ridiculous rating

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Look, let's just cut to the chase. Because there's no other way to really describe this film without comparing it to numerous others that came before.The story of "One Missed Call" is essentially just a cocktail comprised of two-parts "Ringu/Ring" to one-part "Ju-On: The Curse"... garnished with a dash of the visuals and tonality of the first couple "Tomie" flicks here and there for good measure. Oh, and a pinch of a handful of director Takashi Miike's previous films once or twice during particularly "gooey" scenes.Yes, yes, yes... I know it's based on a novel and that it's fair to say many Japanese horror films (Heck, I'd say Asian horror films in general) share a lot of common visuals, story structure and occasionally specific scenes. But at the same time, it's hard not to notice how much the movie does rely on borrowing materials we've generally seen done much better before, while just giving them a slight cosmetic face-lift.Stop me if you've heard this one: A small group of friends must fight for their lives after receiving phonecalls alerting them that they will die in just a few days. (...never heard that one before. Oh, wait...) Except instead of relying on a cursed video-tape, the dark forces at play in this film skip right to the nitty-gritty as the curse is just focused on the phone-call itself. You get the call, you die, someone else close to you gets the next call. And so, the search is on as young Yumi- who has lost several friends to the curse and appears to be its next victim- must team up with investigating detective Yamashita to solve the mystery of what's happening and how to stop it.I will make a minor apology for the use of sarcasm above, but I can't blame myself too much. It's just too hard to really talk about this film without addressing those obvious similarities that it has to other films. Really the only thing that sort-of sets this film apart from being just another generic horror-flick are some wonderfully subversive little scenes that pop up now and again and a few big stand-out scares thanks to the skill of director Miike. That and admittedly fun performances from our leads Kou Shibasaki and Shinichi Tsutsumi, who are both able to salvage some fine work despite a painfully derivative script and clichéd character development.One particularly remarkable scene relatively early in the film is what pulls it all together for me, and makes me able to forgive the film's faults and shortcomings. While I won't spoil the outcome, I will say it revolves around a character desperately trying to survive, even going so far as to appear on live-TV for an "exorcism" to save her from whatever dark force is at play. Not only does the scene contain some nice and very subtle bits of satire, but it's also just REALLY darned creepy and unsettling, building tension like a tightening wire until it all snaps and goes completely nuts. It's about a 10 minute sequence, but it packs more suspense, fear and even small chuckles than most films do in their entire runtime. It's frankly shocking just how amazingly effective this scene is compared to the relatively by-the-numbers rest of the proceedings. Another sequence set in a hospital later does come close with some truly twisted imagery and visual direction that just drips and oozes pure, dread-filled atmosphere... though it never quite matches the sheer power and ferocity of that earlier sequence. Still, it's another great sequence in its own right and should be mentioned as another of the film's stand-out moments.And honestly, it is scenes like those two that do make this a worthwhile sit... at least for hardcore horror fans or movie-buffs with a taste for Asian films. It's most definitely a case of "the parts being greater than the whole", but even still, the whole isn't too bad. It's just very routine. We've seen it all before. But that doesn't mean there's not still some fun to be had with it. It may not be one of Takashi Miike's best efforts. But it's one I think most people will get a kick (and a jump) out of.I give "One Missed Call" a slightly above average 6 out of 10. It's worth checking out at least once thanks to some great key scenes... just don't expect a particularly original story. And be prepared to roll your eyes once or twice.

A very visually-pleasing traditional J-Horror flick, with Miike's signature criticism of the state of family and domestic decaying, without delving deeper philosophically nor psychologically of course.What makes most of the Japanese horror film industry appealing is its capability of delivering suspense and actually building a compelling atmosphere while not relying much on seat-jumpers and Hollywood scares, as well as keeping up with non-linear time-line, fragmentation, and other experimental techniques. Such characteristic, sadly, have been gradually abandoned and tolerated with as the exposure on the US market grows.Acting was campy, which is a very strange yet amusing aspect in almost all of the Miike Corpus (except for Oudishon, perhaps, with its pleasing cast and the legendary Ishibashi Ryo.) What speaks in Miike's work is in fact Miike Takashi himself and his visionary talent. Such genius could be seen from the fanatic extravaganza media frenzy in Natsumi (Fukiishi Kazue)'s arc, notably the live exorcism scene.Rich cinematography and decent sounds. Clever deployment of the ring-tone device worked positively for progressing and building up without being overly redundant and jejune.

