BJFF 2016: Shady

Shady a Japanese thriller released in Japan in 2012 and then by Third Window the following year in the UK. This was a welcomed addition to the Brick Lane Japanese Film Festival. A 93 minute story of bullying in Japanese schools where the treatment gets so out of hand that school children take justice into their own hands.

Kumada (meaning Bear and Rice Paddy) played by Mimpib is the overweight student in her classed bullied by the popular girls and nicked name 'Pooh'. She witnesses bullying in her class but does not intervene to avoid herself being caught in the cross fire. Eventually one girl goes missing and her case becomes high priority in the news and also a mystery at school. Who kidnapped her? A teacher, a fellow student? Is she still Alive? these are all questions running in Pooh's mind.

You eventually realise that the girl who has gone missing was also a bully who had made other girls lives hell including pretty loner Izumi. Strangely she is given a hard time for being attractive the opposite of Pooh. Izumi reaches out a hand of friendship to Pooh and they become close friends. Pooh finds it hard to believe how kind Izumi is and despite neglecting to help Izumi in the past when she was being bullied.

You begin to feel uneasy by this instant clinginess to Pooh by Izumi and she even follows her to her only club which is the biology club where she is the only member. Izumi envy's the love Pooh has for her class fish and mysteriously the fish dies. Izumi says it was a accident but who can really be sure? Was this a malicious attatck as Pooh formed an attachment to a fish, no a male fish?

At a shopping trip Izumi treats Pooh to some mascara which Pooh refutes as it was stolen and she makes advances on her. This left the audience confused, what was it Izumi wanted from Pooh? Or was she securing Pooh's loyalty by doing pleasurable things as a form or bribery. Nothing is clear and the plot thickens when Izumi see's Pooh has a bird as a pet, a male bird, Izumi demands to borrow Chuta the bird and Pooh is alarmed and at first refuses but is emotionally blackmailed into agreeing. The next day Izumi makes a joke abou the bento she has made Pooh saying it used to Chirp and immediately Pooh believes she is eating her pet Chuta. At this point you would think Pooh would end the friendship but somehow Izumi talks her way out of it. Mean while there is a lot of emphasis towards the missing classmate and the bullying at school.

One thing leads to another and things suddenly move fast paced, Izumi invites her to her flat, different from her house, their is a horrific stench coming from one of the rooms. They are also joined by another guest, one their their school teachers who Izumi explains is giving her test questions in exchange for sex. Things start to make more sense, perhaps the bully at school was horrible but she wasn't the one who dissapeared the other girl, Izumi so tramatised from the bullying has snapped and done one terrible thing after another...to a point of no return. The end result is only bloodshed.

Written and directed by Ryohei Watanabe he focuses on inner torment inside human beings and how innocence can be polluted and turned into manipulation and selfish gain. We see the change physically manifest in Izumi through her eyes becoming blood shot and the mirrors smashing as she puts on her 'facade' aka the stolen makeup.

This film explores bullying as a real phsycological experience which is shown as more harmful than physical fighting. Similar to the film Confessions this film really looks at taboo subjects and exposes the Japanese education systems flaws. No one see's the bullying nor goes to investigate the disappearance. There is a sense of negligence.

Overall the film was slow paced which built up to a swift conclusion, every detail mattered so you really had to focus on the film. It didn't feel long at all, the animal torture aspect is shown to be an outlet for students in a few films I have seen so far which is perfectly disturbing signs of a psychopath. Even though it was low budget and you only see a small cast set in a school, it is perfectly directed. Pooh has many opportunities to seek help but feels trapped in an open world. A great physiological thriller to be appreciated , you will enjoy this if you liked the Audition.

Showed at Brick Lane Japanese Film Festival with permission of Third Window Films. Available to buy online.

Review: The Pyramid

Being a huge horror/thriller fan I had to watch this movie regardless of any bad reviews or the cast.

*Spoilers Ahead*

Produced by the team who made 'The Hills have Eyes' I knew there would be some softcore porn or rape, I was surprised to see neither. There was a questionable scene where a robot was filming a girl get changed but no nudity was seen only implyed.

Initially we follow Sunny, anchorwoman for her documentary of a new pyramid being discovered due to satellite signals uncovering a tip. Her and cameraman Fitzpatrick aka Fitzy (clunge guy from The Inbetweeners, James Buckley) interview father and daughter about their discovery.

