Dark Water (2002 film)

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Dark Water
Theatrical release poster
Directed byHideo Nakata
Screenplay by
Based on"Floating Water"
by Koji Suzuki
Produced byTakashige Ichise
Starring
CinematographyJunichiro Hayashi
Edited byKatsumi Nakazawa
Music byKenji Kawai
Production
companies
  • Oz Films
  • Dark Water Partners
Distributed byToho
Release date
  • January 19, 2002 (2002-01-19)
Running time
101 minutes
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese
Box office$1.4 million

Dark Water[a] is a 2002 Japanese supernatural horror film directed by Hideo Nakata and written by Yoshihiro Nakamura and Kenichi Suzuki.[1] An adaptation of the 1996 short story "Floating Water" by Koji Suzuki, it follows a divorced mother (Hitomi Kuroki) who moves into a rundown apartment with her six-year-old daughter (Rio Kanno) and experiences supernatural occurrences linked to a constant leak of water from the apartment above.

The film received positive reviews and grossed $1.4 million at the box office. An American remake, directed by Walter Salles and starring Jennifer Connelly and Tim Roth, was released in 2005.

Plot

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Yoshimi Matsubara struggles to rebuild her life amidst a messy divorce from her husband Kunio Hamada, which sees her battling for sole custody of her six-year-old daughter Ikuko. She rents a rundown apartment, enrolls Ikuko in a nearby kindergarten, and gets a job as a proofreader for a small publishing company. The ceiling of their apartment has a water leak that slowly worsens, and she complains to the building superintendent Kamiya to no avail.

Yoshimi begins experiencing strange occurrences around the complex. A child's red schoolbag reappears no matter how often she tries to dispose of it, and she gets glimpses of a mysterious little girl. Several incidents remind her of the time she was abandoned at kindergarten as a child, which is shown in flashbacks. She is regularly late to pick up Ikuko from school and is stressed when her ex-husband tries to take Ikuko. Yoshimi learns of Mitsuko Kawai, a little girl who went missing a year earlier, from a missing person photo of her with a yellow raincoat and red schoolbag. She discovers that Mitsuko used to live in the abandoned unit directly above her apartment.

One day, Yoshimi finds Ikuko in the apartment upstairs, where the faucets have been left running and flooded the entire unit. Her lawyer talks to Kamiya, who finally agrees to fix the issue. Afterwards, things seemingly return to normal, but the red schoolbag reappears. Yoshimi goes to the roof and notices that the water tank was last opened and inspected over a year ago, shortly before Mitsuko was last seen. She has a vision which reveals to her that Mitsuko fell into the tank while trying to retrieve her red schoolbag and drowned. Meanwhile, Mitsuko's ghost attempts to drown Ikuko in the bathtub.

Yoshimi rushes back to her apartment, grabs an unconscious Ikuko, and flees from Mitsuko into the elevator. However, as the elevator closes, she sees that the figure pursuing her is Ikuko and that she has been carrying Mitsuko. A decayed Mitsuko clings to Yoshimi, who realizes she won't let go. As Ikuko cries and begs her to come back, Yoshimi sacrifices herself to appease Mitsuko's spirit. The two ascend in the elevator, which then explodes in a heavy torrent of water that knocks Ikuko to the floor.

A decade later, 16-year-old Ikuko lives with her father. She revisits the now-abandoned apartment block and notices that her old apartment looks oddly clean. She sees Yoshimi, who looks the same as she did a decade ago, and questions why she was not told that her mother was living nearby. Confirming that she is a spirit, Yoshimi apologizes that they cannot be together and affirms that she is happy as long as Ikuko is alright. Mitsuko appears by Yoshimi's side and they disappear together, leaving Ikuko to express gratitude that her mother always looked out for her.

