Ju-on: The Grudge
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| Ju-on: The Grudge | |
|---|---|
 Movie poster for Ju-on: The Grudge |
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| Directed by | Takashi Shimizu |
| Produced by | Takashige Ichise |
| Written by | Takashi Shimizu |
| Music by | Shiro Sato |
| Cinematography | Tokusho Kikumura |
| Editing by | Nobuyuki Takahashi |
| Release date(s) | January 25, 2003 (Japan) |
| Running time | 92 min. |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Followed by | Ju-on: The Grudge 2 Ju-on: The Grudge 3 |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Ju-on: The Grudge (呪怨) is a J-Horror film written and directed by Takashi Shimizu. The film is the third entry in the Ju-on series and is the first film theatrically released (the first two entries were direct to video productions). The film was released in Japan on January 25, 2003 and has spawned several sequels and an American remake titled The Grudge which was released in 2004. The film is based on a Japanese haunted house legend.
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[edit] Plot
An evil curse named Ju-on lingers upon a house in Nerima, Tokyo, where a husband had murdered his wife and child years ago. The powerful grudge is manifested whenever someone dies in a fit of rage which then passes on to those who enter the haunted location of where the dead once lived.
The first few scenes show what the curse is, and a brief black and white montage of the murder of Kayako Saeki by her husband Takeo. After, the story is shown through six sequences, all with a loose relation to each other.
[edit] Rika |理佳|
At a Social Welfare Center, Nishina Rika (Megumi Okina) a volunteer social worker, is given the task of caring for the catatonic Tokunaga Sachie by her superior Hirohashi. It is normally Takahashi-san's case, but he strangly cannot be contacted. As she is walking to the house in the quiet suburban-like Nerima ward, she stops, hesitant to enter the gates. No one answers the front door, which is strangely unlocked. Discovering the house in a state of disorder, Rika eventually finds Sachie malnourished and soiled, with none of the other occupants of the home present inside the messy home. While vacuuming the floor, she finds a picture seemingly of the Tokunagas with the face of the wife cut out. Walking upstairs, she starts hearing shuffling noises in the closet of the back bedroom. The closet is taped shut, and when she removes the tape and opens the door, Rika finds a black cat resting on a pillow. When Rika looks down, she sees a boy, supposedly the Tokunagas' son. She is shocked and runs downstairs. She calls the Welfare Center on her cell phone, inquiring why they haven't mentioned a child, no less one taped in a closet. The phone of the house rings, and the caller leaves a message; it's Hitomi, Sachie's daughter. Rika realizes that this is the child from the photo, and as she walks up to check on him, she is frightened by his presence, he staring down at her from behind the railings (in the fashion he saw his mother's murder). Toshio, he is called. Rika is then distracted by Sachie's murmuring, when she keeps repeating that she "told" Kazumi. Laying her down on her mattress, Rika is startled by the presence of a dark shadow coming to claim Sachie, now frightened. A pair of bloodshot eyes open, it stares at Rika, and she faints. As the camera pans up, Toshio is standing behind her.
[edit] Katsuya |勝也|
The sequence opens with the aforementioned Tokunaga couple. One night, Kazumi is awoken by the noise of someone running around and causing a racket and the subsequent mess. She assumes it is Sachie, Katsuya's mother and her mother-in-law. Katsuya leaves for work as Kazumi tells him that Hitomi is coming that night. Kazumi falls asleep on the living room couch after eating a cup of noodles. She is awakened when someone runs by and knocks the noodle cup of the table. Once again, she assumes it is Sachie, but sees a small handprint on the living room door. She investigates, leading her upstairs into a bedroom, where she meets a gruesome fate with Toshio. Later that evening, Katsuya comes home and finds Kazumi lying on a bed in a state of shock. He begins to call an ambulance, but senses a presence in the room with him. He searches for it, and finds a strange boy behind the bed. He asks who he is, but he disapears. The closet doors start to move by themselves, and Kazumi all of a sudden starts having the life drained from her on the bed, where she dies because of Toshio. Hitomi visits, finding Katsuya dazed and confused on the stairs. Katsuya pushes Hitomi outside and teels her to go home. Katsuya is possessed by Takeo, and as the curse repeats itself, Katsuya then goes upstairs to put Kazumi in the attic.
