Ghost Train (2006 film)

Ghost Train
Directed by	Takeshi Furusawa
Written by	Takeshi Furusawa Erika Tanaka
Starring	Erika Sawajiri Shun Oguri Aya Sugimoto
Distributed by	Shochiku
Release dates	July 27, 2006 (2006-07-27) (South Korea) September 30, 2006 (2006-09-30) (Japan)
Running time	92 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Ghost Train (オトシモノ, otoshimono) is a Japanese horror film released in 2006. It was the first Japanese film that was released in Korea before Japan.

Plot

Takeshi, a young boy, finds a ticket covered in a red bag. He picks it up and a woman in black tells him he is going to die. Takeshi puts the ticket in the lost-and-found, and heads home on an empty train. When the train passes by a tunnel, the train is stopped by the conductor, who sees a dead body and exits to examine the spot. Takeshi is then pulled outside of the train by the woman in black, screaming for help while the train starts to move. The next day, Takeshi is reported missing. His classmate Noriko shows her sister, Nana the ticket. Nana touches the ticket and sees the death of a baby and her mother. Noriko sees Takeshi walking on the other side of the train tracks. She follows him and is never seen again. Nana decides to investigate. She remembers the name on the ticket as Yaeko Aonuma, and checks the lost-and-found history. It turns out that ticket has been returned many times and all those who returned it ended up missing. Nana examines the picture of those missing people. One side of their faces is decomposing with black marks and their eyes have become black.

Meanwhile, Nana's classmate, Kanae is on a train. Her boyfriend finds a bracelet and gives it to her as a "special present". When she learns that the bracelet is just a useless trinket, she hastily tries to remove it, to no avail. When Kanae meets her boyfriend at the train station, she is choked by him, the latter having been possessed by Yaeko. She kicks him to the railway right when a train passes and Yaeko's spirit leaving his body. He tells Kanae to beware of Yaeko before he dies, being hit by the train. Nana receives a message from Noriko that she had sent days before, and decides to go to Takeshi's apartment. She finds it in a mess. Takeshi then appears, pale black, controlled by Yaeko, and naked. He tries to attack Nana, but she flees. The next day, Kanae is walking on the subway when she encounters Yaeko's shadow, who pulls her to the railway until Nana arrives, which makes Yaeko leaves. The two then agree to tackle the mystery together. While Nana is called by the hospital who informs her that her mother had a seizure, Kanae braves herself to go to the subway, but she is pulled by Yaeko and is almost getting hit by the train until a mysterious hand saves her at the last second. However, Nana believes that Kanae is dead, and decides to contact the lost-and-found person as well as train conductor, Shunichi Kuga, who tells her that Yaeko was a pregnant woman who was hit by a train in the tunnel. She gave birth to the baby shortly before she died, but the baby is either dead or alive. Meanwhile, Kanae wakes to meet with a mysterious woman. The woman reveals that she lost her son, Yuuki, to Yaeko too. Kanae phones Nana to inform her that she is still alive, and the woman offers to take Kanae to meet Nana. However, during the ride, their car is stopped by Yaeko in the middle of a railway, and while the woman manages to escape, Kanae does not, and she tells the woman to save Nana before she is killed when the car is hit by the oncoming train.

Nana decides to travel through the subway with Shunichi. They are met by the woman, who introduces herself and informs them that Kanae is dead. Stopping in the middle of the subway, Nana and the woman go down the train, while Shunichi stays inside. They see Yaeko crawling to them, and when Yaeko grabs Nana, she experiences flashbacks that makes her learning that Yaeko was just another victim of the ancient spirit who had resided there since long ago. Yaeko found the same bracelet as Kanae did and was hit by the train, giving birth to her child with three scar marks on the child's chest. Due to Yaeko's anger and hatred, her spirit overcame the ancient spirit to haunt the subway. As Nana backs down, she hits the subway wall and uncovers a secret cavern with statues and Noriko sleeping atop a mountain of dead bodies inside. While trying to wake Noriko, Yaeko appears. The woman, in rage over Yuuki's death, tackles Yaeko, and ends up being stabbed in the abdomen on a stalagmite. As she dies, Nana sees scars on the woman's chest and realizes that the woman is in fact Yaeko's missing child. The dead bodies come to live shortly after, and Nana and Noriko race back to the subway while the bodies chase them. When they almost manage to come out, the platform below Nana cracks open, leading to a bottomless pit. Noriko holds on her sister to safety, but she in turn is pulled by a spirit, although Nana grabs the spirit out of Noriko. Deciding to let go of the platform, Nana is pulled by Shunichi as well as Kanae's spirit, eventually managing to get out. The trio head back to the train and escape safely from the bodies.

The next day, Nana and Noriko visit their mother, who has recovered and is ready to come back home. Nana watches the TV and learns that Shunichi has ordered an explosion on the subway to seal it forever. She heads outside to sit on a bench and meets Kanae's spirit. The two smile at each other before Kanae disappears.

Cast

Trivia

It was first released on July 27, 2006 in Korea, and then on September 30, 2006 in Japan. The film was subsequently released in Taiwan on November 17, 2006 and Hong Kong on November 23, 2006. ADV licensed Ghost Train and Synesthesia effective 2006/10/24 for $58,668;^[1] in July 2007, ADV Films released an English localization dub of the film on DVD. In 2008, The film, along with over 30 other titles from ADV was transferred over to Funimation Entertainment, who then re-released it in 2009.^[2]

The story takes reference to an event that occurred in Mizunashi during 1971, in which a lady called Yaeko Aonuma was killed in a train accident. The director took 2 years to create the plot of the film and develop it with his editor.

A novel and comic adaptation saw publication in the same year, with the publishing of the works handled by the Kadokawa Shoten.

References

1. ↑ "ADV Court Documents Reveal Amounts Paid for 29 Anime Titles". Anime News Network. 
2. ↑ "Funiamtion Picks Up Over 30 Former ADV Titles". Anime News Network. 2008-07-04. Retrieved 2010-01-11. 

External links

• Ghost Train at the Internet Movie Database