Japan in the last decade has made some pretty challenging horror films that require your constant attention and while I'm the first to admit that this is clearly not one of the best it's still an interesting story that's worthy of being checked out. Story is about a scientist named Toshiaki Nagashima (Hiroshi Mikami) who works with cells and he has a theory that ancient surviving cells called Mitochondria symbiotically live within other cells that inhabit our bodies. Toshiaki's wife Kiyomi (Riona Hazuki) is involved in a traffic accident and declared brain dead by doctors but Toshiaki learns that a young girl named Mariko (Ayako Omura) needs a kidney transplant. Another doctor named Tatsuro Ohno (Goro Inagaki) convinces him to get his wife's kidney but Toshiaki tells him that he wants Kiyomi's liver.
*****SPOILER ALERT*****
Tatsuro transplants the kidney into Mariko and Toshiaki starts to culture Kiyomi's liver cells in his lab and before you know it the cells in the culture grow into this gelatinous goop that takes the form of Kiyomi. Meanwhile, Mariko is having problems of her own as her uterus is changing and Toshiaki learns that the Mitochondria need Mariko to give birth to a new life form!
This film is directed by Masayuki Ochiai who gives the viewer a film that is very visually stimulating and in one shot during an operation the camera is looking up through the incision at the doctor! This story is taken from a novel by Hideaki Sena but it also became a popular video game and some of the events that take place are from the game itself. Ochiai shows patience in the way that he tells this story and at certain points the film does tend to drag with a few scenes that go on a bit long. The story itself I found reminiscent of the films that Hammer Studios use to make in the 1950's and 1960's and I think both Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing would be very much at home working with a script like this. The film benefits from two performances and the first is from the radiant Hazuki who is so beautiful that we understand her husbands obsession with trying to keep her alive. But the best performance comes from Mikami who is a very good and respected actor in Japan and it's interesting to watch his character go from bookish doctor to obsessive scientist and then to a state of desperation trying to save the world. This is certainly nowhere near as intriguing as "Audition" but it does play well if your a sci-fi buff which I am so on that merit it's a film that deserves a look.
*****SPOILER ALERT*****
Tatsuro transplants the kidney into Mariko and Toshiaki starts to culture Kiyomi's liver cells in his lab and before you know it the cells in the culture grow into this gelatinous goop that takes the form of Kiyomi. Meanwhile, Mariko is having problems of her own as her uterus is changing and Toshiaki learns that the Mitochondria need Mariko to give birth to a new life form!
This film is directed by Masayuki Ochiai who gives the viewer a film that is very visually stimulating and in one shot during an operation the camera is looking up through the incision at the doctor! This story is taken from a novel by Hideaki Sena but it also became a popular video game and some of the events that take place are from the game itself. Ochiai shows patience in the way that he tells this story and at certain points the film does tend to drag with a few scenes that go on a bit long. The story itself I found reminiscent of the films that Hammer Studios use to make in the 1950's and 1960's and I think both Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing would be very much at home working with a script like this. The film benefits from two performances and the first is from the radiant Hazuki who is so beautiful that we understand her husbands obsession with trying to keep her alive. But the best performance comes from Mikami who is a very good and respected actor in Japan and it's interesting to watch his character go from bookish doctor to obsessive scientist and then to a state of desperation trying to save the world. This is certainly nowhere near as intriguing as "Audition" but it does play well if your a sci-fi buff which I am so on that merit it's a film that deserves a look.