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Great Film overall

Good movie but grossly overrated

Absolutely Fantastic

Absolutely Brilliant!

For some reason I anticipated a noir work here or the perversion of it, a Lynchian narrative where dreams are the scene of the crime. It didn't bother me that it's not, but it did bother me that it's a hodge podge of ideas.Most of all it stands out as a Paprika played out as a cop thriller, sometimes a J-horror, even rarely a Tsukamoto film. It's weird but half- or ill-formed, not in the sense that we're watching an elipsis where details are absent of explanation as part of a design, but in the sense that it wasn't really thought out or it was believed the concept of a serial killer visiting his victims in their sleep would carry it. We even get the mandatory scene where the cop heroine fights to stay awake and is terrified to realize she isn't. This is the first letdown, that Tsukamoto doesn't realize he's in a whole other league than Wes Craven.Often with Tsukamoto the ideas he presents are largely frameworks, explorations in a general direction. He doesn't probe deeply but what appeals to me is the fascinating artifice of that exploration, the frame itself. This one has a cheap TV look and an annoying overabundance of whip zooms in and out of convalescent images, again for no apparent reason.The ending, as with the parting shot of Vital, is rather marvellous though. Against a meaningless universe, lives without purpose or direction, Tsukamoto gives us a collage of small intimate moments. The bittersweet nature of this final hold against the existential void, is that what he offers us is memory, the empty shell of something come and gone played out for comfort in the mind.Perhaps this reveals Tsukamoto's limitation as a filmmaker, in this and other films. It's great that he sees that far, into a vision of humanity which is further than most directors doing horror related work are capable of, it's a pity that he doesn't see further.

Probably the most conventional film Shinya Tsukamoto has directed. Really, it would only take a couple of tiny clichés for that to happen, since every other film he has made is so utterly unconventional. Nightmare Detective is sort of a police procedural. Detectives are investigating two apparent suicides that seem to have killed themselves while dreaming. It turns out both of these people had called the same number shortly before they died, and the detectives believe that the owner of this number, known as 0 (zero), may have had something to do with the deaths. The detectives, through some huge logical jumps, also seek out a man known as the nightmare detective (Ryuhei Matsuda of Taboo), who has the power to enter dreams. The killer (Shinya Tsukamoto) also has this power. The major cliché that bothers me most is that of the hot, young female detective, played by a relative newcomer known only as Hitomi, who has to prove herself to her male co-workers. It's very boring, and, as cute as she is, Hitomi isn't a very good actress, at least not here. My educated guess is that Ms. Hitomi started her career as a model, and was later drafted into acting. There's also the whole cell phone angle, which has already been done by Miike in One Last Call. I admit I have skipped out on that one even though Miike is one of my favorite directors. It's just corny. It also doesn't help that both the hot detective and the cell phone-inspired deaths instantly bring to mind the recent comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which used both of these themes to provide major laughs. And I'm sure no one who made that movie had ever seen Nightmare Detective. Still, even having written a mediocre script, Tsukamoto could never lose his talent for direction. And the direction is very Tsukamoto. When Tsukamoto attacks in the nightmares, he appears as a deformed monster that is only half-seen. The visuals are eerily beautiful and I really liked the music, too. All in all, it's a pretty good horror flick. It's the first part of a trilogy, the second of which should be released in Japan later this year. Hitomi is not a part of it, so I'll keep my hopes up.

The premise caught me and I was on my way to watch it on DVD. It is haunting creepy and very violent. This violent thriller/fantasy had me stayed up for a night. The director had the story that looks like real. That scared me, pondering on the main theme of this, "suicide". After the thrilling violent suicides, you will find that violence is the least point you take note, it is the brutal violence, the idea on suicide when you just think about it. So it pretty got me like straight to the brain.The story shows the first bloody suicide and Keiko (Hitomi), a cop transferred is discovering the first suicide. She realises that it is no ordinary suicide but the other police thinks the other way. Then it shows the second suicide, the non-stop stabbing on the neck, the dead man's wife told them that it is like that he was in a nightmare which is true. They found that "O" is the one who killed them. They want the mysterious guy who can go to people's dreams, played by Ryuhei Matsuda, but he says that he don't want to go to people's dreams anymore. Until when one of cop calls "O" and awaits for death. He can't be saved. Keiko calls "O" and wants to arrest him because she wants to save more victims falling into his hands. From there, the thrilling "race" of not sleeping starts. It may be confusing but I am able to understand it. Be warned of very shaky scenes where you can't even see what is happening.Overall : It will seduce you to its dark mystery and from there, you will find it hard to take your eyes from the screen. The director did it with a sense of humour and dark mystery. It is very bloody but soon it is not the point.The Singaporean DVD consists of TV spots, trailers and some boring stuff. There is not even a making of. The DVD is rated M-18.

Visually this movie is really good. I was able to watch it at a theatre in Stuttgart as part of the "Fantasy Filmfest Nights" that take place every year in the spring (for a few years now) for quite some time now.While this movie tries to mix paranormal and normal things together it does not achieve this goal entirely. This movie does have a few good scares (and it is bloody violent too, so be prepared for that), but you're never really emotionally attached to the main characters. The problem here lies within the characterization. You do see people get hurt here, but it's not like you get to know them to really care. Even if they are "only" in danger (you have to see the movie to see if there any false scares here, although if you have watched some horror movies, you will be able to foresee a few things), you're not really worried about them. You just wait for a shock to happen ...When all is said and done (the end of the movie), you might be left with the feeling that there could've been more ... been done with the material (idea)!