Amongst some loose love affair between Noora Holden and Michael Zahir (a cocky Arab speaking tech guy) you see that they are revoked access to entering the newly discovered pyramid due to uprising in Cairo.

 They literally are packing up to leave by Zahir drives his robot into the pyramid to get footage of the inside but something attacks it 'maybe it was a wild dog that wondered in' ohhh no that is most certainly the least likely thing to have ripped this robot into pieces. After intially opening the tomb the poisonous gas killed a man and infected others - animals are much more sensitive to smell and would of ran miles away.

However they decided to set off inside to recover the expensive equipment borrowed from NASA (why they lean't it to that tool Zahir I will never understand). So despite the Arab solider warning them not too they venture in and get royally lost. Their wire mysteriously gets cut and they feel it is appropriate to remove their masks in the poisonous tomb. Things are going splendid so far, lost, found bits of the robot, the room collapses, Zahir is trapped under a rock. Actually the rock falling on Zahir is probably my favourite part of the movie mixed in with Fitzy's one liners making this horror some what amusing though it REALLY shouldn't be.

In an attempt to escape Sunny, reveals she rock climbs in her spare time and climbs up but gets her faces scratched by some unknown beast. I think they are starting to get somewhat worried. They leave Zahir to sit around and bleed to death while they look for another way out but he would be lucky to have such a painless death. Something rips his body away from the rock and takes him up the hole.

At this point you realise there are more than one entity in the tomb and they are hungry. This leads to them shitting themselves and running, which is ALWAYS a bad idea, they trip over traps or in the Dr's case, he presses stuff he shouldn't be and sets off a trap, Indiana Jones/Goonies style they run through the corridor to avoid being suffocated by the sand being let in.#

The strongest and most agile person, Sunny, avoids everything to stop at the spike pit to have FItzy run and accidentally push her in to it. The next part is more cringe worthy then the torture in the Saw movies, she has spikes in her chest shoulder leg and guess what those creatures comes out. Looking like pet cats of the Pharoahs buried alongside them they start eating her. I can only imagine the agony of having being impaled to being then ripped apart. They light flares to scare the zombie kitties away but she dies from shock and wel you see her face has become highly infected from the scratch, she wasn't going to survive either way.

Through common sense and Egyptian know how the father and daughter deduce the cats survived by eating each other and breeding. Again stuff I found interesting but Fitzie kept telling them to stop blabbering and escape.

Now they get trapped and lost and the guard actually makes it in to then be grabbed and dragged through a tunnel which led to a dead end. But for the guard to get in through a different way - means there is a way to escape right? Perhaps but I think I was more freaking out about the thing that broke his body to drag him through that tichy tunnel...

The Doctor again manages to press something and a wall moves and they are led to the home of the zombie kittys currently out for lunch. They walk past bones and feces (which there is a lot of from the start). They they find the Pharoah's actually coffin and whilst reading the hyroglifics. Daddy get's his heart ripped out by this massive being. Turns out this is no other than the God Anubis himself. The tomb was actually built to imprison this crazed dog. He had tried to escape Hades to heaven by eating peoples hearts in an attempt to eat a pure heart. After many death, he was captured and buried alive. So daddy is somehow still alive and Anubis holds his hearts, weighs it on a scale then eats it, Daddy turns to dust. Noora freaks out and well Fitzie becomes the hero or so he thinks. They figure out the way to escape in the room while Anubis goes for a stroll.

As they climb out both are gra bbed down. Fitzie is miraculously still alive! Till Anubis steps on his face. It's Noora's turn but conveniantly she picked up a tomahawk in the tomb and uses it to cut free and shank Anubis. She tries to escape...again. Does better as the zombie kitties go awol and start eating Anubis.

Is there light at the other end of the tunnel, after a long 10minutes of her struggling to climb up and drag her carcass to what looks like is an opening. She falls you see her face is diseased with the same infection as Sunny and that all of them contracted at the start when the tomb was opened. A child runs towards her picks up her camera and then she whispers faintly 'Help me' to what I thought was the kid running off with her camera, was actually Anubis dragging both back down in !

It's hard to rate this movie, it was amusing and made me jump at times and the actual CGI for Anubis was pretty good. But sadly not enough detail, this could of easily been a 2hour movie and I would of thoroughly enjoyed it unlike Cabin in the Woods - which was dragged on confusion with a hundred points but nothing elaborated upon. Nice seeing James Buckley in it making it a better film overall. The Pyramid was a great idea left incomplete but I was entertained. Also loved the metal soundtrack that accompanied it !

7/10