[edit] Hitomi |仁美|
Tokunaga Hitomi is leaving her call that the house receives near the end of the first sequence. While she is walking down a hallway after work, she stops twice to look around upon hearing slushy wet bag noises behind her. Making a brief stop in the bathroom, Hitomi sees a shadow walk into the next stall from her own. At that precise moment her cell phone rings, apparently a call from Katsuya. When she answers it, her brother seems to be joking by making a death rattle, and promptly hangs up. Banging from the next-door occupant alerts Hitomi to apologize. As she is leaving the bathroom, a small teddy bear decoration from Hitomi's purse is flung off. She tries to reach for it, but is greeted by the person in the next stall, who makes the same death rattle. The stall opens, and a ball of hair comes out of the stall in such a frightening manner that she runs out of the bathroom. She goes home to her apartment complex, and gets a call from Katsuya again. He immediately comes up and rings the doorbell. She opens to nothing but air, and the death rattle is heard loudly from the phone. Hitomi runs to her bedroom, unplugs the phone and gets under her covers. She turns on the television, but the picture starts to warp and make another death rattle. A lump then builds under the covers, dragging Hitomi under. She lifts up the cover to reveal Kayako, and is dragged under with her.
[edit] Toyama |遠山|
After Rika hasn't come back to the care center, Hirohashi goes to check on her. She finds Sachie dead on the floor, and Rika in a state of shock in a corner. The police are notified. Detectives search the house, where they find the family photo Rika found earlier and hear a phone ringing in the attic. Upon investigation, the dectectives find the corpses of Kazumi and Katsuya. We meet a detective named Toyama. He has a wife and a young daughter Izumi. Detectives notify him that there have been more disappearances within the Saeki house. He later goes there with cans of gasoline to burn the house down. He is distracted by a light coming from the front of the house. He sees a premonition of Izumi as a teenager into the future, leaving the house scared. It is revealed her friends upstairs and her were checking out the house, but Izumi got scared and left. From her point of view, Toyama had died, and sees her dead father. Toyama goes upstairs and sees three young girls in a bedroom, laughing at Izumi for leaving. Something falls from the closet and kills the girls. Toyama leaves the house frightened, while the other detectives fall victim's to the curse.
[edit] Izumi |いづみ|
Izumi (now a teenager) and her two friends, Chiharu and Miyuki, are walking to school, discussing their teacher Sekine-san and his horrible English, when Izumi spots a Missing poster of Saori and her three friends. She knows why they are missing and feels strong guilt for leaving them. When inquired for her hesitation, Izumi says nothing's wrong. Back at school, there has been a school event where all are trying to find a picture of him/herself, and Izumi can't find one of herself. Chiharu and Miyuki pester Sekine-san about this, thus he will try to find the negatives and develop them, although Izumi is not particularly troubled by this.
Walking home, she spots another poster about the three missing girls, and she is much more visibly frightened. Upon entering her apartment, the radio announces that the body of one Nishina Rika (hinting this story takes place after the ending sequence of the film) has been found in an empty house in the Nerima ward, and the camera closes up on a specific photo on the family shrine that Izumi's mother is staring at: her father. This implies that Toyama has died sometime between the last and current sequence. Izumi then enters her room, and is noticeably being driven into depression and insanity, as she closes her curtains and clutches her pillow tightly. Some time later, Chiharu and Miyuki take the newly developed photos from Sekine-san and visit Izumi. Slightly disturbed by her catatonic mother, they go to their friend's room where a graying Izumi frightfully jumps into bed and puts up her hood.
Miyuki tries to open the curtains, against Izumi's cries. Her windows are found to be taped with newspapers. She tells them about her foray at the haunted house with Saori and gang and how she ran out, and now they have disappeared and are out to get her. When leaving Izumi's apartment, her mother tells the two girls that her husband had gone through the same behavior before he died. The girls then remember the photos, and after viewing them, they realize that every picture of Izumi and the three missing girls display black blotches around their eyes and a shadowy wraith near them.
