Marie Iitoyo: "Shirai-san" movie review part two

 

 Release Date: January 10, 2020    Length: 95 minutes  Director: Otsuichi

Also known as 'Stare', subs done by Rigman56 and that's the name of the blog if you want to grab the movie there.

Main Cast: Bit of a large cast who all got a decent amount of screen time but not nearly as much as the top two characters.

 Marie Iitoyo as Mizuki Yamamura.... University student and had witnessed the death of her best(only) friend Kana whose eyes exploded in a restaurant! It was due to a curse and now Mizuki has it along with the next character, it's a race to find a way to remove the curse.

Yu Inabas as Haruo Suzuki.... Also a college student and like Mizuki above has the deadly curse of Shirai-san! His brother also was infected with the curse and died the same way as Kana did.... his eyes burst!

Shigo Oshinari as Kota Mamiya... Reporter for the Tokyo Times and is married to the next person. Kota too has gotten the curse, he's formed an alliance with Mizuki and Haruo to find a way to get rid of it but the team was only partially successful.

Mitsuki Tanimura as Futumi Mamaiya.... Wife of the above man, we didn't see all that much of this character but she too has been cursed by Shirai-san.

Manami Enosawa as Kana Kato.... Mizuki's best friend and died early on because of the curse but we saw much of her in flashbacks.

Sawa Nimura as Eiko Tomita.... Friend of Kana and Kazuto, the three were infected at the same time with the curse and she did try to help Mizuki and Haruo out but to no avail.

Yutaro Watanabe as Kazuto Suzuki.... Younger brother of Haruo who was also killed early in the film but we did see him in some flashbacks.

Shota Sometani as Hideaki Watanabe.... Worked at an Inn with the below person, he was responsible for the curse spreading but didn't realize it and wasn't at fault.

Shimpei Oe as Toshiyuki Morikawa.... Also worked at the Inn, as was the case for every cast member was also infected with the curse of Shirai-san.

Interview video with Marie for the film

 No intro needed as I'm positive you read the above post, hope you're viewing the screenshots which follow the action and makes understanding the movie easier. This new character Kota is a reporter for the Tokyo Times but seems most of the action was set in the suburbs. He's heard the rumors of these 'eyes exploding' deaths which is how he connected with Mizuki and Haruo. So now it's a trio on the hunt for the origins of the Shirai-san curse or to be more accurate how to lift it. Kota first visited the only person remaining from that story telling session at the hot springs, Toshiyuki. He's still alive but did run into Shirai-san one evening on his way home but was able to escape with his life. One way to prevent Shirai-san's curse is by staring and not taking your eyes off her, how the film got it's title? But soon Toshiyuki would fall to Shirai-san's powers as the next evening his eyeballs exploded but not sure why as he did have his eyes on her.

 Of the nine characters in the cast list five are already dead courtesy of Shirai-san, who will be next? It appeared the next victim would be Mizuki who the night after Toshiyuki's death was returning home from the store, she didn't know then any of the tricks to ward off the ghost. When Shirai-san appears you'll hear the tingling of bells that the ghost carries with her, on her way home it's the sound Mizuki heard. Slowly she turned around to see the ghost(human) form of Shirai-san approaching and she was frozen in fear. Luckily her phone rang just at that instant, it was Haruo who had been discussing the eerie vents with Kota. He ordered Mizuki not to take her eyes off the ghost, that should make her disappear. That's what happened as Shirai-san vanished as a mist overtook the area but is she really gone? NO is the answer as Haruo arrived on the scene to escort Mizuki back home but that wasn't an option as the pair needed to flee to an empty warehouse to escape from the cursed woman.

 Couple good shots of the ghost Shirai-san right above. Besides not taking your eyes off Shirai-san the other way to get rid of her is to be with someone as the ghost only attacks people who are alone. So that may have saved the day for the pair who woke the next morning safe and sound in that warehouse. So without a doubt there is a curse haunting our remaining characters, is there anyway to get rid of it for good? To make a long story short the answer appears to be NO but along with Kota the duo of Mizuki and Harou have learned a bit more about the curse. That's courtesy of a dead teacher named Mizorogi who had originally told the now dead Watanabe many tales of Shirai-san. But the teacher told those tales when Watanabe was a young lad and over time the boy forgot all about the cursed woman. So that's another way to prevent Shirai-san from preying on a person which is to not know who she is. But Watanabe had kept a diary which is how he remembered his teacher's stories.

 The origins of Shirai-san were supposedly in the remote area of Blindfold Village, wouldn't that make a terrific title for a horror film? When our trio attempted to visit the village it was no longer there and with that is there no way to stop the treachery of Shirai-san? On the way back to Tokyo Kota's car overheated and it would be a while until it would be running. During this break Mizuki did some figuring out of the details of the deaths. She's surmised that a death only takes place every three days and in that day only one person is killed. So that means Shirai-san has only been killing 122 people a year so at that pace the following day is when the next death will occur, it'll be one of the three as they may be the only ones alive to know who Shirai-san is. So the best way to keep the curse away would be to expand the total amount of people who know who Shirai-san is, that would put so many more at risk but odds are good your life would be spared and hope that made sense.

 Above you can see some of the stats that Mizuki was able to figure out so if 100,000+ people know about the curse you'll probably never see Shirai-san. The problem is it appears only Mizuki, Harou, Kota and his wife know about the curse but Kota has a solution though it's a bit inhuman. He's written a story about Shirai-san and all of the terror she's created but the copy is on his home computer. Kota was trying to contact his wife Fuyumi so she could publish they story but there was no signal in the area, he's on the hunt for a location where his phone would work. However Harou was aghast at the idea that Kota would put others in danger and attempted to steal his phone. Harou was unsuccessful but in the struggle Mizuki was accidentally shoved down a small ravine, you can see her above unconscious and bleeding.

 We're down to the final few minutes, Kota fled the scene and was able to find an area where his phone had a signal. But a weak one as his wife Fuyumi couldn't understand what her husband was saying, did she ever post his story on the internet that would spread the curse to thousands of innocent people? Shortly after that Kota met his death in the woods thanks to Shirai-san, three days later his wife went missing and did the curse get her too? Mizuki ended up in the hospital and wasn't too badly hurt but there was one problem but actually it may save her life. That crack on the head has given her amnesia and she didn't even know who Harou was. Bu losing her memory is good because it means she's forgotten who Shirai-san is, that amnesia may save her life. That bottom screenshot above is from the final few seconds, after Harou left the hospital he ran into the cursed woman Shirai-san, was he able to escape death? If not that meant only one character of the nine lived until the end of the film.

 And so ends the pair of reviews, may not seem it but it was a bit shorter than I thought it would be. Do enjoy writing these up but also know if you make them too long they do drag and have read many that seem like tomes which have put me to sleep. Will give this a rating of 8.3/10, if you like horror movies would recommend it but will admit there are many better ones. Wish there was a bit more gore and the ending could have been better but it did set itself up for a possible sequel for is Mizuki the last person to know about the curse even though she's lost her memory? Up next for reviews is "The Call", a Korean movie from 2020, have watched the first 45 minutes and that's turning out to be the best new film I've viewed in a while.