Review of Orochi おろち

Title: Orochi
Official website: here
Roadshow date: 20 Sep 2008
Theme song: Ai wo suru hito by Shibata Jun
Total run time: 107 minutes
Original manga by: Umezu Kazuo







Cast:

Monzen Aoi / Monzen Kazusa (Kimura Yoshino)
Monzen Risa (Nakagoshi Noriko)
Orochi / Yoshiko (Tanimura Mitsuki)
Oonishi Hiroshi (Yamamoto Taro)

Review:

Be warned that there will be many spoilers in this review. Although this is not a suspense movie, there are some revelations throughout the plot which will provide unexpected twists. As such, if you do not wish to spoil the fun of discovering them until you watch this movie, I suggest that you give this review a miss.

First of all, let's start with a summary of the story. Orochi (Tanimura Mitsuki), a girl of unknown origins who wears a red dress and coat, wanders into the Monzen residence on a stormy night. She becomes the maid in this huge mansion and observes the happenings in the household. Monzen Aoi (Kimura Yoshino) is a famous actress who has a pair of twin daughters (they do not look alike at all). Although Aoi is full of confidence about her talent and beauty, she seems to be fearing something and is especially strict towards her elder daughter Kazusa who is not good at singing. She is constantly berated by Aoi for being inferior to Risa, the younger sister. On the other hand, Risa gets an early taste of success by being a child singer while Kazusa looks on with envy. Not to be outdone, Kazusa decides to give up singing and concentrate on being an actress like Aoi.

At the peak of her career when she is only 29 years old, Aoi announces her retirement from showbiz and disappears from the public eye. At the same time, Orochi slips into her deep slumber which happens every century but still has a strong urge to find out what will happen to Kazusa and Risa in future...

Years later, Kazusa grows up to be the spitting image of Aoi and becomes a well-known actress while her sister Risa pales in comparison and becomes an assistant to her sister. Risa then brings a young girl Yoshiko (who looks exactly like Orochi) to the Monzen residence for an unknown reason...

This is not a horror movie. And this is not a movie strictly about women's obsession with beauty. The message is deeper than this. The presence of Orochi is not to instill fear. Orochi is there as an observer to what is going on. She does not take part or influence what happens in the Monzen family. In addition, Orochi happened to be in the Monzen family by chance. She did not select where to go. I would say that Orochi takes on the role of narrator for this story.

In fact, the theme of this movie is more on human desire which brings about tragedy, hatred and ironies in life. It is especially evident in what happened to the sisters. When they were children, Kazusa was treated especially harshly by Aoi and expected to do as well, if not better than Risa. The tables were turned when they grew up as Kazusa turned out to be a popular actress and was garnering all the attention which Risa used to bask in. What they did not know was a dark secret in the Monzen family. Aoi knew what would happen to the women in the family. Everyone would lose their beauty at 29 years old and slowly rot away. That is why she was especially harsh on Kazusa since the latter is not her own flesh and blood. Kazusa would not be affected by the curse of the Monzen family. Aoi knew that even though Risa was more promising as a kid, it would eventually come to nought when the sisters grew up. Risa was certain to have the same fate as all the women in the family. That is why Aoi wanted Kazusa to carry on her legacy i.e. Kazusa was the only person who could carry on the Monzen name despite not bearing the Monzen blood relation.

However, when Aoi revealed this parentage secret to Risa on her deathbed, this set off the bottled up hatred which Risa had for Kazusa. On the surface, Risa didn't make a big fuss about being relegated to a virtual unknown when Kazusa made it big but deep down, she still relished the days when she was the centre of attraction. Coupled with the fact that Risa loved Kazusa's boyfriend, the revelation served as the final spark to set the hatred on fire. Risa's distortion of the truth caused Kazusa to wallow in pity and cause irreversible hurt to her looks. When Risa finally revealed the truth, Kazusa was unable to bear with the irony that she was in fact the culprit for her own downfall.

There are a lot of what ifs and ironies in the story which could have changed the ending drastically. Despite not being Aoi's own daughter, Kazusa was the spitting image of Aoi and took the same path as her mother did. On the surface, Aoi seemed to favour Risa but it was Kazusa who Aoi had entrusted her ideals to. That could be also why the potrait in the stairway only showed Aoi with one daughter instead of two. To Aoi, her only hope was for Kazusa to continue with what she had failed to do. Of course, Risa is pitiful for being written off right from the start because of her parentage but it was something which Aoi couldn't do anything about. Aoi could have thought that spending time on Risa would not be worth it after all. If Aoi didn't tell Risa the truth, Risa might not have tried to get back at Kazusa. And Kazusa would not have destroyed her beauty with her own hands. On the surface, it may seem like Risa's jealousy was the sole driving force for what she did but I think another key factor was desire. Of course, Risa wouldn't have felt good upon knowing that she would be the only one to rot and die while Kazusa continues to live happily and enjoy the things which Risa did not have. Since Risa cannot do anything about her fate, dragging Kazusa through hell would have fulfilled her desire for revenge.

The ladies in this movie have done well. Kimura Yoshino straddles between two roles easily and she is getting better with roles which show off a feminine side of her. I used to dislike her for playing those sweet gentle roles in the past especially in Overtime but she has matured a lot all these years. Well, for actresses who have been in showbiz for a long time, the crunch comes when they hit 30. There have been many instances where actresses start to bare skin or show off the mature woman side of themselves once they reach a certain age. That is only natural but not many people can make the transition smoothly. Kimura is one of those who can show off her feminine trait but does not go overboard on the sexiness. Nakagoshi Noriko really surprised me with her performance this time. I don't remember watching many of her dramas (the last time I remembered seeing her was in Pride) and she's usually in those forgettable supporting roles. Just when I thought it was going to be the same case again, the last few scenes of Risa showed that she can act. I must say that I am very impressed this time with her potrayal of Risa's multi-angled character. Tanimura Mitsuki is really good at cool roles especially in horror films. I still remember how she looked in Shinizokonai no Ao. At the beginning of this film, the seemingly-emotionless Orochi really sent a shiver down my spine. However, as the story goes on, Yoshiko and Orochi seemed to blend together and yet they are two different characters. Tanimura managed to show the overlap between these two characters and how different they can be at the same time.

I would strongly recommend this film to people who are:
1) interested in the rivalries between women
2) fans of the three main actresses i.e. Kimura, Nakagoshi and Tanimura
3) fans of Umezu Kazuo's works
4) looking for films which have twists and lots of questions to ponder over

And my ratings for this movie...
Story: 8.5 out of 10 (Engaging and unexpected twists along the way)
Acting: 9 out of 10 (The three ladies showed off their best)
Theme song: 7 out of 10 (The song by Shibata Jun was quite good but I prefer the instrumental piece played throughout the movie)
Visual effects / Scenery: 6.5 out of 10 (Not much scenery to speak of and the general colour tone is quite dark)
Teamwork / Chemistry: 7.5 out of 10 (Kimura and Nakagoshi showed the love-and-hate relationship between the sisters very well)

Total: 38.5 out of 50