The Suicide Manual (2003)

After the group suicide of four people, journalists Yuu and Rie investigate the reasons behind an endless cycle of suicides, blamed on an infamous Suicide Manual, hidden in a tag-less DVD disk. Said manual is shot in an infomercial fashion, with examples of the best methods to kill yourself and demonstrations by real people. When investigating further, Yuu and Rie find out that in Buddhist beliefs, when a person kills himself, he or she is sent to a certain hell, from which they induce other people to commit suicide. But is this what is really happening?

After a promising start, this movie goes flat quite quickly as a journalist and his assistant try to investigate a spate of deaths linked to a DVD containing ways on how to committ suicide hosted by a female in black named Rikki. It doesn’t help that the plot changes halfway through to following Yuu’s gradual downward spiral into wanting to kill himself. It gets really confusing near the end and I didn’t have a clue what was really going on. It does have one or two great scenes but it wasn’t enough. This movie could have had some potential but it was just too tedious and there was a lack of direction in where they wanted to take this story. I’m afraid I cannot recommend this movie in any shape or form.

Sadako’s Rating: 1.5 stars out of 5

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Wandering Ginza Butterfly (1972)

Another great movie starring the fantastic Meiko Kaji. In this one Kaji is Nami who’s released from jail after murdering a Yakuza boss and starts a job as a hostess in a club in Ginza. It’s not too long, however, that the Owada clan start making moves on the hostess club by squeezing some pressure on the female owner to sell up. One thing leads to another and the result is one of Nami’s male friends being gunned down in cold blood. With her fury at boiling point, Nami and the murdered man’s brother head to the Owada clan’s hideout to unleash hell on them!

Don’t expect anything along the lines of the Scorpio or Lady Snowblood movies in this one. There’s a slow steady build-up that something is about to kick-off but the violence is kept to a minimum until the climax. It doesn’t matter to me, I just enjoy seeing Meiko Kaji kick some ass (something she does very well I might add!). I expect those expecting tons of blood being sprayed from the onset will become bored quickly. Kaji as always delivers a magnificent performance. For fans of Meiko Kaji like myself, this is brilliant and worth checking out.

Sadako’s Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

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Reigo, The Sea Monster vs The Battleship Yamato (2008)

The setting is World War II. Japan launches the Yamato, the largest battleship in the world, to lead the Japanese fleet. The mission gets complicated when the Yamato mistakes a huge undersea monster for an enemy destroyer and accidentally kills its offspring. The monster, Reigo, wants revenge and starts attacking the fleet. But if anything can stop it, the Yamato can…

This is a very low budget kaiju movie from a fan of the genre and it clearly shows. The first thing you notice is the truly awful CGI effects, probably one of the worst examples in a movie I’ve ever seen. It just looks cheap as hell. The creature looks great but again it is let down by the crappy CGI. Awful acting by the entire cast. The attack sequences by Reigo aren’t very good either. Mercifully, this movie only runs to 80 mins which is just as well as I don’t think I could have fathomed taking any more punishment from watching it. If you can take this movie as it is, you might enjoy it but those expecting a big budget kaiju spectacular are going to be dismayed. Had this movie been done with proper CGI, I’m sure it would have been great.

I can’t find a trailer.

Sadako’s Rating: 1 star out of 5

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