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Kobe 1995, just after the big earthquake: Psychic girl Yukari (Yoshino Kimura)
comes from Tokyo as a volunteer to try to help the people with her power,
instead though she accidently causes the suicide of a World War 2 vet (Hideo
Murota). However she befriends psychiatrist Nomura (Satomi Tezuka) 6 through
her makes the acquaintance of Chihiro (Yu Kurosawa), a schoolgirl with mutiple
personality disorder.
In Chihiro, Yukari sees opart of herself reflected, as her psychic powers
once made her an outcast at her school much the same way that Chihiro's
multiple personalities make her one at hers. However, soon things take a turn
for the worse as people around Chihiro - one of her rather violent teachers
& her abusive stepdad - start killing themselves, & Yukari finds out
this is all caused by one of Chihiro's personalities, Isola ... plus she finds
some memories in the girl's mind that might not belong to her ....
Yukari decides to get the opinion of a professional, doctor Yayoi (Makiko
Watanabe), who has done some experiments with Chihiro & is an expert in
out-of-body- & near death-experiences ... but unfortunately, she has died
during the earthquake while being in an isolation tank, experimenting on
herself. Yukari's only lead now is Yayoi's colleague & co-conspirator
doctor Manabe (Ken Ishiguro) who worked with her on her last experiment but is
now feeling interminably guilty thinking he has in the earthquake abandoned her
...
It turns out that Chihiro's Isola-personality is in fact the now bodyless
spirit of Yayoi (Isola being the last word she read, as in ISOLAtion tank),
& she is pretty pissed on everything. & would you know it, soon Yayoi's
spirit, now again seperated from Chihiro, is coming after him, & after
Yukari too, who has since fallen for him. But as Yayoi's spirit is about to
kill Yukari, Manabe offers her the ultimate sacrifice, to go on living in his
body in exchange for Yukari's life ... & once she has entered his body, he
kills her & himself by jumping out a window, to be united for all eternity
...
Chihiro on the other hand got much better without Isola living inside her
any longer.
Deliberately slow-moving spooker with a mazelike construction that at the
first glance looks fascinating. Unfortunately behind this surface hides a
rather ordinary & predictable ghoststory that every now & again does
not refrain from even using the most clichéd of elements (the worst being when
Yayoi the spirit, when violently attacking Yukari, suddenly sports a
disfigured, demon-like face). All this pull the movie down to standard
horror-fare ... Not that it's all bad for this reason, it's just not anything
special either.
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