Review: If I had to name one Japanese director who I think represents contemporary Japanese cinema at its best, I would said that Kyoshi Kurosawa is without a doubt the best Japanese director in Japan at this time. Using a very Japanese visual style but always adding his personal touch, every one of his movies turn out to something visually impressive and also very imaginative. But strangely, even if I know how good the new Kurosawa is, I usually don't like his movies that much, but It doesn't mean that I can't give him credit for what he had accomplish so far. Most of his movies always use a very basic premise, this one is no exception. But what is very special is that this ordinary event will end up affecting the whole of humanity. Kurosawa also seems to like to mix fantasy with reality in most of his movies, to a point that you are no longer sure what is the fantasy and what is the reality in his movie. I think that it is maybe the reason why some people might like his work a lot and other like me don't like his films that much. I didn't find "Kairo" completely boring, I even consider it his best work so far. I had a hard time to really appreciating the story because like most of his other movies, "Kairo" has a lot of meaning in it and there's also a lot of different interpretations to the movie. It's true that the movie will probably stay in your head a long time after you have watched it, in a good way of course, always trying to find some clear explanations to it but ending up not really sure of what to think of it.

The general atmosphere of the movie is very like the one in the movie "Ring" and they both share a story concept about ghost. Apparently, Kyoshi Kurosawa worked on the production of "Kairo" 7 years ago and was only able to finally complete his work this year. But it I can't deny the fact that "Ring" probably had some influences on the movie in a way or another. But at least "Kairo" succeeded where a lot of that type of movies failed miserably. "Kairo" is very easy to take as a serious psychological horror movie and a very creepy one, too. Combining a strange, dark and claustrophobic visual style with some creepy sounds and music, "Kairo" achieved its first goal for sure, to scare the shit out of people. Since the success of "Ring," a lot of movies tried the same recipe, but most of them were just plain rip-offs, but not Kairo, they both share some similarities, like the use of technologies to transmit a kind of curse, Ring used a VHS cassette and Kairo used computers. But even with that, both movies have their own original approach to the concept of ghosts.

On the casting side, the acting was very good and the actors really played their respective roles very well. But my biggest disappointment in the whole movie came from the characters, not because of the actors fault, on the contrary like I said their acting was very good but I had some really hard time really understanding their motivations. Some of their actions were just absurd, why would you go alone in a basement, which was apparently condemned, in the middle of nowhere, for no particular reason? Maybe there's some explanation to it but I didn't find all the answers yet and I will probably never. I think that the movie could have been better if the action of the characters were at least rational; I find it hard to really care for a character when you can't understand his irrational actions. Maybe the story could have been a little clearer on that side.

Since "Kairo" is a pure psychological thriller, don't expect any kind of gore, cause there's none, the fear factor really comes from the atmosphere of the movie. The visual details are very impressive and mixed with a very creepy music, most of the intense scenes in the movie work very well. The ghosts are also very frightening to watch, we can see them very clearly but just enough to give you the creeps when they are on the screen. Most of these great scary scenes are very well spread during the whole movie, so the scary factor is not only at the end of the movie. Also, talking about the end of the movie, without revealing any spoilers I really enjoyed the big finale when you finally understand more about what is really going on, it was a great surprise that I didn't expect at all.