is a 1999 Japanese
horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes.
Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
directed by
Shinji Aoyama, starring
Reiko Takashima.
Plot
Cast
*
Reiko Takashima as Miyako Murakami
*
Yutaka Matsushige
is a Japanese actor.
Career
Matsushige has appeared in the films such as ''EM Embalming'', ''Adrenaline Drive'', ''Last Life in the Universe'', and ''Outrage Beyond''.
He won the award for best supporting actor at the 31st Yokohama Film Festiv ...
as Detective Hiraoka
*
Seijun Suzuki as Kurume
* Toshio Shiba as Dr. Fuji
*
Kojiro Hongo
was a Japanese actor. Hongo won an Elan d'or Award for Newcomer of the Year in 1959. His notable international performances were in the Daiei Studios Gamera films.
Selected filmography
Film
* ''Geo Tree'' (1959)
* ''The Demon of Mount Oe'' ...
as Jion
* Hitomi Miwa as Rika Shinohara
* Masatoshi Matsuo as Yoshiki Shingo
Reception
Todd Brown of
Twitch Film commented that Shinji Aoyama is creating a subtle parody of the
Japanese horror
Japanese horror is horror fiction derived from popular culture in Japan, generally noted for its unique thematic and conventional treatment of the horror genre differing from the traditional Western representation of horror. Japanese horror tends ...
film industry. Stina Chyn of
Film Threat
''Film Threat'' is an online film review publication, and earlier, a national magazine that focused primarily on independent film, although it also reviewed videos and DVDs of mainstream films, as well as Hollywood movies in theaters. It first ...
noted that ''EM Embalming'' is one of the few Japanese horror films that contains actual non-creepy segments. Andy McKeague of
Monsters and Critics felt that the film is genuinely unsettling and morbidly fascinating at the same time.
Mike Bracken of
IGN
''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...
criticized the film, saying that ''EM Embalmings greatest failure is that it often tries to be too many things at once and the film itself is almost as schizophrenic as its antagonist. However, he felt that several sequences of the embalming process are gruesome and extended conversations between Miyako and the black market organ harvester are eerily intriguing.
Meanwhile,
Mark Schilling of
The Japan Times
''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo.
History
''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...
said: "While verging on a black comic turn, Toshio Shiba's performance as Dr. Fuji is the film's strongest; his dark night of the soul is not just another fashionably blank attitude, but the genuine article, forged in the satanic mills of anger, loathing and despair."
References
External links
*
*
{{Shinji Aoyama
Films directed by Shinji Aoyama
1990s psychological horror films
Japanese horror films
1999 horror films
1999 films
1990s Japanese films