Over the past decade the Japanese ghost stories gained much attention and popularity. I believe that it started after Hideo Nakata's "Ringu" was released. No no, I'm not saying that Nakata started the whole "ghost thing", take a look at Japanese folklore - you'll find plenty of ghost stories there, and of course there was a lots of ghost movies before, but only after "Ringu", subject of ghosts in the movies gained so much worldwide popularity. Now we have a huge amount of "Ringu" and "Ju-On" clones and nobody tries to be a little more original. Well actually it's not the problem - it's really hard to make or think of something new these days, because everything is in some way a clone of something, especially when we talk about movies and music, but it doesn't mean bad! It's really possible to make something interesting and pleasurable for the audience. Anyway, this movie isn't actually an another clone of "Ringu" or "Ju-On", but unfortunately "J-Horror Anthology: Legends" isn't something original either.
Right from the start I knew that this will be a compilation of low budget ghost stories. Yes, not horror, but ghost stories. That's probably because that "J-Horror" in the title - most of people likes to use "J-Horror" as the description for the Japanese movies with ghosts. And don't get me wrong, because I've said low budget. I have nothing against low budget movies, in fact I love low budget movies much more than high budget films. Anyway, lets get to the point: "J-Horror Anthology: Legends" is a movie, which contains six short ghost stories, or you can call it a compilation of six short movies, it doesn't matter. All stories starts from introduction of a storyteller Junji Inagawa. The endings are the same - with Junji's conclusion. Inagawa's role here is to speak as a philosopher, but he'll rather put a smile on your face than impress you with his "philosophy". First of all I'll describe the plots of these shorties. Let's go.
"HEARTBROKEN TRIP" is a story about the girl named Chiharu. Her boyfriend dumped her right before her vacation, so she planned to go there with her friend Yoshiko instead of him. On the trip day Yoshiko called Chiharu and said that she have some business to take care of, so Chiharu should go there now and Yoshiko will be right there after she'll finish her business. When Chiharu arrives there she hears about some ghost rumors. The rest... Well, you'll see.
"YAMAMBA" starts from two journalists - they go for a report on mysterious creature Yamamba, in some small village. Nobody wants to talk there about it, because there is an old saying in the village: "The one who talks about Yamamba, will be eaten by Yamamba", but like always, there is one kind man, who tells where to keep digging and journalists head on to deep woods, to face the mysterious Yamamba.
"LOST SOULS" is a story about the couple. They are heading back to Tokyo through the night and decide to stop somewhere to eat. When they find the place, they noticed a strange smell after the mysterious family walks in. The restaurant cook tells the couple that they should not look at the family if they want to get home alive and the horror starts here.
"NURARIHYON" is the shortest story and thanks god for that, because it's also the worst story of all six. It's a story about Nurarihyon - a friendly ghost with a deformed form of head. The story in the movie doesn't give any explanation why he has such strange form of his head, so it's just probably because he's a ghost. Anyway, one little boy gets friendly with Nurarihyon. What will happen and why Nurarihyon is a friendly ghost - you'll see after watching this tale.
"PEONY LAMP" is one of the Japan's famous ghost tales. Well that's what the storyteller at the beginning says. It is a love story between a samurai and a ghost - daughter of shogun, who committed suicide after her father said that he'll never permit her wedding with a samurai.
"SHE-BEAR" is the story about a woman who's carrying a teddy bear and tearing the human body parts off. It isn't that fun, like it sounds. Believe me.
So... The really good thing about the whole movie itself is that these six stories are pretty short. You can sit through all of them till the end even if you don't like the story. But probably this is the only good thing. It looks like every story was filmed in a few days, in a rush, and that the directors of these short ghost tales just wanted to finish them as soon as possible. The stories that have to be scary in this film isn't scary / spooky / creepy and stories that have to be more dramatic fails too. It seems that nobody realized, the main goals of these tales, while filming this. From the technical side of this film - everything seems to be fine, but everything else isn't...
So if you're a die hard fan of the ghost tales - give this a try. Also I think that these stories could be interesting for the kids. There is a sequels from the same "J-Horror Anthology" series, but after watching this, I've preferred to skip watching them. Maybe I'm just too old for all these "ghost things"?
