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[Dec. 30th, 2007|12:50 am] |
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To kick off the new journal, here is a couple videos!
Ju-On/The Grudge are some of the most popular and well known Asian horror movies on this planet. Next in line would naturally be Ringu/The Ring. Ju-On started off with two made for TV movies, Ju-On: The Curse 1 & 2, before spawning into two theatrical movies, Ju-On: The Grudge and Ju-On: The Grudge 2.
Because they are some of the most famous and terrifying Asian horror movies to come out of Japan, the first movie earned an American remake, simply titled The Grudge.
The American remake followed closely to the first Ju-On: The Grudge with a couple twists and deletions. The Grudge 2 strayed away dramatically from the storyline of the original sequel, Ju-On: The Grudge 2, but merged ideas from the other Ju-On movies into the new story.
However, did you know that the Ju-On franchise started from two short films?
Before the movies were ever made, director/creator Takashi Shimizu had been taking a filmmaking class taught by popular director/writer Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Kurosawa is famous for such films as Kairo [American remake: Pulse] and Cure. Impressed by a three minute film Shimizu made, Kurosawa offered Shimizu a chance to write a script for a feature length horror film.
Before doing so, Shimizu was asked to write a series of five minute long movies for a horror anthology TV movie, one which Kurosawa called Gakkô no kaidan G. It is here Shimizu wrote/directed/filmed two shorts that would later spawn a famous franchise.
These films are considered prequels to the Ju-On movies, and the characters seen in these short films are also main characters in the first two Ju-On TV movies. We see their fates in these two shorts, when we do not in the movies.
Here are the two shorts, in chronological order:
In a Corner/Katasumi
The film opens introducing us to Kanna and Hisayo, two victims of Kayako's wrath in the first Ju-On: The Curse movie. Kanna is the girl whose jaw is removed, and this is where we see her get attacked.
Link to the short video on YouTube.
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Here we see Tsuyoshi, also a minor character in the first Ju-On: The Curse movie, and what happens to him when he goes to school. [In the movie, we see him leave to school and never know what happens to him after, except his bike is still at the school without him.] Keep in mind: much like the number 13, and even 666, 4 is an unlucky number in Asian countries. It is also symbolical for death, as four is "shi" in Japanese, and "shi" is also the word for "death." It would be like getting a phone call from 666-666.
Link to the short video on YouTube.
Apparently, Gakko no Kaidan is various amounts of Jhorror anthologies. [Much like the Kadokawa takes.] I hope to find more videos related to this series and post them here. ^^
You can find these two shorts on The Grudge: Director's Cut DVD. |
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