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

 

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

Also known as 'Stare', subs were 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.

Movie's trailer

 So after viewing eleven Marie dramas have finally watched my first film starring her, next up will be her movie "Inakunare Gunjo" that was released in 2019. But being October will wait until next month to view it so I can watch a few (hopefully) solid horror movies. Going to slow down on my drama viewing the next few weeks to watch a few more films which I actually prefer. Have watched four the last ten days, all have been horror flicks and while all have been decent none has really stood out. Japanese horror films have gone downhill the last decade but the ones from Korea have been solid, up next for me will be "The Call" from 2020, if it's good will review it.

 So even though Marie was in this film it was still just so-so, the story was quite good but it could have been a bit gorier and the ending wasn't as solid as it should have been but was still an enjoyable film. Like the other recent film posts will be doing this in two parts because I always take too many screenshots, 110 for this movie. So this first post will go up to about the 55th screenshot and the next post will continue from that. While the screenshots follow the movie 100% the events didn't as there was much skipping around time wise and many flashbacks, will try to follow how the movie went.

 Shirai-san is an urban legend but perhaps not as she is real, while her exact origins were never revealed this woman has been around for at least 150 years. Shira usually means White in Japanese but on rare occasions can mean Death, hence the reason for her name? Will give many more details as we go along but she did remain a mystery to us viewers and even the characters in the film. Marie plays Mizuki who is a junior in college and kind of gloomy as she only has one friend whose name was Kana. That's her in the top screenshot and the pair were out one weekend day having lunch. Kana was telling her friend a horror story she just heard at a recent outing with a pair of work mates but she never got around to finishing the tale.

 Mizuki will eventually hear the whole story which was about the legend of Shirai-san, the whole key to the curse is hearing the woman's name but Kana never got that far in the story. That's because all of a sudden a terrified Kana jumped out of her restaurant chair, went to the window and was petrified by what she saw! No other person could see it but within a matter of seconds Kana was on the floor writhing in terror with Mizuki looking helplessly on. With no warning the oddest and most gruesome thing took place as Kana's eyeballs.... burst! While we didn't see them actually burst there was a huge amount of blood and would have liked to have seen a few more eyes erupt. Usually keep these segments at two paragraphs but will make an exception to explain some of the above screenshots.

 

 With Mizuki in that bottom screenshot is a man about her age and also a student at her college though the pair had never met before. His name is Haruo and of all coincidences the same thing that happened to Kana also happened with his younger brother Kazuto, his eyeballs burst! In both incidences the coroner said the cause of death was Heart Failure which of course wasn't the truth, all the deaths will also be labeled as heart failures. Haruo's brother had worked part time with Kana which is how he found out about Mizuki who gave a blow by blow description on how her friend perished. Both Mizuki and Haruo have no clue on how the gruesome deaths could have occurred, now they're a team on the hunt to find out the truth and could it possibly be a curse?

 Haruo had a picture of his brother with Kana, there was a third person in the photo who worked with the pair and she was also a student. Her name was Eiko and the new team of Mizuki and Haruo were hoping she could shed some light on the horrific deaths. That Eiko could do and if her two mates are gone she was wondering am I next? A few weekends before Eiko had traveled to a hot springs with Kana and Kazuto, no romantic outing. There Kana told a horror story which she said happened to her but eventually admitted she read it on the internet. Overhearing the story was the hot spring's alcohol server Watanabe, if the trio wanted to hear something terrifying he has just the story for them! It's the tale or curse of Shirai-san which dates back at least 150 years but no person knows how this curse/woman came to life.

 Plus we never did learn exactly how Shirai-san can make a person's eyeballs burst(!) but we may learn the reason of why she does it near the end. Watanabe did tell the story in a very eerie manner which frightened the trio and also the food server Toshiyuki who sat in. What Watanabe had been saying was told to Mizuki and Haruo which also creeped them out. There's two(will be three) reasons Shirai-san will attack you, one is if you know who she is but more importantly if you know her name. Watanabe's story was set back in the Edo era, the curse couldn't possibly be alive today or could it? Seems as though it's still kicking as two deaths have occurred and Eiko eventually did a cruel thing after telling the story. At first it may have been her last living act as she secretly left the room and attempted to hang herself, she was saved in the nick of time by Haruo. But as Eiko was laying there recovering she said a cruel thing to Mizuki which was the name of the curse, Shirai-san. According to the legend saying her name is taboo as it spreads the curse which means besides Eiko the eerie woman may now be on the hunt for Mizuki and Haruo.

 So far this has been an easy post to write up so this will be the final segment as we're close to the halfway point of the movie. After that suicide attempt Eiko ended up in the hospital and really wanted to explain her actions to the duo of Mizuki and Haruo but just didn't know how to express herself. So seeing as how Eiko was in no danger(hah!) the pair left and little did they know it'd be their last time seeing the woman. Needing to explain herself Eiko wrote the pair a letter where she explained all about the curse and why she told them the name of Shirai-san which has now has cursed them. Have the feeling Eiko thought it was like the Ringu curse where you could transfer it to the next person and be rid of it. That wasn't the case as the Shirai-san curse can infect many people at once, perhaps millions! Few other tidbits were included in the letter which Eiko sent off that evening, it was her last act as a human for upon her return to the hospital who should we see for the first time but the ghost(?) of Shirai-san, you can see that above.

 It was the only time where we caught a glimpse of eyeballs exploding and wonder if we saw more of that act the film would have been better? Well, now all three friends who heard Watanabe's cursed story that night are deceased thanks to Shirai-san but what about the storyteller? Watanabe himself was eventually killed by this curse and really not sure if Shirai-san was a ghost or could come back in human form for the killings. She never did touch any person so she must have had some telepathic powers which allowed her to burst eyeballs! The fifth person sitting in on that story was Toshiyuki, we'll learn his fate in the next post but sure you know wat happened to him.

 We're at about the halfway mark so will stop this post here and continue on from this spot in the next post. The screenshots below follow the events 100% as they've occurred, in a few below you'll see a man in his thirties who we only met briefly in the first half of the film. He's a reporter named Kota who works as a reporter, he's married to a woman named Fuyumi but their marriage isn't going so well. But in the next post he becomes a key figure in the story, Kota and his wife have both been cursed and it's a race to figure out how to lift it.