They throw the pictures away and run. Back at Izumi's home, she opens the door to the family room and sees her father, recalling that she saw him at that house. Of course, this reunion is broken short when Izumi wakes up. She notices that a scrap of newspaper is on her bed and she opens her curtain to replace it. Suddenly through the gaps, she sees Saori and gang, and screams. Running and falling out of her room, they are now following her. She tries to shore up the doors, but to no effect. As she backs up against the family shrine, two white hands clasp her head. Behind her the face of Kayako is briefly seen before it disappears, dragging Izumi kicking and screaming into the shrine. The three dead schoolgirls view the shrine, which amongst the ornaments now have the shadowy faces of Toyama and Izumi.
[edit] Kayako |伽椰子|
Time has passed, and Rika is now more or less in an untroubled state. She receives a call from her friend Mariko, and sets up a date to meet. At the care center, behind her through a glass window, an old man is seemingly playing peek-a-boo behind her back either with her or with himself, although the latter can be canned as he waves away one of the other workers waving at him. When Rika notices this, she finds it rather disturbing. Subsequent shots of Toshio's reflection next to the old man reveals the identity of his playmate. At a resaurant with Mariko, Rika finds Toshio under her table and leaves.
Later Mariko goes to the cursed house. Rika runs there, and finds her being dragged up to the attic by Kayako. Rika sees Kayako crawling to get her in the attic, and runs downstairs. When she runs past a mirror, Kayako's reflection is there instead of her's. She looks at the mirror and puts her hands over her face as the old man did with peekaboo. Kayako's reflection appears again, coming out of Rika's shirt, then disapearing. Rika hears a thump upstairs, then a loud slushy wet bag noise. A door opens upstairs. Kayako slowly crawls down the stairs, inside her trashbag, covered with blood. Rika drops to the floor and backs up against the wall by the door. Kayako gets closer and appears to be reaching to Rika for help. She puts her hands over her face again, and sees a non-bloody version of Kayako.
Rika sees that this was the woman haunting her behind her bed, in her shower, and on top of Sachie in the beginning. Kayako disapears. Then, Takeo walks down the stairs, covered with Kayako's blood. Rika sees she will meet the exact same fate as Kayako. Takeo gets closer, and reaches his hand on Rika's face. She is killed. Some pictures of empty streets are shown, and the last shot is of Rika (Rika not Kayako) inside the attic in the trashbag. The camera pans closer until it is in front of Rika's face. Her eyes snap open.
[edit] Cast
- Megumi Okina as Rika Nishina
- Misaki Ito as Hitomi Tokunaga
- Misa Uehara as Izumi Toyama
- Yui Ichikawa as Chiharu
- Takako Fuji as Kayako, the ghost
- Yuya Ozeki as Toshio
- Kanji Tsuda as Katsuya
[edit] Remake
In 2004, Sony Pictures Entertainment released an American remake of the film. The film was directed by Takashi Shimizu and starred Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jason Behr. The main plot of the film followed Rika's expierence within the house.
[edit] Sequels
In 2006, Sony Pictures Entertainment released a sequel which was also directed by Takashi Shimizu and starred Sarah Michelle Gellar and Amber Tamblyn. The film's main plot also followed parts of Rika's storyline with several changes. The film also introduced the school girl subplot with several changes.
[edit] Sequels
Ju-on: The Grudge 2 is the sequel to Ju-on: The Grudge which is a continuation of Kayako's storyline and follows identical subplots.
[edit] Planned
Ju-on: The Grudge 3 is the third sequel which is currently expected to be released in 2008.
[edit] Trivia
- Chiharu's storyline is the only subplot explained in the sequel Ju-on: The Grudge 2.
[edit] External links
Reviews
| The Ju-on Curse | |
|---|---|
| Directed by Takashi Shimizu | |
| Short Films: Katasumi and 4444444444 | Tales of The Grudge | |
| Juon Series: Ju-on | Ju-on 2 | The Grudge | The Grudge 2 | The Grudge 3 | |
| American Films: The Grudge | The Grudge 2 | The Grudge 3 | |
| Characters | |
| Aubrey | Karen | Kayako | Takeo | Other | |
