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After breaking up with her boyfriend, Shiyori (Nao Matsushita)
decides to travel to some hot springs in the middle of nowhere with her
best friend Aiko (Ami Suzuki). In the cabin they're staying at, Shiyori
finds a cellphone that isn't hers, but when it rings she accepts the call
anyways - and it's a stranger telling her to get the hell out of here
because the locals here are religious fanatics who like to cut off female
legs. And as soon as the stranger, one professor Mononobe, has had his
say, Shiyori already finds the locals banging on her door, and she only
just makes a getaway. But on the run, she more and more suspects Aiko,
whom she got seperated from earlier on, to have lured her into a trap ... Aiko
in the meantime has no idea what's going on with Shiyori, but suddenly she
finds herself on the run from Reika, a woman whom she has once stolen the
boyfriend from - and since Reika has gone so mental she now wants to kill
Aiko, using scissors of various sizes (with the emphasis on large). Aiko does her best to save her own
life, but Reika seems to be indestructible ... The more Shiyori is on
the run, the more she becomes convinced that Aiko is actually her enemy,
and when against all odds, her ex-boyfriend shows up to save her, she hops
into his car and doesn't wait for Aiko, even though she has promised her
to do so via cellphone. When her ex tells her that it was actually Aiko
who seduced him - which led to their breakup -, Shiyori only feels herself
confirmed in her distrust towards Aiko ... but then her ex takes her back
to the hot springs, ties her to a cross and tries to cut off her leg -
turns out he has actually lured Shiyori to the hot springs and not Aiko.
Now it's upon Aiko to save Shiyori, and she does her best to fight off Shiyori's
ex and the local fanatics, but armed with only a cellphone (!), she fights
a losing battle ... until Reika, who's still after her, arrives, and
totally oblivious to the goings on, she kills herself through the locals
just to get to Aiko - and distracts them just long enough for Shiyori and
Aiko to get away thanks to professor Mononobe, who has just come by to pick
them up ...
Now I don't know if my synopsis makes too much
sense (and it certainly doesn't put as much of an emphasis on the use of
cellphones as the film does), but that said, the film in itself makes
perfect sense in its own weird way, and effortlessly, it switches gears
from creepy to bizarre to outrageous (in a gorey kind of way) to
(intentionally) hilarious without ever missing a beat, tells its parallel
storylines out of sequence as if they were meant to be told that way, and
features an abundance of highly original plottwists (that often even
change the mood of the film from one moment to the next). An elegant
directorial effort and a competent ensemble cast of course don't hurt one
bit either. Recommended.
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