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Parasite
Eve
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Country
: |
Japan |
| Year: |
1997 |
| Genre: |
Horror |
| Format: |
DVD |
| Running
Time: |
2H00 |
| Distributor: |
AD
Vision |
| Date
reviewed: |
02/19/2002 |
| |
|
| Producer: |
Murakami
Koichi, Kawai Takio |
| Director: |
Masayuki
Ochiai |
Cast: Hiroshi Mikami, Tomoko
Nakajima, Tetsuya Bessho, Ayako Omura, Goro Inagaki, Hisako
Manda, Noboru Mitani, Kenzo Kawarazaki |
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Story:
A young and brilliant scientist, named Toshiaki Nagashima,
his working on a new process using the natural mitochondria
we have in our own organism to aid in regenerating damaged
organs. Toshiaki is also deeply in love with Kiyomi.
They were planning to celebrate their 1st year of marriage
when a terrible accident strikes Kiyomi. The physical
injuries were so terrible that Kiyomi fell into a brain-dead
coma. Without any other alternative they decide to let
her die but Kiyomi wish, before she died, was that her
undamaged organs were given to people in need of it.
Mariko, a young girl living with kidney problems for
a long time, is the perfect match to receive her kidney.
But before accepting the transplant operation, Toshiaki
asks the doctor if he could also give him the liver
of his dead wife or else he won't give the ok for the
transplantation.
Later on, Toshiaki now obsessed by Kiyomi`s liver,
tries to cultivate her cells thinking that it can
regenerate his dead wife. As for Mariko, now she is
functioning very well with her new kidney, except
from some strange compulsion and weird dreams she
has during the night. During the passing days, the
cell from Kiyomi`s liver begin to regenerate in a
form that Toshiaki didn't expect at all. This new
form has the shape of Kiyomi but she doesn't act normal
and also has strange metal powers. This new form is
in fact EVE, the first step of the extermination of
the humanity.
Review: Based on the Japanese novel by Hideaki
Sena, this live adaptation has really nothing to do
with the videogame of the same name. I never had the
chance to read the book so I can't tell you how well
or bad the movie is compared to the novel. Parasite
Eve is a very long and slowly built thriller, which
failed to accomplish the simple task of being interesting,
maybe because it tried to be too significant for what
it was in reality.
The original idea was not too bad and could have
turned out very well if it was not because of those
interminable and boring dialogues. They should have
tried to simply focus on the basic characters and
try to give them a little more personality while developing
the story at the same time. Instead we are only witnesses
to a main character who tries to struggle against
the death of a loved one, that takes up half the movie.
The rest is an uninteresting development that doesn't
even exploit the full potential of the original idea
and the conclusion, which is probably the best part,
is very short and doesn't give a lot of explanation.
Also the long running time of the movie doesn't help
to get the attention of the viewer since nothing exiting
is really happening during the entire movie. If the
pace would have been a little faster and the development
carefully thought out, then the movie could have at
least succeeded at being intriguing to follow.
The story takes a lot of time to develop the main
character of the scientist Toshiaki, but was it a
good thing? He was just your typical crazy and obsessed
scientist that we have already seen a dozen times
before. There was nothing in the character to say
that he really added something to the story. The acting
of the actor was excellent but the character itself
was unfortunately just plain ordinary. The rest of
the cast, which didn't have a lot of development compared
to the character of Toshiaki, were played very well
in general but we didn't feel anything for them. The
characters were all mostly boring; this is very unfortunate
for a Japanese movie. Maybe the only character to
stick out of the whole gang is Kiyomi/EVE; the reason
is probably because of the great beauty of the actress
but also because there's a lot of mystery around this
character. It is also the only unnatural, weird and
strange character of the whole movie, which gives
her something to dissociate herself from the main
cast.
I don't even think that the movie tried to be scary,
well if it was an attempt at being a psychological
horror movie, then this movie is a total failure.
We can maybe consider Parasite EVE as a dark fantasy
movie but noting more. Even if some scenes were sometime
creepy or at least tried to be, the movie never falls
in the categories of horror genre nor didn't seem
to try to exploit these tense moments as they could
have been. The movie also had a very slow pace, don't
expect to see weird things right at the beginning,
to tell the truth there's nothing happening during
the first hours. Its not essential that something
fantastic or weird to happen every minute in a movie
but at least I want decent entertaining and not witness
boring dialogue and predictable reaction from the
characters for an entire hour. When there was something
happening on screen it was at least well done and
interesting to watch, but these moment were very rare.
As for the special effects, which were mostly made
by CGI, they were not really very impressive but they
were well made and didn't look cheesy at all. Which
is a good point for the movie since except these special
moments the movie doesn't have anything to offer.
Even if the production team took special care with
the look of this movie, which is far from being cheesy,
the movie doesn't deliver what it could have. Not
even scary or interesting, Parasite EVE is far from
what the video game left in the memories of those
who played the game. So don't expect the movie to
have anything in relation to the videogames or you
will be very disappointed. But when I think about
it, I'm not even sure who can fully enjoy this movie,
those who have read the book will probably find the
movie very bad compared to it. As for those who played
the game will be very disappointed and those who never
read the novel or played the game will probably just
find it plain boring. In my opinion maybe you should
rent the movie before buying it, cause this is probably
only a personal taste of mine but I qualify Parasite
Eve a lost of time.
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DVD
[ NTSC, Region 1
] :
The ADV version of the movie is letterboxed non-anamorphic
widescreen, the packaging says anamorphic which is
false. The quality of the transfer is great, very
sharp and free of compression problem. You also have
a decent original Japanese DD2.0 audio track. As for
the English subs, they are forced but also clear and
easy to follow. For the extra you have a promo trailer
of US release of Hypnosis which starts when you insert
the DVD. You also have the usual chapter selection
and a trailer of the movie, that is again a promo
of the US release, which is plain cheesy. Before this
ADV release, the movie was only available on HK VCD,
so we can be glad that the movie is now easily available
in North America in its uncut form. This release is
a decent DVD, so if you absolutely want to see the
movie, then do not fear getting this DVD.
Reviewed
by Janick Neveu
|
| Story |
Cast |
Entertainment |
Subtitles |
Overall |
| 2 |
2.5 |
2.5 |
5 |
2 |

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