InCinemas SG

Opening Date

30 May 2019

Rating

PG13 Horror

Runtime

98 mins

Language

Japanese with English & Chinese subtitles

Genre

Horror

Director

Hideo Nakata

Cast

Himeka Himejima, Elaiza Ikeda, Ren Kiriyama

Synopsis

Mayu works as a psychological counsellor at a hospital. One day, she is counselling a young girl who is under her care. Mayu sits across from the young girl, who is unable to do anything other than say her own name, when unusual things gradually begin to occur around her.

Around that same time, Mayu's younger brother Kazuma goes missing. According to what his friend Yusuke said, Kazuma had mistakenly entered a forbidden site while making his name as a YouTuber, and had become rather strange after that. While looking for clues, Mayu watches a video that Kazuma had uploaded. She comes upon a video clip that is connected to the young girl under her care...

Relying upon clues to search for her younger brother, Mayu and Yusuke travel to Izu-Oshima island, where there is an obviously disgusting cave called 'Gyojakutsu'. A mysterious old woman tells the sad tale of the island's past, which involves Shizuko Yamamura (Mother of Sadako), Sadako, and the young girl. When Mayu learns the truth about Sadako, she is deeply moved...

Reviews

By Jason Lin 31 May 2019

More than twenty years following the Japanese horror classic, Sadako is back in theatres with more questions than scares.

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More than twenty years following the Japanese horror classic, Sadako is back in theatres with more questions than scares. Directed by the very same maestro Hideo Nakata who presented Ringu in 1998, new characters find themselves harassed by the infamous supernatural antagonist in a new era without videotapes.

With a new set of characters and a totally unrelated storyline, Sadako might be independent of previous instalments. Manifesting itself within a young girl whose mother hid her existence from society, Sadako haunts the living through their fear and sins in the form of a curse.

Said curse used to be the famous “seven days” death spell bestowed upon one through a telephone call after watching the cursed videotape. In Sadako, this was not sensationalised and instead loosely attached itself to digital videos posted online. This might be an attempt to adapt to a new age of digital technology and social media where content is widely shared. Fans of the classic might prefer the good old days where the passing of videotapes enhanced the element of terror.

Healthcare worker Mayu (Elaiza Ikeda) became intrigued by a young girl who was admitted to hospital after a fire broke out at her residence and took the lives of some including her mother. The ability to conjure forces at her will terrorised those around, including fellow children at the hospital. This further aggravated when Mayu’s brother Kazuma (Hiroya Shimizu) risked it all and visited the young girl’s flat in seek of making a hit video as a Youtuber.

As the film made a disparate shift to Izu-Oshima island, it became evident that Sadako merely served as an icon used to strike horror at the command of the screenplay. With a scene in the film where Sadako performed the classic crawl out of the television, viewers came to terms that it no longer caused nightmares. It didn’t help when Sadako had the complexion of a Korean pop star and pretty nail polish.

Even with Nakata at the helm, Sadako was sadly not able to inspire new levels of genre appreciation where the supernatural antagonist should really consider a total retirement from the silver screen.

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Sadako貞子

Opening Date

Rating

Runtime

Language

Genre

Director

Cast

Synopsis

Reviews

Trailers / Videos

Everything Else

Sadako
貞子