Photo: Courtesy of 852 Films
Onpaku
The words “welcome to Japan” rarely incite paranoia, but that’s exactly what makes Shugo Fujii’s latest “hypnotic, psychosexual, paranormal cornucopia” so fiendishly cunning. Brazenly tarnishing some of the country’s most recognizable motifs, the horror meister perverts the vaunted concept of omotenashi (elevated hospitality), and puts actor-producer Josie Ho through a phenomenally bizarre ringer. Her character, Sarah, has come to Japan from Hong Kong to buy an investment property and to recover from a bad break-up. Although she has a broker and the visit should be a breeze, things go wrong from the moment she arrives at her dilapidated Airbnb-style lodging. The elderly female proprietor (Kazuko Shirakawa) seems to think she’s someone else and tellingly, so do the other guests. As Sarah discovers that she is somehow connected to the building’s violent history, things go from very bad to worse. The Mimicry Freaks auteur creates a surreal, V-cinema-style terror extravaganza.