This movie made me grab some cell phones and delete my number. Although I do not believe in spirits haunting phones i do believe in spirits such as death and demons. I also believe in bad luck streaks jumping from people to people. That said lets move on to the actually movie.Plot: I never heard of a plot so twisted (literally the twist were at every other scene) I was not sure what was happening until it had happened and I paused and took a few minutes to collect my thoughts on what just transpired. My line of thought was simple at first. People get a call hearing their death they die soon after and candy pops out their mouth they make one more call to someone in their contact list that person is next. Then the questions started coming in. This is when i got confused. Why did candy pop out their mouth? Why a cell phone? Why do they have to die? So on and so forth. The answers somewhat make sense. . . and i really emphasis the somewhat. But they do make sense. Execution: I do not believe it could have been done better. That pretty much all i have to say about the execution. It was a decent length the subs were not a blinding color and a blur across the bottom of the screen. The acting was decent even if their dialogue was predictable at times although the story itself was not.Climax: A beautiful flash of humanity and our fear of death and how we overcome it to live or so i thought until the final 2 twist come in and she stabs her companion as he tries to save her. Closing: It was almost perfect but i was not sure if the male star would be finishing his piece of candy. I hate open endings that leave you wondering was it solved or is he still gonna die.

If John Carpenter's 1978 film Halloween was a metaphorical and unsubtle morality tale on celibacy, does this make Takashi Miike's 2003 film One Missed Call a metaphorical and unsubtle tale on popularity? If you had sex in Halloween you were sliced and diced; if you own a mobile phone in this ever growing post-modern world of gadgets and modernity as well as being really popular, in One Missed Call you're arguably in even bigger trouble. But then again even I'm not sure if being stalked by Michael Myers is as scary or indeed scarier than being hunted by a supernatural ghost-like being. There is one thing for sure though, One Missed Call takes its idea and its feint ideas on the ever increasing demand for popularity and somewhat makes a hash of it.I suppose there is no surprise that the Japanese would produce a film such as this one. The general feel I think is that the Japanese are consistently producing the best horror films that the world is currently seeing and even when it's not Japan such as 2003's The Eye, it is still that Far Easterly Asia influence that makes them better than American or indeed European films in the genre. But One Missed Call is just one missed opportunity. With its premise revolving around a slice of technology that spawns greater fears (video tape in The Ring/laser eye technology in The Eye), One Missed Call feels a little dated right from the beginning. Usually the film will rely on daft logic from its characters and implausible situations to get across the bulk of its scares.The idea behind the film reads something along the lines of a mysterious caller trying to contact various people. When these people fail to answer their phones they have a missed call and these voice messages are their grizzly fates. It sounds interesting and like a compelling detective idea but the film dumbs down its premise by presenting the women within the film as weak; one-dimensional; squealing; screaming; inferior people who all share the common characterisations of being abused and the victims in general. Compare this to the male characters who have sad back-stories; are brave, strong and toward the end closely resemble a mythical knight in shining armour as the final acts plays out in a hospital. The men in the film are also authority figures with the few incidences of police presence all being of the male variety.But until these gender issues have arrived, the characters (usually the women) are given really embarrassing actions to carry out. Yumi (Shibasaki) is the protagonist of the film and the one who must find out what's going on before she herself comes to harm. In The Ring and The Eye, similar female heroines took on supernatural missions in order to save themselves and future people. Here, Yumi can only squeal, cry and put her hands over her eyes when faced with danger as the false-hero Hiroshi (Tsutsumi) comes to save her. Hiroshi is also given a prior tragedy; his sister succumbed to the missed call curse and he's in on figuring it all out purely out of spite. For him it is a revenge mission and we feel more for him because of this, thus taking away the focus and emphasis from Yumi.The final showdown in hospital makes for some interesting reading. Watch it and ask yourself "Who actually does what?" Yumi can only cry, stare and crawl around when faced with the film's antagonist and yet there is more at stake for her as it's her life on the line – Hiroshi is there purely for payback but it is him with the weapon and it is he who must fight the monster. Even getting to the hospital is an ordeal. Yumi figures out one thing or another and goes there all alone, at night, poking around. I'm all for scares and thrills, that's why we actively watch horror films but when the motivation for the scares come at such a disappointing and dumbed down level, it is then difficult to 'feel' for the people in the film as it was their own stupidity that got them there in the first place.So this really just acts as a set up to get the male saviour of the film to finish the story off. Getting to the final act is equally as silly. When someone's possession phenomenon is revealed earlier on, everyone's first reaction is to bung her on a TV show and have her exorcised live. This could be a statement on how Japan these days make a media circus out of anything but I'm not in touch enough with the culture to know this for sure. Needless to say that by the time the ghost appears, the entire studio has run away and left the female victim by herself – where were the security guards that were so desperate not to let Hiroshi and Yumi into the studio? Why are there no cautionary backups? Why does the girl just stay there and let it 'get' her? Because she's a female and it acts as a 'scary' scene, I suppose.One Missed Call plods along with its meek ideation about how phones and technology and popularity are maybe dangerous, but it never makes any serious stand. The film is a series of ill-motivated, uninteresting scenes that do not scare so much as they frustrate. By the time the showdown with the monster has arrived, you expect Yumi to be fighting for her life with it right in front of her alá The Ring, The Eye or even an American film like The Terminator or Alien, but she doesn't even seem interested. Not a great venture into the Far Easterly horror territory.