Saturday, November 05, 2011

Higanjima, Escape from Vampire Island and Bringing Western Folklore to the East: A Movie Review


Director: Tae-gyun Kim.

Writers: Kôji Matsumoto (manga), and Tetsuya Oishi (screenplay).

Cast: Dai Watanabe, Asami Mizukawa and Kôji Yamamoto.

Despite the misleading title and the film’s comic book origins, the only real problem with Higanjima, Escape from Vampire Island is that Japanese folklore does not have any real vampires to really call their own. There are vampire-like creatures, like the Kappa, said to lure its victims to a watery grave to feast upon their blood; but, it is a creature that's also revered than always feared. There is also an Ikiryoh, a spirit that can drain its victim of its energy. That said, the real life folklore do not deter from the enjoyment of this film. Vampires can freely move about the world and amalgamate into any culture where it is given a new name by the village it is raiding.

In this film, that is almost exactly what happened. A very powerful vampire managed to take over a village on an island off Japan. After a while, since the blood supply is limited, he would have to send an agent out to draw people out from the cities. Sometimes, newlyweds and families arrive, and although they may seem heartily welcomed, the beast will come out and tear those lives apart. In what remains, the survivors form an alliance in order to try and beat away the vampires.

Back in the city, Akira (Hideo Ishiguro), a high school student, will soon learn about what goes on at that island where his older brother, Atsushi (Dai Watanabe), was last heard from. He has his support group, four friends; and the strong relationship he has with them will be tested. A good third of the film is spent carefully developing their relationships and fortunately, this film deals with how they face certain hardships too.

This group is a sentai team, a group of heroes, in the making, but their heroism does not emerge until much later. Yuki (Miori Takimoto) is the most courageous and Ken (Tomohisa Yuge) is very honourable. But Akira does not learn his position until much later. He is the reluctant hero, a leader in the making, until an unfortunate event forges what he will represent to the group. Along with Pong (Fumito Moriwaki), Nishiyama (Osamu Adachi) and Kato (Masaya Handa), they represent the time-honoured virtue of knighthood and Japanese nationalism that is common in other sentai products, like Kagaku Sentai Dynaman. Quite often, these teams operate with five key members, so that means someone is going to die by the hands of the master villain.

Their adversary is the invader, the vampire Miyabi (Kôji Yamamoto) who, in traditional Japanese animation style, tries to be refined and daring. But that performance falls flat when he waxes poetic. The problem is in the delivery; the original dialogue is sweet, almost haiku-like, but the translation--the subtitles—lacks the refinement that's needed to make this character stand out. The combination does not turn Miyabi into Lord Byron.

Foreign imports face a difficult challenge of providing a decent "dubtitle" (a translation where it matches the mouth movements) or subtitle that is faithful to the words being said. Recent products are very good, but the question of what viewers want will depend on what the video release offers. Thankfully, there are multiple choices. People can own either the Region 2 or Region 1 DVD release, or go Blu-ray.

In this film, the choice to insert the Western European style vampire into Japanese lore is perhaps a premeditated one. Miyabi’s albino appearance only reinforces this point. But thankfully, there are tidbits of Japanese traditions incorporated into the visual narrative. The water and mountain metaphors are prevalent, and mention of the Japanese spider lilies is a nice touch, but the folklore does not move very much beyond that.

And the monster Ken and the rebels fight—is that supposed to be a kappa? That beast was never identified.

To not carry these elements further raises the question of whether or not director Tae-gyun Kim and writer Tetsuya Oishi intended to insert a subtext of criticizing how Japan is becoming more westernized. If that indeed was their goal, then they have greatly succeeded in delivering a class product. They have captured the idea of the fact that pockets of the traditional culture can still exist in the countryside. But in Akira and his group's attempt to "escape," the only world they are returning to is simply one of globalization—where the West defeats the East, and there is nothing Akira can do about it. The last few frames of this movie pretty much says it all.

7/10

More about the the mythical Kappa can be read here:
The Gods of Japan Website.

Publishing details about the manga this film is based from can be found at:
Manga Updates.

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