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Tomie
Japan 1999
produced by Shun Shimizu, Yoichiro Onishi, Yasushiko Azuma, Tsutomu Tsuchikawa (executive), Junichi Matsushita (executive) for Daiei, Art Port, Panorama Communications, Bonobo
directed by Ataru Oikawa
starring Miho Kanno, Mami Nakamura, Yoriko Doguchi, Tomorowo Taguchi, Kota Kusano, Rumi, Kenji Mizuhashi
screenplay by Ataru Oikawa, based on a manga by Junji Ito, music by Hiroshi Futami, Toshihiro Kimura, song by Yukari Fresh
Tomie
review by Mike Haberfelner
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A girl called Tomie has been killed & dismembered,
but not once but - as ebvidence suggests - repeatedly, & the
inspector working on the case (Tomorowo Taguchi) has come up with a wild
theorie to explain that wild fact: This girl Tomie has the ability to be
reborn & grow to fulll size from a single, insignkificant limb of
her body ... & he doesn't even know how close he is to the truth
both theoretically as well as geographically, for his only clue to Tomie
is a girl called Tsukiko (Mami Nakamura), who was an eye-witness to
Tomie's last death, but who undergoes therapy because she has lost all
memory of these proceedings. & Tomie grows back to full size in the
same appartment building where she lives, &, once whole again, takes
up sonme work at the restaurant where Tsukiko's boyfriend Saiga (Kota
Kusano) works. & since Tomie (Miho Kanno) also has the ability to
make men obsessed of her, soon the staff of the restaurant kills one
another ... except Saiga, who has become Tomies willing slave & even
helps her to capture Tsukiko & bind her to a hospital bed when they
find her at one of Tomie's crimescenes (Tomie has by now developed a
predilection for mass murder, you know). Tomie is about to murder
Tsukiko, too, when Saiga finds a photograph of him & Tsukiko which
breaks Tomies hypnotic spell over him, & he kills & dismembers
Tomie before the very eyes of Tsukiko - & for her it's like history
repeating, she has just regained memory of the previous incident. But of
course Tomie won't stay dead for long, even in a dismembered state,
& soon comes to haunt Tsukiko again, telling her she's just another
part of herself, but not knowing that Tsukiko has already taken
preparations to blow her up. Finally freed of her nemesis, Tsukiko takes
up a job as photographer ... but is Tomie really gone ...
This might sound like less than it actually is, a
bizarre shocker that puts strange ideas over cheap effects & tells a
tale of haunting obsessions amidst weird horrors. Some of the ideas are
so absurd that they quite obviously reveal the comic-book source (a
manga by Junji Ito). To this date, 3 more movies where made based on
this manga (Tomie: Replay [2000], Tomie: Re-Birth [2001]
& Tomie: Saishuu-sho -
Kindan no Kajitsu/Tomie -
Forbidden Fruit [2002]).
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