Ghosts of Japanese cinema
by Stephane du Mesnildot
Publisher : Deep Red (June 2011)
Language : French
Number of pages : 224 pages
In 1998, Ring made the figure of the Japanese ghost world famous: a disarticulated young woman, with long medusa hair falling over her face. Sadako then crystallizes an essential representation of Japanese culture through the prints of Hokusai, the nô theater and the kabuki, the butô dance, the cinema or the mangas. She is the heiress of catwomen avenging their murdered mistresses and poisoned wives pursuing cruel samurai. She feeds on urban legends: the disfigured woman who terrifies children after school, Hanako-chan, the little girl who haunts college toilets. The J-horror of the 1990s and 2000s repopulated Japan with ghosts: Sadako, of course, but also Asami, the femme fatale of Audition , the cursed family of Ju-on / The Grudge , the wandering souls of the Internet in Kaïro … Far from the bustle and neon lights of Shinjuku, the filmmakers film deserted and icy urban spaces that mark Japanese cinema as a whole beyond the genre. The book is enriched with interviews conducted by the author with the major creators of horror fiction in Japan (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Takashi Shimizu, Hideo Nakata, Norio Tsuruta, Chiaki J. Konaka), brought together for the first time in a work in France.