Watch Neighbour No. 13 For Free

Best movie of this year hands down!

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The Neighbour No. 13 explores the consequences of humiliation, abuse and torture among young teenagers and children. Juzo Murasaki arrives at a work construction area to take on his new job. Unfortunately for him, his supervisor turns out to be Akai, the one that has previously tortured him when both of them were only young teenagers. After years of repressed memories, Juzo develops a psychopathic alter ego that finally decides to seek revenge against Akai and his family, in a surrealistic journey that dissects the fears and enraged violence inside the human mind.Review The film is served in an exceptionally slow pace allowing the viewer to be submerged in the intriguing atmosphere in which a considerable number of disturbing scenes simply tend to pile up, notwithstanding no further clue of the upcoming events being expected. The violence in The Neighbour No. 13 is thoroughly presented throughout the movie, alternating with traces of humorous moments and apparently childish scenes. The scenes appear to be fairly well-orchestrated by the director, being presented in a particularly raw and cruel way, thus enhancing a feeling of repulsion since the type of violence and to whom it is addressed is indeed the most disturbing side of the violent behavior in this case.As the number of flashbacks tends to increase, Juzo is apparently sent into a downward spiral, leaving him desperate to gain control of his own mind. Surrealistic unorganized events, sometimes-incomprehensible perspective and grotesque animated scenes contribute to perfectly illustrate Juzo's disconnection from the reality. Nonetheless, towards the end of the movie however, the last scenes will eventually tie up any loose ends and a possible feeling of confusion that has been build up throughout the film.The physical characterization of Juzo and his revenge driven created alter ego is also of particular interest as Juzo appears as a delicate young man and No. 13 is better described as a disturbing disfigured emotionless creature. The scenes representing Juzo's mind were particularly well shot and quite bizarre in an interesting way. The remaining characters were for the most part attention-grabbers, even though rudeness and bullying can easily borderline annoyance, which was fortunately not the case in the movie. There is no particular character development for the most part excepting Juzo himself as the film represents his own journey, facing his own fears and demons and finding the necessary empowerment.Bottom line, The Neighbour No. 13 may be described as a dark character study wrapped in surrealistic contours of a vengeance quest, that as clearly something to say about standing up for yourself and fighting back against anybody or anything, allowing the viewer to explore the consequences and costs when repressed hatred and revenge become a part of anyone's reality.Asian-cineblog.blogspot.com

They say, "What goes around comes around," or "Karma is a bitch." In the case of bullies, I really hope that is true. Maybe they should show this film in schools to let them know that bullies sometimes get their just desserts, even if it is many years later.Jûzô (Shun Oguri) was constantly bullied by Akai (Hirofumi Arai) and his friends in school. Now, they work for the same company, and even live in the same apartment building. Akai doesn't recognize Juzo, and that is good because he continues his bullying ways, and is going to get a taste of revenge.But, before that we are witness to some real struggles between Juzo and his alter ego (Shidô Nakamura). This is presented in the form of an imaginary house, and again in cartoon form. Juzo doesn't want violence, but his alter ego is insistent. Apparently, the bullying drove him crazy.The only think that prevent a higher score is the ending, which is very confusing. I have to chalk that up to the fact that this was a first attempt for both the director and the writers. Other than that, it was captivating -- with blood and gore, I have to add.Takashi Miike makes a brief appearance as the first victim.

First off, this isn't your average "uber-weird" J-horror film. The story is pretty straight-forward which is refreshing for a change. There's no ghosts, or girls with long black hair, or rings, or phones, or any of that - just a good, tension-filled revenge tale. That said, my major gripe with the film is the ending, as it was too vague for my taste, and really dropped it a notch in my book. I'll be brief with my "summary", as to say too much would spoil the film...Juzo is a shy and reserved guy who was picked on and bullied horribly in school as a child, and has developed a split personality as a result. When the guy that was the "main" bully happens to move in upstairs to Juzo, it's time for the bully to meet Juzo's "dark side"...To say any more would really give too much of the well thought out plot away, so that's all you get, but that's really all you need to know going into this one. It's a relatively straight revenge-film with some very notable performances by all involved. It's not overly graphically gory or violent (comparitively speaking...) but there are some scenes that may upset more mainstream viewers - especially towards the end. Speaking of the end of the film - this is my major problem with NEIGHBOR 13 as there really is no resolution, which highly disappointed me. If the ending would have been handled better, this film would have easily gotten a 9 or 9.5 from me. Either way, it's definitely worth a look. Recommended - 8.5/10

I'm happy to have caught this one at the International Rotterdam film festival 2005 a few months ago. I actually enjoyed myself very much. It was a special screening which the director joined and introduced with a nice little speech. He basically said that a lot of film festivals rejected it because of its harsh violence and that Rotterdam is the first to be open to it. In other words; I was in for a big treat.All in all, the movie isn't overtly violent. However, that doesn't take away that it's very good debut of the director, not to mention a good adaptation of a manga. It's a nice slow paced psychological movie that toys with the troubles of a man who has suffered a lot in his younger years and is now living with the after effects. It's a very dark movie with horror and drama elements about a young man being tormented and teased most of his younger school years. Years later, he has taken refuge in his little house where he has bad dreams, fantasies and is alone a lot. Then he gets a new job at a construction site and some new neighbors: turns out that the man of the family moving is his new employer and is fact, the same guy who used to make his life miserable. To make it short, it's payback time, but not a Kill Bill, Sin City type payback with slashing, one-liners and lots of action (which is also good btw), but a more slow-paced and build-up, tensed, psychological and slow payback. This approach proves to be very effective for the themes the movies tries to flow along: teen abuse, trauma, social pressure. The movie turns out to be an interesting study of human behavior and social schizophrenia. btw, The alter ego or second personality of the young guy is one of the scariest mo-fo's ever on screen, mentally but definitely physically, up there with the likes of Freddy Kruger, Hannibal, and whatnot. Horrific? Think of a very very very very scary looking guy you never wanna meet in this life or the next, that has been tormented most of his life and is completely immune to any moral, social of ethical code. It gets pretty horrific from there.After the movie there was a short Q&A session with the director in which we could ask questions. The crowd wasn't too anxious and due to the bad information provided by the organization, half the audience was already gone. Regarding the violence, he thinks that a lot of people rejected the movie not because of the 'goryness' or explicit images of the violence but more because of the type of violence, the effects and motivations of that violence and the effects of it. I couldn't totally see that in the movie: a lot of the violent image are disturbing in a surreal sense, not so much in a shocking sense.It's a shame that the people who control what we can and cannot see in theaters and festivals are passing up this film, and to be honest, I don't really get it. I can give you 25 other movies which are much more violent. But it probably has to do more with the realness of it all. Either way, I hope that after the release in homeland Japan, second of April, the movie will get more attention and hopefully this hidden gem will get a wider release across the globe.