Retribution (Sakebi) (2006)

Studio: Lionsgate

DVD Release Date: April 15, 2008

Directed By: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Cast: Kôji Yakusho, Manami Konishi, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Riona Hazuki & Jô Odagiri

Brutal As Hell Rating: 2 ½ out of 5 stars

Review By: Annie Riordan

Oh great. Another Asian import whose meaning I failed to grasp. Thank you Japan, for making me feel like a complete fucking idiot.

Stressed out Tokyo detective Noboru Yoshioka is called to the scene of a murder early one morning. A woman in a red dress has been found face down in a puddle of water, apparently held there until she drowned.. There are few clues, save for a single button from a man’s coat. Strangely, the button matches one that is currently missing from Yoshioka’s own trench coat. When his fingerprint is later found on the dead woman’s hand, he – along with his partner – begin to wonder if he himself is the killer.

But then, a doctor kills his son in the same place using the same MO. And later, a young woman murders her boyfriend in exactly the same way. So much for the serial killer theory that the police had going.

Meanwhile, Yoshioka is being haunted by a woman in red dress, who claims that Yoshioka is indeed her killer. But is he really? What’s in his past that he can’t quite remember? Why is the presence of seawater in the lungs of the victims so important? And where does Yoshioka’s emotionally distant girlfriend fit in? Frankly, I don’t know. By the time the end credits rolled, I was every bit as confused as I was when the movie began.

I’m sure there’s some deep, cultural message I’m missing here, and I could easily blame a recent bout of insomnia on my complete and utter failure to comprehend it. Was it a statement about environmental abuse and the threat of the sea reclaiming the polluted land? Shit, you tell me. I’m lost. All I can tell you for sure is that, despite the fact that I guessed what was going on with one plot point about fifteen minutes in, I ultimately just didn’t get it.

Oh, and I doubt it was intended to be funny, but the sight of the ghost girl in red, flying off over the Tokyo rooftops like Peter fucking Pan, was disconcertingly amusing. It was at that point that I pretty much gave up on Retribution and added it to the stack of Asian Movies I Didn’t Understand, along with Suicide Club and Kairo, the latter of which was also directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Hmph, maybe it’s just him I don’t get.