Shinku ****

Shinku means "deep red" as in dried blood. Written by Hisashi Nozawa, who committed suicide last year, this is an intense drama about two victims of the same murder. The first is the hapless survivor of a family massacre Rina Uchiyama. The second is the daughter of the killer Asami Mizukawa. Ten years after the crime, with the killer about to be executed, the survivor befriends the daughter's killer and sets in motion an elaborate revenge plan. Director Takashi Tsunikoshi handles the material well, fashioning a convincing and intriguing mystery out of the wary friendship between the two young women across the tracks. He also coaxes excellent performances from Uchiyama as the confident college student, and Mizukawa as a tattooed barkeep with a violent husband. The story slowly descends into bloody horror and climaxes with a reconstruction of the original massacre of the family, a crime that echoes the still unsolved murder of an entire family in Setagaya a few years ago. A creepy, all-too-real psychological horror story.

Unmei Janai Hito **

First-time director Kenji Uchida's film was invited to Cannes this year. It wants to be a caper film, but it ends up a scientifically constructed Chinese puzzle, luxuriating in its own cleverness. It starts off like a typical dull indie drama, with crybaby Reika Kirishima ending up in lovesick nerd Yasuhi Nakamura's condominium for the night - until the arrival of his ex-girlfriend, sexy, sassy Yuka Itaya. Uchida then rewinds and shows the same events from the perspective of cool private eye So Yamanaka, then once again from the perspective of dapper yakuza Sasuke Yamashita on the trail of a case full of cash. All the characters and elements are there for a clever sting, but director Uchida hasn't quite mastered the skills of tempo and mood. The result is a scam, an exercise in circular plotting that makes shills out of its audience.

Kame wa Igai to Hayaku Oyogu ***

More silly, whimsical fluff from Satoshi Miki, the stage actor and director best known for his left-field comments on the "Fountain of Trivia" TV quiz show. Like his previous effort "In the Pool," this is more wry smiles and occasional grins rather than laugh-out-loud funny. In her Technicolor apartment, bored young housewife Juri Ueno has nothing to do but take care of her hubby's painted turtle, until she discovers a tiny sticker advertising for secret agents. She's soon hired by weirdo couple Eri Fuse and Ryo Iwamatsu (the famous playwright), and given a fat fee of 5 million yen and a mission: to act as normal as possible. The housewife superspy soon discovers that her small town is crawling with agents acting average, like the ramen guy who deliberately makes only "pretty good" noodles. Miki's cast of stage vets obviously enjoyed making this silly tale of humdrum, but it never takes wing into truly giddy flights of fancy.

Noroi *

Noroi is being marketed "as a true story wherein everyone died." Blair Witch-style, it claims to document the disappearance of psychic hunter Masafumi Kobayashi as he investigated a series of bizarre events. Armed with just a low-res video camera, Kobayashi goes around Japan interviewing bug-eyed crazies and tinfoil-garbed loons for afternoon TV wide shows. He's on the trail of an ancient curse and the fabled "kagutaba," something about crying babies, knotted ropes, bats in the belfry, aliens in the attic, and all the usual sci-fi horror nonsense. Director Koji Shiraishi makes the mistake of shooting the entire shenanigans in Shakicam. There's hardly a moment when the cruddy image, either grainy video or cheesy TV quality, isn't jiggling and wobbling before your eyes. There's hardly a scary moment in the proceedings, but thanks to the jerky camera, plenty of chances to get seasick and lose your lunch.

Kiru (video) *****

Kenji Misumi directed this movie in 1962, the year of the first "Zatoichi" film, and these two movies in amazingly different styles launched a golden era in samurai films. A beautiful tale of bushido vengeance, told in expressionistic blue and red vistas against a deranged organ score, it's startling even today. Raizo Ichikawa, the elegant, noble ex-kabuki actor with hypnotic charisma, plays a doubly troubled, twice-orphaned son: his real mother Shiho Fujimura was executed by his father for murder; his adoptive father and sister were killed in a bureaucratic feud. It's not the convoluted revenge plot that makes this film so memorable, however. Rather, it's Misumi's superb staging and editing of many surreally beautiful chambara sequences. Ichikawa drops a rival in a sword contest by simply staring him out, and later, armed only with a branch of plum blossom, eludes a murderous samurai. In the most memorable scene, Ichikawa watches in horror as Mayumi Nagisa strips off her kimono and, stark naked and armed only with a knife, attacks a group of killers searching for her brother. The swish of silk, the glint of a sword, a trickle of blood over flawless white skin.