How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This movie begins with three young, Japanese women frolicking in their bikinis on a beach in Okinawa and recording everything on a video recorder. One month later two other Japanese women travel to the same beach and they are also given a free video recorder while they are staying at the same small hotel. Anyway, as the story evolves, one of the young ladies by the name of "Mai" (Ari Nakajima) develops a crush on one of the local men which leaves her companion, "Miki" (Nonami Takizawa) all by herself while she strolls on the beach with her new boyfriend. As luck would have it, Miki discovers a video tape of the three ladies mentioned earlier and while watching it she begins to see certain things not meant for public viewing. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film had a number of flaws which really affected the overall quality of the movie. To be more specific, the acting, camera work, dialogue, special effects and just about everything else was quite bad. As a matter of fact, about the only good thing going for this movie was the presence of the five young ladies mentioned earlier who were all quite cute. But even so, none of them could have possibly saved this film from the major flaws listed previously

What can I say about this? It starts like a found footage film, dipping into what could almost be an homage to The Ring. Then loses its way even more. We are subjected to repeated footage and aimless progression towards the inevitable "shark" attack. I don't know if the dialogue was as trite and as forced in the original Japanese as it is in the subtitles, but it's pretty dire.I can only assume this is someone's backyard attempt at a new take on Jaws. As such, it's probably fine if the intent was to show his mates over a few beers. If you're going to watch it, I suggest getting the DVD so at least you'll get a nice coaster for your troubles.

You know how irritating it is, when watching a horror movie, you have to wait an awful long time before something significant or even remotely horrific happens? Tension building is a good thing, but depending on the type of movie you rented, you sometimes just want to see blood and carnage, like it's illustrated on the DVD cover and the stills on the back of the box. Well, "Psycho Shark" brings this sentiment of annoyance to a whole brand new dimension… Please, if you're not familiar with this title, I invite you to perform a search via Google Images and have a good look at the poster image. You will most likely encounter a poster of a shark emerging with wide open jaws, ready to swallow a victim in bikini, as well as stills from a ridiculous over-sized shark practically eating an entire wharf. Looks pretty cool, doesn't it? The painful truth, however, is that all these images are a bunch of shenanigans. "Psycho Shark", or "Jaws in Japan" as it is also known, isn't about raging sharks at all. More than an hour of this already relatively short movie centers on two beautiful and (very) young girls on vacation. The girls have fun and film each other in their too tight bikinis while a sinister young man observes them from a distance. For you see, the shark in the title is probably symbolic as we're dealing with a pervert with a little plastic shark on his key ring. Lame! Until suddenly and completely out of the blue, two minutes before the ending, the worst computer engineered fake shark in the history of bad horror cinema emerges from the water. The few courageous viewers who managed to last this long will be amazed at how awful the digital shark looks. I bet director John Hijiri has a profound explanation about the psychological depth and metaphors hidden in his film, but quite frankly I don't think anyone cares. When people rent a film with a bloodthirsty shark on the cover, they want to see just that!

Even though this movie's title may suggest otherwise, as does its alternative title "Jaws in Japan", this movie is much more a psychological thriller than a hardcore, fully-fanged shark flick.A substantial percentage is hand-made home-video-style footage, shaking and out-of-control camera and all. This is offset though by the quiet shots in between, and the slowness of how the rather minimal plot is built up. Not that I've found it the least bit boring though -- plenty of bikini girl, and tension rises throughout until the climax at the end, which it let's say quite something in its own right again.Recommended !