Infection

Kansen (Masayuki Ochiai, 2004)

I'm not entirely sure what to think of Kansen, Masayuki Ochiai (Shutter)'s third feature film (following Parasite Eve and The Hypnotist). I can appreciate it on so many levels, but there always seemed to be a really great film lurking underneath this that never got a chance to show its true colors, and so I ended up not nearly as satisfied as I could have been with it.

The opening half-hour of the film will endear it to longtime viewers of shows such as ER; the setting is a rural hospital, the characters its massively overworked night staff. This consists of four doctors-- Nakazono (Salaryman Kintaro's Michiko Hada), Kishido (Glory to the Filmmaker!'s Moro Morooka), Akiba (Rasen's Koichi Sato), and Uozumi (Masanobu Takashima of the upcoming Death Note prequel L: Change the World)-- all presided over by administrator Akai (The Grat Yokai War's Shiro Sano), a gruff, overbearing sort-- and a handful of nurses. They run around trying to do the best they can for a hospital full of patients, but inevitably end up bungling things. When one of the mistakes ends in the death of a patient, the movie sets up as a mystery as to who's actually to blame for the death, but Ochiai has some twists in store in that regard. That storyline, however, only acts as a frame for the bulk of the film, which involves a patient with a mysterious disease who is left in the emergency room by paramedics. The patient, as it turns out, is infectious, and soon the hospital staff finds itself succumbing to the disease-- all, that is, except for Akai and Akiba. Akiba has to figure out how to avoid becoming infected and save as many people as possible, with Akai hindering him at every turn. (But that, of course, is not all. We've got that dead body to deal with as well, and a bunch of very stressed-out hospital staff.)

If you approach it like an episode of ER, and kind of shuffle off the pretty lame infection storyline to the backburner, this is an enjoyable little flick (assuming you've got the stomach for it; the infection tends to do nasty things to the people who contract it). It's certainly not going to end up ranking with such neoclassic Asian horror films as The Eye or Audition, but it serves its purpose well enough, with a nicely chilling atmosphere and some strong acting from the principals. But still, as someone else wrote in a review, it did feel as if this was going to be an entirely different movie, and the infection storyline got stuck in at the last minute. Perhaps that's the case, perhaps not; I've no idea. Not as good as it could've been, but not entirely awful, either. Worth a shot if you've nothing better to do late one night. ** ½

Is infection a supernatural tale or a slasher film? It's actually a supernatural slasher film filled with gore and shot in a dreamlike nightmare fashion.
A Overworked, Underfunded, and Understaffed hospital where patients are mistreated and mistakes are made some worse than others. After the doctors try to cover up one of said mistakes a infected patient is dropped in their E.R, and all hell breaks lose.
Stephen King actually recommended this for a watch in Entertainment Weekly last Halloween.

DVD FEATURES
No special features however the picture quality on this looked great, I've been watching mostly blu ray and this film still looked good. This is the first dvd to actually completely film my screen, I have a 106" draper screen and on cable 1:85 aspect ratio totally fills the screen but on dvds it leaves just a little tiny black line at the bottom, not your typical letterbox via 2:35. Anyway, this film completely and perfectly filmed the screen. It says it was formatted from the original 1:85 version in which the film was shot. If films aren't usually done like that maybe they should start.
The dolby digital 5.1 track in Japanese was also crisp and effective.

Simply infectious to watch! It's a nice change of pace from the angry little girl revenge genre that has became asia's #1 choice of horror. But this is in it's own place. Pretty much the madness of a rundown hospital descends when they recieve a strange patient that seems to be INFECTED with something. Then no sooner, the whole hospital staff runs mad, and soon green slime comes splattering out of places you wouldn't want to mention. The film is more pshycological, and gore placed. Then trying to pull you in with a overly dramatic story, or some brash throw around's of misplaced cheap scares running amock. Pretty much the whole reason i love the movie is that, it's diffrent than the usual asian horror flick. Plus the story is somewhat a little messy to get in to (literally), but helps you connect and think more fluently while watching. Plus a lot of gulit trip related scenes are a nice add. I really felt sad for the nurse that was deemed "SLOW TO LEARN'. But really, one of my more favorite picks from the j-horror theater films.

ratings for the films:
Infection 8/10
Reincarnation 6/10
Premonition 4/10
(rumored films Kaiden & Sakebi are part of the series. but are not official yet. also an unknow film by Hiroshi Takahashi is rumored to be part of the project. though nothing is certain since the release of Reincarnation)

I used to have the impression that Japan (who makes lackluster sitcoms) was only good at animation (& king of it) & that America (who makes horrid animation) was the only country that could make decent horror movies. I changed my mind after this movie. It actually showed the gory scenes, opted for the unhappy ending, & it was significantly different from other plague-like thriller films.

If you liked both this movie, virus outbreak thrillers, zombie flicks, & gory slashers, please leave me some reccomendations via comments ^_^ Esp. if you can reccomend other good foreign horror movies.

This movie was so bad that a group of people couldn't even stay awake to watch it. If it's free, go for it. But, if you're thinking about buying this, you may want to think again.