Cast

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  • Hitomi Kuroki as Yoshimi Matsubara
    • Yukiko Ikari as Young Yoshimi
  • Rio Kanno as Ikuko Matsubara (6 years old)
  • Mirei Oguchi as Mitsuko Kawai
  • Fumiyo Kohinata as Kunio Hamada
  • Yu Tokui as Ohta
  • Isao Yatsu as Kamiya
  • Shigemitsu Ogi as Kishida
  • Maiko Asano as Young Yoshimi's Teacher
  • Shinji Nomura as Mediator (Man)
  • Kiriko Shimizu as Mediator (Woman)
  • Teruko Hanahara as Old Lady (Twin, Elder) / Old Woman A
  • Youko Yasuda as Kono
  • Tarou Suwa Old Lady (Twin, Younger) / Old Woman B
  • Shichirou Gou as Nishioka
  • Sachiko Hara as Kayo
  • Tohru Shinagawa as Principal

Release

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The film was released theatrically in Japan on January 19, 2002, where it was distributed by Toho and received a total domestic gross of $906,344.[1][2] In the Philippines, the film was released by Solar Films on July 30, 2003.[3] The film grossed a total over $1.4 million worldwide.[2] It was shown at the AFI Film Festival in the United States on November 9, 2002.[1]

An American DVD release of Dark Water was dubbed in 2004 by ADV Films, and later released by Section23 on June 21, 2005. Arrow Video released Dark Water on Blu-Ray (AV068) on October 25, 2016. It was packaged with a 1080p transfer Blu-Ray disc and separate standard definition DVD disc.[4]

Reception

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On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Dark Water has an approval rating of 84% (based on 19 critics).[5] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, writing that "its denouement delivers not just a flash of fear but a strange, sweet charge of pathos—and the combination adds up to the most disturbing spell in the cinema I've had in a very long time".[6] Alexander Walker of the London Evening Standard also gave the film a positive review, writing that "its cleverness relies on transferring our concern from the supernatural events emanating from one lost child to the natural fear of a mother losing her own child to the other world".[7] Katie Rife of The A.V. Club recommended the film for horror fans, writing that "the J-horror boom of the '90s and early '00s produced some extremely creepy ghost stories, and Dark Water is one of the creepiest, and saddest, of them all".[8]

Thomas Spurlin of DVD Talk gave the film 3.5/5 stars, writing that it "doesn't pack as much of a suspenseful punch as other entries in the J-Horror subgenre, but the heaviness of its supernatural moisture-soaked atmosphere and the melancholy angle of its parental theatrics fill that void".[9] Nicholas Rucka of Midnight Eye called the film "a simply passable horror viewing experience" and criticized its "weak story resolve and mediocre characterization" but wrote that it "is worth watching for a good chill".[10]

In a 2020 article for the British Film Institute, Katherine McLaughlin included the film in a list of 10 great Japanese ghost stories, referring to it as an "eerie and heartbreaking adaptation" that "strikes a disquieting mood".[11]

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The original title, Honogurai Mizu no Soko kara (仄暗い水の底から, From the Depths of Dark Water), is also the title of the horror anthology by Koji Suzuki and the manga adaptation. The English manga version, translated by Javier Lopez, was published as Dark Water by ADV Manga in 2004. An American remake of the film, directed by Walter Salles and starring Jennifer Connelly, was released on 8 July 2005.

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ 仄暗い水の底から (Japanese: Honogurai mizu no soko kara, Hepburn: lit. From the Depths of Dark Water)

References

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  1. ^ a b c Galbraith IV 2008, p. 422.
  2. ^ a b "Honogurai mizu no soko kara (Dark Water)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved February 4, 2016.
  3. ^ "Opens Today!". Philippine Daily Inquirer. The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Inc. July 30, 2003. p. A30. Retrieved 12 September 2022. If you like being afraid this one will 'drown' you dead!
  4. ^ "Dark Water". Arrow Video. Retrieved 3 November 2016.
  5. ^ "Dark Water (2002)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
  6. ^ Bradshaw, Peter (5 June 2003). "Dark Water". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
  7. ^ Walker, Alexander (5 June 2003). "Tapping into terror". London Evening Standard. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
  8. ^ Rife, Katie (16 October 2018). "This is Halloween: 31 more streaming options to set your October right". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
  9. ^ Spurlin, Thomas (7 November 2016). "Dark Water (2002) (Blu-ray)". DVD Talk. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
  10. ^ Rucka, Nicholas (4 December 2002). "Midnight Eye review: Dark Water (Honogurai Mizu no Soko kara, 2002, Hideo NAKATA)". Midnight Eye. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
  11. ^ McLaughlin, Katherine (2020-10-29). "10 great Japanese ghost stories". BFI. Archived from the original on 2020-11-01. Retrieved 2021-09-27.

Works cited

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  • Galbraith IV, Stuart (2008). The Toho Studios Story: A History and Complete Filmography. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-1461673743.
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