Tokyo-1997 I watched this film 3 years ago after renting the DVD in a shopping mall near my house. This is an excellent film that builds up tension and fear towards the end of the film. The last twenty minutes of the film were very terrifying. I had nightmares after watching this movie. The actors and actresses play their roles very well. I highly recommend this movie for any horror fans. This movie may not be as good as the first one but is still really chilling. The director manages to create an extremely creepy and dark atmosphere for this film. And do watch out there is a frightening twist at the end of this film. Spoilers below: People have been found with coal dust on their body instead of a candy in their mouth. Could there be another new curse? Our heroes goes to Taiwan to find out. There is a huge frightening twist at the end of this movie that isn't common in other movies. This movie is very slow pacing at the beginning. It takes a while to really grab you. But I can assure you, by the end of the film you will be really satisfied. Score:10/10

alma-42 It is strange indeed how people dismiss sequels on the sheer basis of them not being 'distant' from their original! And to top it off those very same people repeat over and over that the only sequel that could surpass its original is Godfather II.Talk about shamelessness.Chakushin Ari 2 is a very powerful example of such cases. Even for a Miike Takashi fan such as myself, I cannot but bow to Renpei's unique entry.Renpei Tsukamoto's style, at least here, does very much remind me of M. Night Shyamalan. It should be noted that I find it quite uneasy to endure 90 minutes of Shyamalan's viewers-are-mentally-challenged- and-my-mission-is-to- sing-them-a-lullaby 'technique', which, thank god, is not the case with Renpei. Rather, he uses Shyamalan's dream-like/fairy-tale atmosphere mixed with the harshness of classic Greek tragedies, as well as 'hidden' complex personae for his characters. Renpei also pays homage to the infamous Franco-ish nature-loving crossover, which sucks! Daira Minako provided an intriguing screenplay where each character's actions end up uncovering aims that might even contradict with what had appeared on-screen (note Ho's character as Nozoe Takako's husband). This device is taken to the extreme with the vengeful Li Li, whose reaction to others' compassion towards her past life ordeal is a merciless, cruel indifference(!), together with an utter hunger that makes her accept even replacement sacrifice.Beautiful Mimura, with her cute accent, puts up a so-so performance, occasionally tainted by J-Horror clichés (one of them felt as if it had been ported scene by scene from Honno Gurai Mizuno Soko Kara) and the annoying turn-slowly-to-scream-at-some-ghastly-presence. The most noteworthy of all though was Yoshizawa's performance as Kyoko's boyfriend-- he could actually create something good out of a god-awful, flatly-written Hollywood-style character.Seto Asaka (Nozoe Takako) was mediocre, while all the others were extra-ish more or less.Plot devices taken from the original, i.e. the ring-tone and blue-skin ghost appearing in unlikely places, were used almost to the point of perfection despite the apparent excessiveness of the former.The plot itself felt a little distracted and moved a little out of control as the Taiwan act starts; however, it soon manages to tie its knots and form a satisfying narrative. Ending was brilliant in a way, even though it clearly shows that Renpei wanted more space for his vision to be realised, and hence it is more of a cliff-hanger rather than an open ending like in the original.Summing up, this picture is one of the most artistically-satisfying "mainstream" J-Horror titles, clearly surpassing its initial entry while introducing a Japan-made cross J-Hollywood taste to the genre.

Atavisten I was skeptical to Miikes entry to the ringu craze and this is a sequel made by an unknown director. No surprise then that this doesn't hold up.The plot is a mystery to me and the buildup is weird. After jumping right into the action from the beginning with many "accidents" connected loosely through a particular ring tone it uses most part of the movie to explain the previous one (a often used tactic in sequels) and ends up boring in the end. Not that it was too exciting in the first place.The taiwanese-Japanese sounded funny though (language wise). I wonder what the kids feel about the ring-tone, if they would be terrified to hear it now even after this dread.

blackpose I can clearly remembered the frightening moments I have when I saw the Chakushin ari 1, which is considered as one of the most classic Japanese horror movies. But this one,the following one, is just like something went wrong in the writer and the director.The whole "horror" story went in a very gentle way. I can say that I was not frightened even one single time. The actors played dull and stupid. this is an horror movie that makes me sleepy.The director was changed to a rookie who is completely unknowledgable about directing a movie.(He just made some series before). And the bad script again make the movie die.I even got completely disappointed about Japanese Horrors.