Which brings me to Dark Water, another film from director Hideo Nakata (who was placed at the forefront of the Asian horror movies making waves at this time, thanks to his success as the director of Ring). It is a film that was praised when it first came out, as I recall, and then quickly faded away. I think it was viewed by some as a decent, but ultimately, disappointing horror movie that held little of the power that imbued a film like Ring. An American remake (because few of the hits from this time would avoid the American remake machine) failed to do more than underline this feeling for many.
The thing is . . . Dark Water doesn't have the power of Ring. It will disappoint horror movie fans who are seeking the next thing to deliver one major memorable moment. But Dark Water has a different power. It's a quietly creepy film that proves even more effective because it doesn't go for the easy scares. It instead decides to show how the bonds between parent and child can so often be unbreakable, even if things appear very different from other points of view.
Hitomi Kuroki plays Yoshimi Matsubara, a mother who is going through a divorce from her husband. She has one young daughter, Ikuko (played by Rio Kanno), and is struggling to balance her wellbeing with her new situation, which involves a new place to live, looking for employment again, and the ongoing legal wrangling. Things really aren't helped by the damp patch on the ceiling of her new apartment, a flooded area that constantly drips and seems unhealthy, it's a problem that doesn't look likely to be resolved any time soon.
Another horror adapted from the work of Kôji Suzuki (who also wrote the source material for Ring), director Nakata seems to find a better way into the material with this outing. He makes a more incisive and effective film, in terms of the complete experience, by focusing on the drama without pinning everything around a few great set-pieces. He's helped immensely by the screenplay, by Ken'ichi Suzuki and Yoshihiro Nakamura, which explores the main theme in a mature way that refuses to rush towards the finale, and refuses to recycle a lot of the genre tropes that could have turned this into a more standard horror tale.
Kuroki and Kanno are both fantastic in their roles, working well both together and individually in every scene. Kuroki is the seasoned professional, and it shows, but Kanno arguably deserves a bit more praise for doing so well in her first feature role. There are also numerous solid supporting performances, but the focus remains on the mother and daughter relationship at all times.
I know that many may think of this as hyperbole, I do, but it's worth reappraising Ring (still a great, iconic, film) as the forerunner to many movies that would surpass it. Dark Water is just one of the films that does that. It has a feeling of sadness throughout, and sometimes dread, and the final scenes are among the most quietly moving in horror. You can feel free to disagree, but I urge you to (re)watch the movie before you make up your mind on it.
*NOT a Japanese film but, like many other Chinese and South Korean movies from this period, it was grouped with the others to make the stronger case for just how much good stuff we were getting outwith mainstream American and British territories.
9/10
You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy that same disc here.
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