up in the same place Urano ditched his victims. Detective Kagaya learns that somebody helped Urano, and the only way to get to him is by using Urano's dark web access. The police cut a deal with him and together they try to catch M, the mastermind behind the entire operation.

The cinematography is poor, the performances leave a lot to be desired and the plot is mediocre. The second half is a little better, as there are some proper reveals, but it's not enough to make this a worthwhile film. It's decent thriller filler, but Nakata can do so much better. Too lazy for its own good.

Topic of the doc is Masaru Konuma, a dedicated pinku director who made 55 films and died just last year. Konuma made a name for himself during the original Nikkatsu Roman Porno run. It's not the first doc on the subject I've seen (others have focused more on Adachi and Wakamatsu), but it is one of the more focused ones.

It's always interesting to hear from these directors directly, but this film also spends a lot of time with some of the more renowned actresses who featured in Konuma's films. There are a few too many scenes from his films and there are no spectacular revelations, but it remains a unique niche and it's nice to have seen a couple of docs on the subject.

After a comical duo disbands their act, one of them lands a job as a TV host, with the other on board as a screenwriter. His job is to seek out haunted houses and spend the night there. He gets lucky on his first job as his camera registers a spirit. He becomes an overnight sensation and before he knows it, he is on his way to his second haunted house.

There is a lot of padding here, which isn't very interesting at all. Generic characters and Nakata's tepid direction simply don't support a dramatic narrative. The bigger problem though is that none of the haunts are scary. It's just the same old ghosts and apparitions doing the same old things. The ending gives the film a small boost, other than that this is for the most hardened J-Horror fans only.