Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7017 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-03-24
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 108 minutes

Synopsis
Takashi Miike, the director of such cult classics as the DEAD OR ALIVE trilogy, ICHI THE KILLER, and AUDITION, takes on the Japanese horror film with ONE MISSED CALL. Mixing in elements of Hideo Nakata's THE RING and Takashi Shimizu's JU-ON: THE GRUDGE, Miike creates a scarefest sure to rattle even the most experienced horror movie lover. Pop sensation Kou Shibasaki stars as Yumi Nakamura, a teenager who gets freaked out when her best friend, Yoko (Anna Nagata), gets a call on her mobile phone--from herself, screaming, dated three days in the future. Three days later, at the exact time of the call--which had an ominous, strange ring tone--it all comes true, with Yoko screaming as she dies. The calls continue as Yumi's friends fear that they will be next to hear the ring tone that foretells death. Meanwhile, Yumi is joined by Hiroshi (Shin'ichi Tsutsumi), whose sister was recently killed and who wants to get to the bottom of the mystery before more young women die. Miike masterfully manipulates the audience, with plenty of scares around each corner, lots of terrifying images, violently dizzying flash cutting, and creepy music by Koji Endo. ONE MISSED CALL is one scary movie that should not be missed.

Customer Reviews

Same old number
Latest on the list of J-horror films to get a US makeover, One Missed Call is Takeshi Miike's Ringu/Phone ripoff, and a surprisingly low-key and tasteful (by Miike's standards) one it is too. It's also too long and suffers from an ending that's a little ambiguous in the "What's that all about, then?" way, and it seems a little awkward to have a major plot point revolve around Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy now that the condition has been widely repudiated as the invention of a vindictive misogynist who gets his jollies from giving false evidence in cot death cases. The plot involves a vengeful spirit that finds its next victims from the memory of the latest victims mobile phones, sending them a message from the future offering their last words, and the plot developments are pretty much as you'd expect. There are minor frissons in the death scenes, and there's a neat setpiece where a live Geraldo Rivera style show centered on the next victim's last few minutes goes spectacularly pear shaped, but it's also overlong and the execution is often a little too clinical for the material. Minor Miike, but once it builds up a head of steam it's an okay potboiler.

A very generic horror.
One missed call opens with a creepy premise that people hear their dying words as a message on their phones a couple of days before its going to happen. It soon becomes apparent that the calls are linked by the telephones internal phone book and when the victim dies a message is sent to someone else randomly from the list.

There are a few good scares and at times it is genuinely creepy. Most of the performances are OK but don't expect to see anyone break out to become a huge star.

The problem with the film is that if feels like what it is, and that's a paint by numbers remake of a Japanese film. When The Ring and The Grudge came out they felt fresh and were both terrifying. Then we had sequels to both these and Dark Water, amongst others came along which just ended up diluting the power of the originals and they all became carbon copies of each other. The problem with one missed call is that whilst it is entertaining, it just feels very generic and is another on the production line of remakes.

Overall, One missed call is enjoyable enough, but instantly forgettable once it's over.

Rather dull offering
A not very interesting example of the 'J-Horror' phenomenon; as one reviewer has described a tick the boxes approach with sparse orginality or fresh ideas on show.
Very much in the style of Ringu with a young woman racing against time to explain the sudden rash of deaths with her next in line to meet the long haired one, but not nearly as well executed or as interesting. As it materialised this premise turned out not to be quite as straightforward but for me this still could not lift the film beyond mediocrity.
It felt like most of the film was just filler until the director could present his grand finale. It was very contrived at times how people met and relationships were formed, the characters in the film were able to access all sorts of confidential information at will, no request for information was ever refused by any official agency and access provided without question to anywhere the characters wanted to go.
Some of the set pieces were risible. The whole television programme thing was presented awfully; a camera crew in a scene tantamount to kidnapping, manhandled one of the characters to a film studio in order to perform a live exorcism on her when she was due to be the next victim. Despite her being decapitated on stage when the invisible long haired one came at the appointed time this didn't seem to impact much on the other characters or agencies in the film.
The sorry conclusion came with the female next in line going to a derelict hospital on her own, various things happening then the man she had met who was helping her solve this riddle turning up and helping out. There's a bit more to it than that, and a few minutes after this which I can't mention in case anyone reading this wants to see it. I would say though that there are far better examples of this type to see, Japanese or otherwise.
Even allowing for cultural differences and by other asian horror standards it was all a bit 'up in the air' with no real attempt to answer all the questions posed. However it wasn't interesting enough to intrigue this reviewer to attempt to 'work it all out' or ever watch it again. One of a small minority of films I would expect any re-make or sequel to be better than this effort. Largely forgettable and a little bit dull.