7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Japanese university students investigate a series of suicides linked to an Internet Web cam that promises visitors the chance to interact with the dead.
Starring: Kumiko Asô, Koyuki, Koji Yakusho, Haruhiko Katô, Masatoshi MatsuoForeign | 100% |
Horror | 74% |
Drama | 29% |
Mystery | 18% |
Supernatural | 16% |
Sci-Fi | Insignificant |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Japanese: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The Police released their iconic album Ghost in the Machine in 1981, scoring a Number One chart placement in the United Kingdom and a Number Two in the United States (hey, you can’t have everything, right?), and offering another “take” on the subtext of the album’s title with one of the most successful singles of their career, “Spirits in the Material World”. Some twenty years later Japanese writer director Kiyoshi Kurosawa approached the same idea of a ghost in the machine with his now famous outing Pulse, a film which ultimately gave birth to an American version as well as two sequels. Kurosawa’s original film is quite a bit different from the Americanized treatment, though it of course revolves around the same basic conceit, namely that the spirit world is able to “reach out and touch” unsuspecting humans via that little technology known as the internet. There’s a really interesting foundational idea underlying this first version of Pulse which is frankly largely missing from its Americanized counterpart, an idea which on its face (ghostly or otherwise) would seem to be almost intentionally counter-intuitive. The then still relatively nascent internet was advertised as a force for good, a way to connect people dispersed around the globe, and a technology which could forge a global community. Instead, Pulse posits the internet as a force for evil that seems to draw some of its ghostly power from isolation. Over and over again in this frequently disturbing film, folks logging on find themselves alone (at least in the mortal realm), separated from friends and family and forced to confront apparitions that they have no way of understanding, let alone controlling.
Pulse is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is another recent Arrow release with only a generalist statement about the transfer in the insert booklet, to wit:
Pulse is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 (sic) with 2.0 stereo sound. The High Definition master was made available for this release by Kadokawa Pictures.I admittedly never saw Pulse theatrically, and while it's evident that at least some of the stylistic proclivities of cinematographer Junichiro Hayashi have been rendered accurately here, the palette often looks drab and less vivid than some may expect, with a kind of "dupey" quality that seems faded and lackluster. There are also noticeable variances in clarity and grain structure, with some scenes looking relatively organic and relatively well detailed, and others having a decidedly chunkier, less detailed, appearance (see screenshot 8). While the IMDb reports this as having been shot on 35mm, a lot of this transfer has something more akin to a 16mm appearance, with attendant fuzziness and sometimes pretty noisy looking grain. Contrast and especially black levels are anemic at times, tending to make several scenes look kind of hazy and milky. Some occasional artifacts intrude in some of the darker moments, including what looks like some slight macroblocking in shadows. There is also occasional damage and transitory issues like a stray hair in the gate that can be spotted at times. As mentioned above in the main body of the review, Kurosawa and/or Hayashi repeatedly frame scenes with interstitial objects between the viewer and the ostensible focal character, something that helps to subliminally create the isolation and separation that is part and parcel of the film's subtext, but which also unavoidably leads to less fulsome detail levels. I'm scoring this at 3.0, though since at least some of the detail and perhaps even palette issues are intentional stylistic choices on the part of the creative team, some videophiles may feel that I'm being too harsh, while others may feel I'm being overly generous.
Pulse features an LPCM 2.0 track in the original Japanese which offers bursts of energy courtesy of "buzzing" computers and the like, but which derives a lot of its almost subliminal angst from simple effects like the scuffling of feet or the sound of taped shut doors being pried open. There's not a ton of stereo separation that I personally could discern, but the film's kind of "empty" sound design is delivered cleanly and clearly here, without any overt damage to report.
- The Suicide Jump (1080i; 6:22)
- Harue's Death Scene (1080i; 5:02)
- Junko's Death Scene (1080i; 4:31)
- Dark Room Scenes (1080i; 10:18)
The Japanese Pulse is a manifestly different experience from the American remake, perhaps even more so than some other so-called J-Horror transplants. The film is strong on mood, but arguably lacking in narrative momentum. The video presentation may cause concern for some fans, but as usual Arrow has assembled a top flight collection of supplements which may help to allay some of those concerns. With caveats noted, Recommended.
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