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One Missed Call (2003 film)

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One Missed Call
Theatrical release poster
Directed byTakashi Miike
Screenplay byMinako Daira[1]
Based onChakushin Ari
by Yasushi Akimoto[1]
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyHideo Yamamoto[1]
Edited byYasushi Shimamura
Music byKōji Endō[1]
Production
company
Distributed byToho
Release date
January 17, 2004 (Japan)
Running time
112 minutes[1]
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese
Budget$1.7 million[2]
Box office$16.2 million[3]

One Missed Call (Japanese: 着信アリ, Hepburn: Chakushin ari) is a 2003 Japanese horror film directed by Takashi Miike. The film is based on the novel Chakushin Ari by Yasushi Akimoto. The plot revolves around Yumi Nakamura, a young psychology student whose friend Yoko gets a strange voice message on her cell phone. The message is dated two days in the future and Yoko can hear herself screaming in it. After Yoko mysteriously dies, her death sets off a chain of events which leads Yumi to discover that this phenomenon has been occurring throughout Japan long before Yoko received an alarming call from her future self. When Yumi receives a call with the date and time of her death, she struggles to save herself and learn the truth behind the calls.

The film received a critically panned English-language adaptation in 2008.

Plot

While out at a pub with friends, Yoko Okazaki misses a call on her cellphone, but the caller ID says it's from herself. She and her friend Yumi Nakamura listen to Yoko's voice message, dated two days into the future, where she says it's starting to rain, followed by a horrendous scream. Two days later, Yumi receives a call from Yoko and realizes that Yoko is on the same routine as the voicemail. Yoko screams as she is violently thrown off an overpass onto a speeding train; her severed hand is seen dialing a number. Although authorities assume suicide, her schoolmates recall similar deaths that were preceded by voicemails. Yoko's boyfriend Kenji Kawai tells Yumi he got a voicemail from himself dated two days after. Kenji dies and a red jawbreaker candy falls out of his mouth as his phone dials another number by itself.

Yumi meets Hiroshi Yamashita, a detective who has been investigating the curse that also claimed his sister Ritsuko. Yamashita shares that the next victim is called one minute after the previous death, and that the victims have red jawbreakers in their mouths. Their investigation leads them to a hospital which has since changed its building and number. Yumi recognizes a sound she heard before Kenji's death: a spritz from an asthma inhaler. They trace the autopsy records to a girl named Mimiko Mizunuma who had died from an asthma attack, with her mother Marie going missing. Ritsuko's journal shows that whenever Mimiko had an attack, her sister Nanako would suffer some injury at the same time. They suspect Munchausen syndrome by proxy, where a parent purposely makes a child sick so she can take care of her and be praised for it. Yumi's friend Natsumi also becomes a victim and dies. Yumi gets the cursed voicemail and reveals to Yamashita that her mother abused her as a child.

At an orphanage, Yamashita meets Nanako, who is unable to talk, but has a teddy bear that plays the same song as the ringtone. At the abandoned hospital, Yumi is haunted by the spirit of Mimiko. Her cell messages her that she will die in one minute. Yamashita finds an arm clutching an active cellphone, and stops its call. After the minute elapses, Yamashita uncovers a crate holding Marie's body. It comes to life and Yumi sees her own abusive mother in Marie. She tearfully embraces her, apologizing for leaving, and Marie's body returns to a corpse.

Yumi goes home and Yamashita visits Nanako at the orphanage. The Mizunuma videotape that Yamashita found reveals that Marie did not abuse her children; instead, Mimiko abused her sister. The tape shows her cutting Nanako, then suffering an asthma attack. Marie found out the truth and rushed Nanako to the hospital, leaving Mimiko to die. Nanako tells Yamashita that she would get a candy from Mimiko if she stayed silent. Yumi is haunted by Mimiko in her home, playing out the same events her voicemail showed. When Yamashita arrives, he finds Yumi normal, but is stabbed by her when they embrace, and sees Yumi appearing as Mimiko in the mirror. After a dream where he helps the dying Mimiko with an inhaler, he wakes in a hospital where a possessed Yumi feeds him a candy with her mouth and smiles, revealing that Mimiko has found "a new Nanako" in Yamashita to care for.

Cast

Character Japanese actor English voice actor
Yumi Nakamura Ko Shibasaki Kate Davis
Hiroshi Yamashita Shinichi Tsutsumi Liam O'Brien
Natsumi Konishi Kazue Fukiishi Jennifer Sekiguchi
Ichiro Fujieda Yutaka Matsushige Kim Strauss
Oka Goro Kishitani Joey Capps
Detective Yusaku Motomiya Renji Ishibashi Michael McConnohie

Release

One Missed Call premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival on November 3, 2003.[4] Its English title was listed as You've Got a Call at the festival.[5] It was later released theatrically in Japan on January 17, 2004, where it was distributed by Toho.[1] In the Philippines, it was released by Buena Vista International on December 8, 2004.[6] It was released by Media Blasters in the United States with English subtitles on April 22, 2005.[1]

In February 2020, Arrow Films released One Missed Call on Blu-ray in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.[7]

Critical reception

Rotten Tomatoes reports a score of 44%, with an average rating of 5.23 out of 10, based on 27 reviews from critics. The website's "Critics Consensus" said the film "has a few interesting ideas and benefits from director Takashi Miike's eye, but is ultimately too unoriginal to recommend."[8]

Entertainment Weekly wrote, "One Missed Call is so unoriginal that the movie could almost be a parody of J-horror tropes", yet "Miike, for a while at least, stages it with a dread-soaked visual flair that allows you to enjoy being manipulated."[9] Dana Stevens of The New York Times mentions that "[the film] staggers under the weight of its director's taste for baroque excess".[10]

According to Nick Schager of Slant Magazine, the film is "[a] mainstream J-horror flick that dutifully regurgitates the apparitions, aesthetic, and themes of its genre predecessors".[11]

Sequels

The film was followed up with the sequel One Missed Call 2 which was released in 2005.[1][12] One Missed Call, a ten-episode Japanese television drama was broadcast in 2005.[citation needed] One Missed Call: Final was released in Japan on 24 June 2006.[13]

Remake

The film was remade in English as One Missed Call, released in 2008.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Galbraith IV 2008, p. 430.
  2. ^ "One Missed Call - Box Office Report". tohokingdom.com. Retrieved 2021-07-10.
  3. ^ "Chakushin ari (One Missed Call)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2021-07-10.
  4. ^ "三池監督、最初で最後のホラー映画!?「着信アリ」記者会見 : 映画ニュース". 映画.com (in Japanese). Retrieved 2022-04-15.
  5. ^ "Tiff History 東京国際映画祭の輝かしき軌跡をたどる".
  6. ^ "Opens Today!". Philippine Daily Inquirer. The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Inc. 8 December 2004. p. A31. Retrieved 15 September 2022. Death Cannot Be Put On Hold......
  7. ^ Squires, John (2019-11-29). "Arrow Video Announces First Ever Blu-ray Release of the 'One Missed Call' Trilogy". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved 2021-07-10.
  8. ^ "One Missed Call (2003)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 2021-07-10.
  9. ^ Gleiberman, Owen (2005-04-20). "One Missed Call". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2021-07-10.
  10. ^ Stevens, Dana (2005-04-22). "Film In Review: 'One Missed Call'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2021-07-10.
  11. ^ Schager, Nick (2005-04-08). "Review: One Missed Call". Slant Magazine.
  12. ^ Galbraith IV 2008, p. 436.
  13. ^ Galbraith IV 2008, p. 443.

Sources

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