EM Embalming

Introduction

This is Shinji Aoyama`s excursion into the relatively obscure and generally frowned-upon (within Japan anyway) practice of embalming.

The beginning of the film involves the apparent suicide of a 17 year old boy and the processes followed to prepare his body for presentation at the funeral. The story then lurches through a Cronenberg-esque world of mad surgeons, religious cults, personality disorders.

..oh yes, and there is plenty of gore.

Video

The widescreen anamorphic image is ok, but there is always quite a heavy graininess to the picture (possibly deliberate) which gives the film a cold, and less immediate feel than you would expect from a recent production.

Audio

The DD 5.1 soundtrack is perfectly clear, although there is a constant humming of what sounds like distant traffic throughout, and it`s difficult not to pick up on it once noticed.

Features

Extras include an interview with the director, who to be honest, seems half asleep throughout, and some text-based biographies of those involved in the film.

More interesting is the commentary track which is given by Jasper Sharp, who is apparently an expert on Japanese cinema (I`m afraid I hadn`t heard of him before so apologies to Mr. Sharp). His enthusiasm for these films comes across very nicely, and despite some large sections of spiel being read off pre-prepared notes (quite often stumbling over his words) making it sound like a college essay, I was generally fascinated by the information he has for anyone who watches the film and I may well go away and find a few others to investigate.

Conclusion

This could well have been a very tight and thrilling little story, but it suffers from a plot which is a bit too convoluted for its own good. Characters which appear to have a major influence on the story are not explained clearly enough, and then disappear as quickly as they arrived. The actors quite often seem to be sleepwalking through their roles, and even the shoot-outs between the police and the illegal organ traders don`t liven things up (would you just stand there rigid and fire if you were being shot at?). If it wasn`t for Jasper Sharp`s commentary I would be none the wiser as to what was going on half the time. This may all be a result of the director being brought in on the film relatively late on in the proceedings, and so may not have had much time to think about what the end result was going to be.

Quite a shame really, as there are some very good moments in what is ultimately a noble failure but I would have preferred more insight into the Japanese viewpoint on death and embalming. We learn about this through the commentary, but of course, by then it`s too late.