Review: Love Ghost

Posted by Kevin Ouellette on July 31, 2006 4:28pm EDT (6 years ago)

I have to admit, my expectations weren’t very high for Love Ghost (aka “Lovesick Dead” in the rest of the world) when I first started watching it. All early indications (not to mention a pretty dorky title) seemed to point to it being just another derivative low budget “vengeful ghost wreaks havoc on naive teens” J-horror flick and although it is partially that, it’s also very well done and deeper than most others in its genre. This film is beautifully shot and the soundtrack is sparsely disbursed, but effective. The mood through the first half of the film is generally slow and brooding, but not really boring. Let’s just call it “mellow”. Things pick up substantially in the second half though. The acting performances aren’t spectacular in any way, but good enough that you actually care about the people you’re supposed to care about, unlike some other J-horror titles where you’re just sort of waiting for everyone to drop dead so you can move on to the next film and watch a whole new set of teens drop dead… or maybe that’s just me, being a horrible person and all.

The film begins in the midst of a dream sequence where the main character, Midori (Lisa Goto) is having the same dream she’s had often in the past. She’s waiting at a shrine in her town and is approached by a dark figure. As he slowly draws nearer she suddenly gets scared and wakes up, startled. Midori and her mother (Kumiko Akiyoshi) have just recently moved back to the town they were forced to leave ten years previous, when her father left them for another woman. This is obviously a touchy subject for her mother, who never really wants to talk about him at all.

On Midori’s first day at school she spots a shrine like the one in her dream on the way. She’s immediately overcome with visions from her dream and she collapses to the ground, where she sees a river of blood flowing toward her. She snaps out of it and is helped up by Suzue (Asumi Miwa), a member of her class. The two become friends almost immediately and decide to walk the long way around to get to school. They meet up with another boy from their class, Kotaro (Shinji Takahashi). Suzue is secretly in love with Kotaro, who seems to have an immediate attraction to Midori. Actually a lot of girls at their school like Kotaro, especially the resident class villainess, Suzuki Tamayo (Yuki Inomata) Yes, I know, you see where this is leading; Another J-horror flick where a bunch of teenage girls get vindictive over a popular boy and somehow end up dying because of it for one reason or another. Okay, you win. Just don’t give up on it yet though. You’re only partially right.

Let’s put the cynicism on hold for a bit and continue on for the time-being, shall we? The fact is Midori could really care less about all the melodramatics involving her classmates and Kotaro because she becomes preoccupied with the quiet boy who sits in the back corner of their class, Ryusuke (Ryuhei Matsuda). She actually remembers him from her childhood. Before she was forced to move away they were best friends and played together all the time. They eventually slip away together and reminisce about old times on the rooftop and he informs her that he’s been waiting for her to come back the entire ten years.

Meanwhile, back in class Tamayo’s friend is giving her a tarot card reading regarding her love life. It doesn’t turn out very optimistically, hinting that another girl will get in her way in regards to Kotaro, and you can almost see the evil little gears in her brain start to turn. At the same time Suzue is getting suspicious that Kotaro might have a crush on Midori and she’s obviously a little bit perturbed by it. Let the typical teenage hijinx commence!

Later, the classmates are all gathered at Suzue’s house for a small party. Midori has to leave early but Kotaro insists on walking her home. Tamayo is obviously enraged by this and announces to the remaining classmates that she has a plan to find out what her love life will bring through the practice of Tsujiura, a type of fortune telling in which you wait at a shrine (the same type from Midori’s recurring dream) and ask the first person that walks by if you will succeed in love. Whatever they tell you is what will happen, regardless of whom they are or what they actually know about you. Suzue warns her that this type of fortune telling can often bring bad luck but Tamayo doesn’t care about any of that, she just wants Kotaro to love her. I mean heck, he’s popular, and um… plays basketball? Yeah, Japanese youth are a persnickety bunch, at least in movies.

That night Midori has another dream about the dark figure and wakes up startled again. She goes downstairs to find her mother incessantly scrubbing a spot of mold on the wall that she noticed earlier while taking a bath. The stain won’t seem to go away and she just won’t stop scrubbing, even while sweating profusely and about to faint. Midori is worried about her but doesn’t know what to do.

Later that morning Tamayo’s friend warns her about the dangers of Tsujiura and tells her that she heard a story that sometimes a handsome boy with black clothes will come up to you, but he’s actually a spirit that’s been wandering around for years. Once again Tamayo ignores the warnings because basketball-playing popular kids don’t just grow on trees, after all. After some more classroom turmoil involving Midori Tamayo eventually follows through with her plan and visits the shrine. She covers her face and a figure in dark clothing surrounded by smoke approaches her. She asks him if she will win Kotaro’s love. He informs her that not only will she never win his love, but she will never win anyone’s love and her life will be completely worthless. After hearing this Tamayo just stands there completely shocked before taking out a razor and slicing her own neck, splattering blood all over the place. Hey, you have to give it to her. Nobody will ever accuse her of under-reacting.

Once news of the suicide spreads through school things just get progressively weirder. Suzue’s love for Kotaro gets more obvious and intense. Midori’s mother keeps acting more and more crazed as time goes on for some unknown reason. Even Ryusuke starts to make Midori feel a little bit uncomfortable with his requests for her to go into a strange area of the woods with him. All of this builds tension and utter confusion leading up to the final few sequences that will hopefully tie up all the loose ends that have been so meticulously loosened throughout the first half of the film. Even though you’ll probably be able to guess a lot of stuff early on, the details behind them are worth sticking around for.

Thankfully the ending sequences do provide sufficient explanation for most of the stuff it’s been hinting heavily at throughout the film, as well as an unexpected twist that practically bashes you over the head with twistiness. Although one could easily argue that the particular plot twist I’m referring to (while trying really hard not to spoil) is a little over the top and unnecessary given the power of the other reveals, in a way it actually highlights how impactful the other reveals are to the characters involved. With that in mind I won’t nitpick anything too much. I really liked the entire ending and it left me with a good feeling about the film in general.

Lovesick Dead is much better than most typical V-cinema J-horror released in the past few years. In fact, other than a little bit of grainy picture quality and an obvious low budget in some areas there’s really no way to tell it was direct to DVD in Japan. There’s no feeling that this is just another throwaway ghost story churned out of some production company to spook out Japanese teens a bit and collect a little revenue. You can tell that all the people involved actually cared about what they were doing and the end result is a film with a heart. It somehow manages to be charming, hugely depressing, and uplifting all at once.

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