One missed Call movie review with Goodies

I also have a nice set of "One missed Call" Goodies waiting for you at the end of the review. So be sure to check them out.

College student Nakamura Yumi (Shibasaki Ko) is out for drinks with a bunch of friends. Her buddy Yoko gets a call on her cell phone with a weird ring-tone she’s never heard before. "One missed call", is written on the display. When they check out the message, it is not only supposed to have come from her own cell phone, it also contains a hideous scream that sounds just like Yoko. To top it all, it’s dated three days into the future. Sure enough, three days later, at that exact time, with that exact scream, Yoko plunges to her death from a railway bridge.

A few days later, another person at the party, Kenji, receives a call from his own number, also from the future. This message too contains a blood-curdling scream. He too dies at the appointed hour uttering the same scream. The calls don’ stop. This time it’s Yumi’s best friend Konishi Natsumi (Fukiishi Kazue). She gets a call with the same creepy ring-tone. The message contains a video of someone’s hand snaking up behind her own terror-stricken self.

Taking this to mean she’s doomed, Natsumi goes to pieces. Ignoring Yumi’s pleas, she agrees to go on a live TV broadcast of an attempted exorcism at the appointed hour. Yumi, desperate to get to the bottom of things, teams up with a solitary funeral director, Yamashita Hiroshi (Tsutsumi Shinichi), who lost his sister in a similar set of circumstances. The two of them begin to follow the trail of death.

Meanwhile Natsumi’s moment of truth approaches. Live on national TV at exactly the predicted moment, she dies a horrible, horrible death. As Yumi and Yamashita gaze at her twisted corpse, Yumi’s phone begins to ring…..

At the first look, the plot seems very similar to Hideo Nakata’s "Ringu" (1998). But it really differs very much in the aesthetically level. Takashi Miike really brings his own style of camera angles into the movie. Along with the use of various lens filters and the use of a very good sound design, he manages to create an atmosphere of horror, you rarely get to see on the big screen. Very often these effects scare you, without really seeing horrible scenes. There are some gory effects also, but he used them very accurate and not in a way splatter movie do. I tend to say he used those scenes very wise and thought of where he has to put them, and where they are not advisable.

When talking about effects, I have to say, that they were very good. I never saw a scene, where I though "OMG, what a cheap trick". All the masks and make-up effects are well done, and along with the described sounds and cinematography the movie gets its own look.

The only thing I did not like that much, was the acting. Although the actors weren’t bad, they sometimes seemed overcharged by Miike’s requirements. It seemed like they were overacting in one and almost not acting in other scenes.  But overall they did OK. The best job in my opinion did Shibasaki Ko, who portrayed Nakamura Yumi. Also Tsutsumi Shinichi did a good job and played his role as Yamashita Hiroshi very well.

All put together, made a very good movie. And therefore deserves a good ranking.

I give "One missed Call" 8 of 10 points.

Now for the promised Goodies:

Besides 22 stills (I didn’t find any other site that has more) from the film, we also got a Movie Poster in our "One missed call" movie gallery, which you can find here.

You want Wallpapers too ? No problem we know where to get them.

Just click on the size you need !

Wallpaper 1:       800x600    1024x768   1280x1024

Wallpaper 2:       800x600    1024x768   1280x1024

Missing the official Trailer ?

Just head over to the official japanese movie site here.

And last but not least, (as if the Goodies above wouldn’t be cool enough), we also found a special clip from the movie too ! The people of the Viennale Festival put this little beauty online. It's a scene, where Yumi and Hiroshi investigate at a Hospital.

You can watch the RM clip here.

Enjoy the Goodies,

René