| Premonition | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Norio Tsuruta |
| Written by | Norio Tsuruta |
| Starring | Hiroshi Mikami Noriko Sakai |
| Release date(s) | May 18, 2004 (Cannes Film Market) October 2, 2004 (Japan) |
| Running time | 95 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
Premonition (予言 Yogen) is a 2004 Japanese horror film directed by Tsuruta Norio. Yogen is based on the manga Kyoufu Shinbun ("Newspaper of Terror") by Jiro Tsunoda, published in "Shonen Champion" in 1973.
Contents |
During an outing with his wife, Ayaka, and daughter, Nana, Hideki, a high school professor, requires a payphone from which he can upload a file for work. Whilst waiting in the phone booth, he finds a strange newspaper page foretelling his daughter's death and with her photograph (which catches his eye). However, she is at that moment still alive in the back seat, but the paper says she died at about 8:00 pm, which is the current time.
Meanwhile, Nana can't unlatch her seatbelt and Ayaka crosses the street to get Hideki's assistance. Suddenly, a truck hits the car, while their daughter is still inside. Ayaka and Hideki run to the car, only to watch as a fire ignites and the car explodes into flames before they can save their daughter. Glass from the exploding car cuts Ayaka's cheek (leaving a permanent scar). It is explained that the truck driver was dead before the impact, having suffered from a seizure. The newspaper page blows away and Hideki cannot find it again. In shock, with the emergency services around, Hideki stumbles around looking for it while Ayaka tries to stop him, not believing that there ever was a newspaper page.
Three years later, the couple has divorced, and separately begin to experience strange phenomena - Ayaka seeking it, while Hideki tries to hide from it. Ayaka is conducting experiments with psychics in order to track down evidence of other foretelling newspapers, a collection called "the Newspaper of Terror". A psychic being interviewed expresses fear and hesitation over the subject, but relents and tells Ayaka that a lawyer contacted her about the newspaper, too, but disappeared shortly after. Meanwhile, Hideki begins receiving premonitions and starts to lose sense of time (not knowing what time of day it is, experiencing events twice, etc.).
Shortly after the interview, Ayaka receives a phone call from the psychic, who, in a strained and odd voice, warns her that Ayaka can no longer escape "it". She rushes to the psychic's house, and finds a library of journals that contain polaroids of the foreshadowing newspapers and their corresponding articles. Ayaka continues to search the house, and finds the psychic face-down and still in her bedroom, surrounded by more polaroids with one gripped in her hand. Ayaka tries to shake her awake, but cannot, instead prying the photo from the dead woman's hand and staring at it in shock. She calls Hideki, who refuses to see her, thinking she will simply call him insane.
As he hangs up the phone, a newspaper page is suddenly blown and stuck up to his window, telling him that one of his students will be one of many stabbing victims that have recently been plaguing the city. Although he rushes to try to save her, he fails. The next morning, Hideki meets his ex-wife and the two team up to find out more about the newspapers.
Hideki continues to receive more premonitions, and is further frightened by the increasingly strange occurrences. They hear the story of a 13 year-old boy who was admitted into a mental hospital and had similar premonitions. Six months later, the boy was as aged as a 70 year-old man, and soon died, having bitten off his tongue and eventually bled to death in order have ink to write more premonitions down. Ayaka takes Hideki to the house of Rei Kigata, who also researched the Newspaper of Terror, but when they arrive at the house, they find it abandoned with a layer of dust over everything. In one room, there is a large stone water basin in the center and shreds of paper all over the floor, and the walls (which are also made of paper) are either written or partly burnt. They watch a series of videotapes that Kigata made, which recorded his paranormal experiences. In the first one, dated 12 years ago, Kigata states that he "received" a message about a family that was to die in a gas explosion. He warned the family and the following day the newspaper had no record of an explosion. But then he wonders if changing the future is the reason why he suddenly has strange gray marks on his arms. Kigata says that he will continue to keep a record of what happens to him. In the last video, marked as "number 32", Kigata is completely dark gray (hair, clothes, skin - everything), simply waves despondently at the camera, and then wanders out of the room. Hideki and Ayaka leave the room and find a dark man-shaped blotch across the wall and floor of the next room.
Hideki returns home with Ayaka and his premonitions become much more frequent. He wonders if he should warn the soon-to-be victims at the risk of suffering the same fate as Kigata. Ayaka begs him not to, and confesses that her research was performed in order to believe in him and that she doesn't want to lose him, too. The two make love, and in the morning resolve to do more research. Ayaka goes to work while Hideki stays home to go over her research notes. When Ayaka finishes work, her car refuses to start, so she decides to take the train instead, and doesn't realize that her cell phone is still in the passenger seat as she leaves the car. Back in his apartment, Hideki receives another newspaper, telling him that a train derailment costs about 100 people their lives, and Ayaka's name is included among the dead. Hideki tries to call her cell, but since it was left in the car, Ayaka fails to get the call. Hideki rushes to the train station and pulls Ayaka out of the train before the doors close but fails to stop the accident itself from happening. One of Ayaka's co-workers is killed, at her funeral her mother mentions that her daughter's face was torn off during the accident. Hideki and Ayaka decide to move in together, and while packing, she notices that there are dark gray marks over parts of Hideki's arm.
Hideki has a nightmarish experience when he is thrown into different time periods (Kigata's house, his wife's house shortly after Nana's death etc.) and he is haunted by ghosts (The 13-70 year old boy crawling across the floor in a straight jacket, Ayaka's co-worker with the front of her face missing) More events lead to him reliving his worst nightmare: Nana's death. His desire to save his daughter causes him to attempt to change that past event.
Repeatedly, he fails to change the events until he figures out the correct resolution, and he allows himself to remain in the car as it explodes after getting Ayaka to take Nana to safety. The very end shows Ayaka screaming for her husband and Nana lying on the road. Nana looks up to see the newspaper page floating in the air. Nana watches as it falls to the ground, only to show that the person predicted to die was indeed Hideki.
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