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If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Admirable film.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Originally conceived of as a trio of short films for television before being compiled together for its eventual DVD release, "Tomie: Another Face" is an odd chapter in the saga of that lovable and seemingly unkillable demon girl. Released in between the first two installments of the cinematic franchise, it's debatable whether or not "Another Face" even exists within the same continuity and canon as its bigger- budget brethren. With a distinct lack of funding, cheap video cinematography and some truly baffling moments peppered in... it's sort-of the black sheep of creator Junji Ito's "Tomie" media franchise. An awkward foot-note that might be worth checking out for the biggest of fans of the series, but ultimately will be far too odd and unappealing for pretty much anyone else."Another Face" is comprised of three short stories, dealing with the vile Tomie as she destroys the lives of the men around her in different times and settings. The first story involves a high school romance gone drastically sour, the second revolves around a photographer who finds new passion with Tomie as his muse and the third tale regards Tomie sending her boyfriend to kill a mysterious man who is seemingly stalking her. This very same man acts as the bridge between the three stories with brief appearances in all three, and he holds the key to the backstory of the nefarious and devilish force that goes by the name "Tomie Kawakami."I suppose I should make it clear that while not really a fan of the series, I do have a certain begrudging respect for it. It's a franchise with a fiercely loyal and sizable fan-base the world over. And as a fan of horror, it's one series I've made an attempt to track down and view with an open mind, having thus far sat through most of the entries save for the final few. After all... there's gotta be something to it with nine films released so far over the past twenty years. And yet, even after seeing most of them, I don't quite get the appeal. Sure, some entries are better than others... I actually quite liked "Tomie: Replay", after all. But I just don't think the series has objectively risen above the level of mediocrity. And "Another Face" is definitely one of the weakest installments yet.To be fair, there is a certain kitschy appeal to the structure of the final release. By giving the viewer three stories that are connected by a few recurring characters, it breaks up the monotony that plagued some of the lesser films of the series, and it keeps the pacing brisk and flowing. The performances are nothing special, but the actors typically get the job done, and there's a few cool moments here and there that will put a big-ole smile on the face of series fans.But it's to the service of such cheap filmmaking and lazy storytelling, I just couldn't get into this one at all. Maybe it's unfair, but "Another Face" really suffers for its low budget and it creates a certain aesthetic distance between the story and the viewer. And that's coming from someone who has seen and indeed enjoyed his fair share of cheap "shot on video" releases. Heck, I adored "1-Ichi" and that looked like it was filmed on a $200 handy-cam! Here, it feels like director Toshirō Inomata just threw up his hands and opted not to even try to make the most of his limited resources. The cinematography and editing is incredibly amateurish, looking more akin to a first-year film student's work than an adaptation of a major property. And the overall structure and pacing is messy and lacks coherent flow.To top it off, the film also makes some baffling and frankly unintentionally amusing choices in how it presents key scenes, completely betraying any potential impact they might have had. It has all the subtlety of a brick to the face and trades in quiet moments for loud jumps and poorly-framed beats of action too often. I'm not ashamed to admit I had at least two laugh-out-loud moments in each of the three stories. And none of those times were the laughs intentional. There's no way you can see a man in a comical film-noir trench-coat with an eyepatch and a ridiculously giant knife standing all of three feet away from someone he's "spying" on and not break out laughing. It's like they somehow created a self-parody by accident."Tomie: Another Face" is most certainly the weakest of the early entries in the series. A mish-mash of three half-baked short stories that lack any bite and cause more unintentional giggles than intentional gasps... all while being assembled half-heartedly in a dirt-cheap production to boot! It barely musters up a dreadful 3 out of 10 for me. It's one that even fans of the series could probably skip...

Runa Nagai plays Tomie, the girl who will not die, in this three story anthology that ramps up the creepy factor of the original but does not have significant horror film juice to it. In the first, Tomie is killed and comes back when her boyfriend, whom she wanted to break up with anyway, wants to move on. The second is about a photographer who comes back to a place ten years later to find the ideal girl to photograph like the one he took pictures of then (guess who?). The third has other men after her who will do anything she says. If you are a fan, you'll like it, as Tomie came from a manga. Otherwise, its only passable. Runa Nagai is fine, she is a combination of pretty and forbidding, but it could have been better.

This movie is more in sync with the Tomie horror vein. I especially liked the 2nd story (those prints are way cool!). How mysterious is the bartender? What's his deal since he doesn't say much and yet conveys a lot! The 3rd story closes the film nicely. I must admit that although this was shot on video, the cinematography is well done for the medium. The use of colors are vivid and shades of red and green at night are very effective. Runa Nagai does well as Tomie looking extremely photogenic one moment and then totally manic the next. Can you blame the poor sap in the last story?Tomie: Another Face is not exactly scary, but worth a watch.

TOMIE: ANOTHER FACE (1999) 7/10 72 minutes Director - Toshiro Inomata Cast – Runa Nagai, Akira HiraiTomie: Another Face is the V-cinema version of the long running Tomie series based on Junji Ito's magna. This would be the director Inomata's only work behind the camera. This low budget J-horror attempt beats the previous and later forays into the character. This is similar to the Ju-On series where the J-cinema adds to the overall creepiness. It is an anthology that has three stories linked together by a man who is hunting down Tomie after having a ghostly encounter in a morgue (the third story). J-horror was still in its infancy when this came out and they were still experimenting with the imagery. Nagai captures the Lolita aspect the character very well and the movie can be seen as a warning with getting involved with young girls. In the second segment where the photographer meets up with Tomie, kills her and then comes back to life, in the scene in the car where her hand reaches from the back seat is very effective. Takashi Shimizu would use this again in Ju-On the Grudge 2 (2003) and the concept of multiplying Tomies (substituting Kayakos) in Ju-On the Curse 2 (2000). Incidentally Shimizu would take over the reins in the next installment Tomie Rebirth (the best of the cinema versions).