The Ao Oni Movie

Yesterday I finally got round to watching the Ao Oni movie in the Cinema which means it's now time to jump on here and jot down my thoughts about what I witnessed.

The only problem is I don't really know how I feel about what I witnessed.  Part of me wants to fly into a rage about how shit it was but then the other part of me wants to give it some concessions.  Remember, pretty much 100% of all video game movies suck complete bollocks but Ao Oni falls into the camp that something like Advent Children is in of "watchable".

Plus I'm willing to give the movie a bit more slack than usual because its source material is a fucking game made by like, 1 guy with RPG maker so it's not like whoever the people behind this movie were really had a lot to work with.

There will be spoilers ahead but if you're watching the movie before playing the game then you need a slap anyway.

So they movie starts out with some kid committing suicide and his sister (played by Iriyama Anna of AKB48 fame) placing some flowers.  Fast forward a bit and she's sat at the bank of a river playing what is basically an in universe version of Ao Oni created by some dude called Shun.

Now already I have a fucking problem with this because Anna and Shun are characters from the fucking novel.  I've not read the goddamn novel yet and I've got such a big reading list to get through that it's going to be fucking ages before I get round to doing that.  But really, if you're going to make a movie based of a highly popular VIDEO GAME then why the flying fucking arserats would you link it with the fucking book of all goddamn things.  This makes things overly complicated because now I'm not sure if it's a movie of the game or a movie of the book or a mix of the two.  Judging from what I saw it's a mix of the two but I wont know that shit for certain until I read the fucking book. 

I'd just like to point out that the book hasn't been released outside of Japan so this is a nice big middle finger to you non-Japanese speaking fans of the PC game.

Anyway, Shun gets coerced by some guy to go up a mountain to some spooky house because they have to do some shit with a box.  So Shun and all the characters from the game go to the house and Anna tags along because she's worried about Shun or some shit and then things kick off with the Oni.  Well, I say things kick off with the Oni but nothing actually happens for a good 20-30 minutes of movie time.  Then a lot of time after that is just the group running around being terrified of things but finally someone gets murdered and things are on in full swing.

This is where all the good stuff happens for a while with people being chased, solving mysteries and being murdered by the Oni.  There's even a sort of cool plot-twist where Shun comes to the realisation that everything going on in the house is exactly the same as his real life Ao Oni knockoff so for a while Anna and Shun have a bit of a leg up on the big nasty before things go tits up again.

It's that moment where things go tits up a second time where things start getting really weird.  It turns out that Shun is actually a ghost and he was murdered by Takuro who has gone from semi-leader character in the game to over the top high school bully for this movie.  For some unexplained reason Anna is the only one who can see and converse with Shun and that's how she avoided Oni slaughter for such a significant part of the movie.

But this doesn't make any fucking sense because we see SHUN solving puzzles and collecting keys round the house while Anna just stands there so is his ghost real or not? and if it is why can only Anna converse and see it.  It just doesn't make any fucking sense and while initially it's a cool twist it just really throws a wrench in the plot for a bunch of different reasons

Anyway, there's a bit more running and a bit more murder and the film culminates with Anna being locked in a room alone, with everyone else dead and nowhere to hide from the Oni.  She flings open the door to the room and walks into a white light where she ends up on the bank of a river with Shun again like at the start of the movie and after a little chat credits roll.

I couldn't figure out what the fuck just happened and the Japanese friend that was with me couldn't figure out what happened and we left the cinema in a confused mess.  At first we thought they were all dead but then we thought maybe none of them were dead and it was all just Anna's fantasy for how she wanted Takuro to die a horrible death for bullying her brother to suicide or some shit.  The problem is that it doesn't matter what line of thought you take there is always some event from the movie that fucks things up and just invalidates everything.

I know my explanation of the plot wasn't very good but if I tried to cover everything then it'd take all day but just go and watch it and you'll see what I mean.

Generally speaking though, it's not a bad movie but really at the end of the day it's just another "meh" horror movie for the pile.  Also it's really funny watching Iriyama Anna try to act because she's fucking terrible at it.  It doesn't help that she's doing a lead role with Kenta Suga who has a metric fuckton of acting experience thanks to his child acting roles and while his performance isn't award worthy it's pretty night and day between the two.

The final thing I have to say about the Ao Oni movie is that there is a lot of missed potential here.  There is SO MUCH stuff from the games that could have been made into interesting scenes or plot points in the movie that got ignored for no real reason.  The biggest example of this is that there is only one fucking Oni.  In the game there are a bunch of Oni things of all sorts of shape and size but they never thought to use this fact because I guess it would take up too much on the special effects budget or some shit?

Still, as far as video game adaptations go, it's OK.  If you're a fan of the games then you'll get a kick out of seeing a bunch of pricks run away from a big blue monster and there are a couple of little nods to the game that are done just well enough to make you smirk but not ham fisted enough to upset you.

To sum up how I felt about my movie-going experience, I don't feel like I wasted my time with it but it could have been so much better.