Japanese Film Festival 2012: Shirome

Dir. Kôji Shiraishi, 2010

-
Thu 19 January 2012 // 19:30 / Cinema

IN SHORT

Funny / horror teenage mockumentary, especially translated for Zipangufest - Blair Witch Project meets The X-Factor.

A real Japanese teenage girl band (you can check out their myspace here http://www.myspace.com/momoiroclover) is led to believe that it would be a promotional coup for them to go to a haunted house and speak to a malevolent spirit that could grant their wishes.

MORE ABOUT THE FILM - PLOT

J-horror meets J-pop in this one-of-a-kind faux-documentary shocker that reveals that Kôji Shiraishi, a filmmaker best-known in the UK for the BBFC-baiting pseudo-snuff movie Grotesque, possesses a wicked sense of humour.

Conceived of as a vehicle for the saccharine sweet pre-pubescent idol band Momoiro Clover (real band http://www.myspace.com/momoiroclover), Shirome, meaning ‘white eyes’, takes its title from an urban legend about a malevolent spirit said to haunt an abandoned school. Shirome has the power to grant wishes yet also inflict insanity and death on those that beseech its powers should their intentions be less than a hundred percent sincere.

Shiraishi, appearing as himself, is the director of a Most Haunted-style TV show specialising in real-life paranormal phenomena, allegedly hired by the girls’ management agency to boost their profile.

He approaches them with a Faustian pact offering the kawaii young songbirds a chance to fulfil their ambition of appearing on NHK TV’s annual Kôhaku New Year’s Eve music show.

There’s just a few crucial details he neglects to tell them as he leads them into the heart of Shirome’s lair, where they are to perform their latest single in front of the mysterious butterfly symbol representing the evil spirit, in this cruel but funny hybrid of The Blair Witch Project and The X Factor.


ABOUT THE DIRECTOR: Kôji Shiraishi


Born Fukuoka prefecture, 1973, horror specialist Kôji Shiraishi entered the professional film industry working on Sôgo Ishii’s surreal August in the Water (1995), before making the jishu eiga films Bôroku ningen (1997) and Kaze wa fuku darou (1998), the latter awarded the Grand Prix at the 1999 Pia Film Festival.

This led to Shiraishi directing the ‘making of’ documentary for Shinobu Yaguchi’s 2001 comedyWaterboys. In 2004, he directed the J-horror Ju-Rei: The Uncanny, which he followed with titles including Carved: Slit-Mouthed Woman (2007) and his signature fake documentaries Noroi: The Curse (2005) and Occult (2009).

In 2009, his film Grotesque was banned by the BBFC due to its “unrelenting and escalating scenario of humiliation, brutality and sadism.”

___________________________________________

With the support of Zipangu Fest

Tickets: £5 / £3.50 (conc)

Or £4.50 tickets online http://www.wegottickets.com/event/150572

Zippangu Fest

 

____________________________________________

Part of our Japanese Film Festival 2012 (14 to 29 January 2012), more info here