Exte
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[edit] Profile
- Movie: Exte : Hair Extensions
- Romaji: Ekusute
- Japanese: エクステ
- Director: Sion Sono
- Writer: Sion Sono, Masaki Adachi
- Producer: Makoto Okada, Tsugio Hattori
- Cinematographer: Hiroo Yanagida
- Release Date: February 17, 2007
- Runtime: 108 min
- Distributor: Toei
- Language: Japanese
- Country: Japan
[edit] Plot
A beautiful young girl is found brutally murdered within a container full of hair. A man with an insatiable hair fetish steals the corpse, which grows hair endlessly, and fashions hair extensions to sell to salons. Little does he realize that the extensions carry the fury of the girl's vengeance, killing anyone who wears them. Director Shion Sono (who also directed Into a Dream) ingeniously mixes comedy with fright in this hilarious and hair raising J-horror.
[edit] Notes
Exte is transgressive art/horror genius Sion Sono’s entry into big-budget, star-fronted Japanese studio filmmaking, and neither his signature nor his spirit have been washed away by the influx of yen (though his penchant for inspired depictions of extreme “outsider sexuality” have been relegated mostly to subtext here). Grand Guignol surrealism burrows through the façade of normalcy, S&M undertones abound in circumstances and dialogue, absurdist comedy sprouts from the most unexpected places and stunning setpieces of body-horror are often a saliva-swallow away. Sono takes the Japanese supernatural horror genre’s now-well-past-done flowing hair iconography to levels so uncharted they tear straight off the chart. He not only turns hair itself into his narrative’s central threat, he anchors it back to his filmography’s continuing exploration of the natures of abuse and accountability, the hyper-destructive strands functioning in part as a metaphor for internal horrors impacting external realities, unstoppably brutalizing their “owners” in ways that must be seen to be believed. It’s outrageous, it’s gruesome as hell, it’s darkly comical and it works fantastically. Beloved character actor Ren Osugi (Audition, Zebraman, Cure and, interestingly, Uzumaki, among many others) a Kitano/Kurosawa/Miike regular, co-stars as a morgue attendant with some very peculiar fetishes and delivers the downright freakiest performance of his 145-film career.
[edit] Cast
- Chiaki Kuriyama - Yuko Mizushima
- Ren Osugi - Gunji Yamazaki
- Megumi Sato - Yuki Morita
- Tsugumi - Kiyomi Mizushima
- Eri Machimoto - Sachi Koda
- Miku Sato - Mami Mizushima
- Mirai Yamamoto - Salon Owner
- Yuna Natsuo
- Ken Mitsuishi - Detective
- Hiroshi Yamamoto - Detective
- Tetsushi Tanaka
- Yoshikazu Ebisu
[edit] Image Gallery
 Exte |
