PREMONITION
If you see it… you will die!
Directed by Norio Tsuruta
Reviewed by Deep Red
Premonition (Yogen) is the second film in the Japanese J-Horror Theater (J horâ shiatâ) series of films. It follows Infection (Kansen) (2004) and is followed by Reincarnation (Rinne) (2005), Retribution (Sakebi) (2006), Kaidan (2007) and finally Kyôfu (2010). It’s based on the manga comic book Kyoufu Shinbun (Newspaper of Terror) by Jiro Tsunoda.
Stars Hiroshi Mikami as Hideki Satomi, Noriko Sakai as Ayaka Satomi, Hana Inoue as Nana Satomi, Kazuko Yoshiyuki as Satoko Mikoshiba, Mayumi Ono as Misato Miyamoto, Maki Horikita as Sayuri Wakakubo and Kei Yamamoto as Rei Kigata,
Ayaka stops at a roadside phone booth so her husband Hideki can upload mail to his work, leaving her and their five-year-old daughter, Nana, in the car. While in the phone booth he finds a scrap of newspaper with a picture of Nana on it foretelling her death at 8 o’clock. He looks at his watch and it’s nearly 8. His wife gets out of the car and crosses towards him leaving Nana in the car. A lorry smashes into the car….
The film moves forward 3 years, Hideki and Ayaka are now divorced. Ayaka interviews a psychic trying to find out more about the Newspaper of Terror. Later, after a worrying phonecall from the psychic, she goes to the psychic’s house and finds a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings foretelling events that happened and the psychic dead, clutching a psychic Polaroid of Hideki.
Interestingly the Sandra Bullock film Premonition (2007) is mistakenly thought to be a remake of Yogen just because of the name, I thought so myself till I looked it up just before I watched it.
This is a really cool film. It’s pretty creepy and has a decent story that’s easy to get into. I thought it was a really original story too, I was hooked from the start to find out what was going on. The mystery deepens as Ayaka and Hideki visit the home of researcher Rei Kigata and it does well at keeping the suspense high throughout. Great characters too. The special effects are OK, they enhance the story well but the real strength of the film is in the way the story is told. I’ve deliberately held back on spoilers so there’s a lot more to the plot than I’ve talked about. Talk about inventive!
I highly recommend Premonition, I was very impressed and I’m looking forward to watching it again. I have read some negative remarks regarding the ending which I totally disagree with. I would suggest watching the film and judging for yourself rather than giving such remarks any credence and avoiding the film because of them but that’s up to you. Reviews really do just come down to a matter of opinion and I think Premonition exemplifies this more than most. So, in my opinion, I really liked it.
