One Missed Call

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Movie: One Missed Call
Romaji: Chakushin ari
Japanese: 着信アリ
Director: Takashi Miike
Writer: Yasushi Akimoto, Minako Daira
Producer: Yoichi Arishige, Fumio Inoue, Kazuo Kuroi, Hiroshi Okawa, Naoki Sato
Cinematographer: Hideo Yamamoto
Release Date: January 17, 2004
Runtime: 112 min
Production Company: Kadokawa Pictures
Distributor: Toho
Language: Japanese
Country: Japan
Theme Song: Kou Shibasaki - Ikutsuka no Sora

Plot

One night at a party, Yumi's friend gets a weird voice message on her cell phone. The message is dated two days in the future and she can hear her own scream in it. Two days later Yumi's friend dies and Yumi starts to wonder if it had anything to do with the phone call. As fear starts spreading among the students at Yumi's school, Yumi soon realizes that she's also got one missed call.

Notes

Related titles:
1. One Missed Call (2004)
2. One Missed Call 2 (2005)
3. One Missed Call | Chakushin Ari (TV Asahi / 2005)
4. One Missed Call Final (2006)

Cast

Kou Shibasaki - Yumi Nakamura
Shin'ichi Tsutsumi - Hiroshi Yamashita
Kazue Fukiishi - Natsumi Konishi
Anna Nagata - Yoko Okazaki
Atsushi Ida - Kenji Kawai
Mariko Tsutsui - Marie Mizunuma
Kumiko Imai
Keiko Tomita
Kayoko Fujii
Yoshiko Noda
Azusa - Ritsuko Yamashita
Tetsushi Tanaka
Mitsuhiro Sato
Kaoru Hanaki
Hassei Takano
Noriko Eguchi
Kenichi Endo
Yutaka Matsushige - Ichiro Fujieda
Goro Kishitani - Oka (undertaker)
Renji Ishibashi - Motomiya (detective)

Trailer

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Comments

Nikki Jan 19 2017 4:17 pm I have a little question - where I find the novel? What's the name of this book? :/

Sophie Jul 14 2012 4:16 pm It was a wonderful horror movie! I'm serious!!!

You literally could not take your eyes off of it---even when you really....really wanted to.

But, I'm having such a hard time understanding the ending.... Here's what I think..

SPOILER ALERT AHEAD!!!

So... One idea presented in the movie is that early child abuse will cause an individual to grow into an adult who continues the cycle of abusing.

The bad guy of the movie was Mimiko, not Marie (Mimiko's mother). Mimiko, as a child abused her younger sister viciously. Her mother eventually found out and Mimiko suffered an asthma attack due to the stress of her mother finding out. Marie didn't do anything to help Mimiko, essentially killing her due to negligence. (What came first, the chicken or the egg???) I get that the movie portrayed Mimiko as a violent, child psychopath, but Mimiko was a victim of abuse herself. Anyway, when Yumi (a victim of early childhood abuse by her mother) gets possessed by Mimiko, she stabs the leading male character, Yamashita. When he wakes up she gives him candy, smiles at him, and is holding another knife poised behind her back to hurt him again. Then the end credits roll and cheer music plays. Actually, the music was so cheery that it sent an extra 50 chills down my spine.

My initial reaction to this movie was, "WHAT THE FUCK! NOT ANOTHER BULLSHIT ENDING!?!?!?!?! (I#&($&(@#*$(@#$Y#$!" Then I thought about it and felt stupid and depressed. Stupid, because it's kind of obvious what type of message is being sent, since they state it early in the movie. And, depressed, because it's a very jaded outlook on the fate of abuse victims. It almost makes the statement that if you were abused as a child, you are fated to become what you hate. Not only that, but I feel like this movie might be a statement on human nature in a nutshell. Here's why:

Do you always treat your family with respect? Do you always treat the ones you love the most, the best? Or do you take out your day on them? Are they your punching bags? Do they live in fear of your next outburst or wait for the next shoe to drop??? Do you treat your friends or acquaintances with more respect than your close loved ones???

Let me answer this for you.

Yes.

We all do, to some extent. Some more than others. We don't always treat our precious people like they are the most important things to us. In this movie, there wasn't exactly a romance between Yumi and Yamashita, but she did rely on him more than anyone. And he does know all about her past. She doesn't have a family to go to. Just him.

So why would she stab him?

If you're just thinking, "Duh, she was possessed by a creepy little girl ghost..." then the big-picture statement of the movie might be passing you by. The movie is essentially stating that it was inevitable that Yumi would grow up into an abuser. She would hurt the ones she loved. It was her red-string of fate leading her down that road. One could say that when she realized this and stopped fighting fate, she was set free (thus the happy laughter at the end of the movie). Maybe the ghost of the little girl was just an instrument in helping her realize this. Perhaps the ghost's purpose/desire is to have everyone recognize that they hurt others, especially the people they love the most.

When everyone is looking aghast at the image of little Mimiko slitting her sisters arm open with a knife, no one ever stops to think, "I'm really no better." I feel like that was Mimiko's goal in death: to make people realize that she was really not so different than they are. She hurt those around her and always apologized, what was wrong with that? Who are we to say she was going to far, when there are countless news stories of school bullies verbally abusing children who later bring guns to school (and use them)? At least Mimiko tried to apologize when it was all said and done.

The physical act of cutting someone and then handing them a candy and wishing them well is an analogy for what adults do all the time. Adults hurt each other, try to make it up, and then offer up an apology that holds no true guarantee that they won't hurt you again. The child was mimicking what she perceived to be the interaction of those around her.

When you think about it, this cycle is imbedded in human interaction. I'm not saying that we are all to that degree, but it is a fine line between good, evil, and the shades of gray in between.

This movie uses a clever urban-legend type of excuse to imbue fear, horror, shock, and disgust in it's viewers while making a huge statement on the hypocrisy of human nature.

We are quick to turn on each other rather than figure things out. Just like Mimiko's mother, we would all let the little girl die of her asthma attack and think it was for the better. "Good. I'm so relieved Mimiko died on her own and the mother didn't have to actually kill her with her own to hands. That would have been too painful for a mother, even if her child was a monster." That's what I thought when Marie was sobbing as she watched her daughter die. I simultaneously felt bad for Marie and respected her for making a tough decision. But, now when I think of Marie's sobbing face, I feel disgusted. In the end, that was taking the easy way out.... That was giving up on your flesh and blood. That was retracting the helping hand every mother is behooved to extend.

Abuse is never okay, but you have to wonder which came first, the victim or the abuser? In the end, Mimiko was just a child imitating an adult game. The overall message of the story is incredibly depressing, since it seems as though the cycle of abuse is impossible to break.

If you don't believe me, watch the ending again. Look at Yamashita's face as he stares up at Yumi (who had stabbed him and dragged him to the hospital to be patched up).

It's the face of acceptance.

In return, the camera pans to Yumi. And she is laughing. It's an ironic, hypocritical, and cathartic laugh. She has been set free. She is no longer struggling against fate. She was ruined from the moment her own mother burned her.

It's a very sad ending. It made me cry....

iliekater Jan 16 2011 2:00 pm Yew , I can confirm that . I always wondered what is the meaning of starting creating a good movie and ending by making it a bad one ?

ALICE Nov 06 2009 1:22 am IT WAS HORRIBLE MOVIE...

Diska Diva Jul 16 2009 5:12 am seems to be niice sure gonna download it

One Missed Call

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