Japanese Film Festival 2012: Shirome
Dir. Kôji Shiraishi, 2010
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Thu 19 January 2012 // 19:30
/ Cinema
IN SHORT
Funny / horror teenage mockumentary, especially translated for Zipangufest - Blair Witch Project meets The X-Factor.
A real Japanese teenage girl band (you can check out their myspace here http://www.myspace.com/momoiroclover) is led to believe that it would be a promotional coup for them to go to a haunted house and speak to a malevolent spirit that could grant their wishes.
MORE ABOUT THE FILM - PLOT
J-horror meets J-pop
in this one-of-a-kind faux-documentary shocker that reveals that Kôji Shiraishi,
a filmmaker best-known in the UK for the BBFC-baiting pseudo-snuff movie Grotesque, possesses a wicked sense of
humour.
Conceived of as a vehicle for the saccharine sweet pre-pubescent idol
band Momoiro Clover (real band http://www.myspace.com/momoiroclover), Shirome,
meaning ‘white eyes’, takes its title from an urban legend about a malevolent
spirit said to haunt an abandoned school. Shirome has the power to grant wishes
yet also inflict insanity and death on those that beseech its powers should
their intentions be less than a hundred percent sincere.
Shiraishi, appearing
as himself, is the director of a Most
Haunted-style TV show specialising in real-life paranormal phenomena,
allegedly hired by the girls’ management agency to boost their profile.
He
approaches them with a Faustian pact offering the kawaii young songbirds a chance to fulfil their ambition of appearing on
NHK TV’s annual Kôhaku New Year’s Eve music show.
There’s just a few crucial details he neglects to tell them as he leads them into the heart of Shirome’s lair, where they are to perform their latest single in front of the mysterious butterfly symbol representing the evil spirit, in this cruel but funny hybrid of The Blair Witch Project and The X Factor.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR: Kôji Shiraishi
Born Fukuoka prefecture, 1973, horror specialist Kôji Shiraishi entered the professional film industry working on Sôgo Ishii’s surreal August in the Water (1995), before making the jishu eiga films Bôroku ningen (1997) and Kaze wa fuku darou (1998), the latter awarded the Grand Prix at the 1999 Pia Film Festival.
This led to
Shiraishi directing the ‘making of’ documentary for Shinobu Yaguchi’s 2001
comedyWaterboys. In 2004, he directed
the J-horror Ju-Rei: The Uncanny,
which he followed with titles including Carved: Slit-Mouthed
Woman (2007) and his signature fake documentaries Noroi: The Curse (2005) and Occult (2009).
In 2009, his
film Grotesque was banned
by the BBFC due to its “unrelenting and escalating scenario of humiliation,
brutality and sadism.”
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With the support of Zipangu Fest
Tickets: £5 / £3.50 (conc)
Or £4.50 tickets online http://www.wegottickets.com/event/150572
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