Extras:
Cast and crew interviews, Behind the scenes, Japanese Press Conference, Digital Effect Exposed,
Tartan Trailer Reel, Trailer, Erika Franklin's film notes
In Premonition, it started off as a standard day out for the family Satomi,
but as the father, Hideki (Hiroshi Mikami, right), couldn't get a signal on his mobile
so he can send an email from his laptop which contains his application to advance his
career as a professor at the local college, he asks his wife, Ayaka (Noriko Sakai, below-right),
to go back to the phonebox they passed a while ago, since if he leaves it until they get back
to Tokyo then it may be too late to get the job.
At least at home he would've had broadband, but while standing in the phonebox waiting for the
email to upload, a piece of paper catches his eye, trapped under the phone book. Taking it out,
it's a piece of newspaper which he reads... to discover a report about the death of his 5-year-old
daughter, Nana (Hana Inoue), who died around 8pm as a truck crashed into it when the driver
had a seizure, only... it's almost 8pm now and she's not dead, she's very much alive and sat in the
car with Ayaka.
Hideki freezes with panic and turns around to face the car. Inside, Ayaka has gone into the back seat
as Nana's seatbelt is stuck fast. She sees Hideki looking frightened and goes over to him, and before
you know it the newspaper has told the future and their life is in ruins as their car explodes and the
windscreen glass is forced forwards and cuts Ayaka's left cheek.
Three years later and Hideki is still struggling to come to terms with the situation. He and Ayaka
have since divorced and nothing will ease either of their minds, particularly since he's started
getting more premonitions, some personal, some professional and one involving a train crash that results
in massive casualities. They both work at the same college and a woman she's brought in to help
with some psychological research, Satoko Mikoshiba (Kazuko Yoshiyuki), gives her some information
about the Akashic Records, basically where all this kind of weird stuff gets recorded... as well as
the hope that there may be a chance to change the past.
The man who did this research is Rei Kigata. They eventually track down his home, a series of video
tapes which detail what he went through but there's nothing that'll prepare them for what they're about
to witness or experience about what he's found out and what the consequences are.
To go into more detail would be to spoil the movie, but while it does have a final segment which contains
many twists and turns, all as intriguing as the last, and there are some genuine shocks it does definitely
drag at times and overall comes across as more like an extended episode of Tales of the Unexpected,
although it is based on a cult comic book, Newspaper of Terror, but it's still definitely worth a look
with the best acting coming from Hiroshi Mikami as Hideki while Noriko Sakai, as Ayaka, is cute but she's
a bit wishy-washy and spends her time looking less anguished, due to her daughter's death, but more like
someone's just sat next to her and trumped.
All that said, there's more to enjoy than there is to criticise so I look forward for certain to
future titles in this "J-Horror" collection, although one sneaky thing about this release is that while
there's an 18-certificate emblazoned on the cover, the film itself is only rated "12", so the rest must
account for the extras.
The film is presented in anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen and looks a bit too soft at times, but the
print is clean and free of any defects. Soundwise, I went for the DTS 5.1 audio track and when
this is required to pack a punch it does exactly what it says on the tin. In the opening scene,
I'd turned up my volume so I could hear the dialogue in the quiet nighttime scene when... well,
let's just say my neighbours won't have been very impressed but I certainly was :)
The extras on this DVD are as follows:
Cast and crew interviews (23:27):
Six of them here, featuring director Norio Tsuruta, who gets just over 8 minutes to talk about
his work while around 3 minutes apiece is given to each of the cast listed above, except for the
girl who played Nana. These are all fairly standard Q&A sessions with no surprises, but make sure
you do not watch them prior to the movie as they contain on-set footage that will act as spoilers.
Behind the Scenes (39:57):
Individually chaptered, this contains on-set footage of six key scenes in the movie, which I won't
describe here for obvious reasons, but this section dedicates a good few minutes to each to give you
a flavour of how it was created and what went into it.
Digital Effect Exposed (6:02):
Again, no spoilers, but when the CGI kicks in for a number of scenes you briefly see the before and
after shots, plus the stages inbetween as a scene is put together.
I would say this section is where the 18-cert might play a part but it doesn't go into any more
detail than the film itself.
Japanese Press Conference (4:34):
Filmed in July 2004, this is basically a roll call for the director and main cast members, but while
it's great for the completist, like myself, it doesn't tell you a great deal because they obviously
can't talk about the plot of a movie that - at that point - they're still filming.
Original trailer (1:29):
Presented in anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen, it gives away too much so don't watch until you've seen the film,
which rather kills the point of it, but there you go.
Trailer Reel:
Five more trailers for other Tartan terror movies: Infection, Lady Vengeance, A Bittersweet Life,
Another Public Enemy, Three... Extremes
Overall, a few interesting bits and pieces there but the real meat is in the behind-the-scenes section
and the piece on special FX is good, but the interviews are rather bland and that is repeated in the
press conference bit. Like I said, I'm a completist so it's good that it's there, but are *all* press
conferences for movies like that?
Inside the box with the chapter listing can be found Erika Franklin's film notes.
There are subtitles in English only, plus the option to remove them which is good as a video would have
to have them burned into the print, just 16 chapters, and a short piece of the music and CGI on the
main menu based on events in the film.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
In Premonition, it started off as a standard day out for the family Satomi,
but as the father, Hideki (Hiroshi Mikami, right), couldn't get a signal on his mobile
so he can send an email from his laptop which contains his application to advance his
career as a professor at the local college, he asks his wife, Ayaka (Noriko Sakai, below-right),
to go back to the phonebox they passed a while ago, since if he leaves it until they get back
to Tokyo then it may be too late to get the job.
Three years later and Hideki is still struggling to come to terms with the situation. He and Ayaka
have since divorced and nothing will ease either of their minds, particularly since he's started
getting more premonitions, some personal, some professional and one involving a train crash that results
in massive casualities. They both work at the same college and a woman she's brought in to help
with some psychological research, Satoko Mikoshiba (Kazuko Yoshiyuki), gives her some information
about the Akashic Records, basically where all this kind of weird stuff gets recorded... as well as
the hope that there may be a chance to change the past.