KAOSU MEANS CHAOS: THE JAPANESE SENSE OF FEAR AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR CONTEMPORARY HORROR CINEMA

The article focuses on contemporary Japanese horror cinema seen as a case in point representing the influence of (South) East Asian horror on contemporary horror genre. While it might be argued that the success of Japanese horror films on European and American markets can be at least partially attributed to Western viewers’ ignorance of Japanese customs and traditions, which forces the films to remain trapped within the realm of the cultural Other and as such renders them more mysterious and uncanny, this factor of course does not apply to the Japanese audience. And yet we have reasons to presume that they also find the films in question unnerving. So what scares the Japanese then? And to what extent can the fear induced by Japanese horror films be seen as culturally-bound? Drawing on the analysis of a number of contemporary Japanese horror productions this article suggests that behind practically all the Japanese horror plots lies culturally-fostered fear of Chaos, and indeed, many of the significant Japanese horror figures/images can be brought down to representations of Chaos.

Published in Fire and Ice: The Dialectics of Chaos and Order. Eds. M. Nitka and P. Dziedzic. Katowice: Slask, 2007.

RINGU AND THE VORTEX OF HORROR: CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE HORROR AND THE TECHNOLOGY OF CHAOS

Though much younger than Frankenstein’s creature and Dracula, Sadako Yamamura (created by Koji Suzuki in his Ringu novel and popularised by the films of Hideo Nakata under the same title) has already secured her position in the horror monster pantheon as an instantly recognisable icon of terror. Despite the diversity of the Asian underworld, Sadako has become its sole representative to the Western audiences, easily overshadowing her one and only contender from the past – Godzilla. To the unaccustomed eyes every long-haired Oriental spirit seems to be created in her image, every supernatural vengeance story seems derivative and unoriginal in comparison. The illusion of Sadako’s uniqueness prevails, although her origins place her in a long line of succession. Still, her singularity cannot be argued once we see her as a case in point illustrating the direction contemporary Japanese horror has taken in the last decades. The aim of this article is to discuss the image of Sadako Yamamura, as presented in the four most significant Japanese Ringu movies.  The figure of Sadako – a technologically re-defined chaotic vengeful spirit – has been chosen to serve as an example allowing us to posit the understanding of contemporary Japanese horror as a culturally-fostered response to the fear of chaos in the techno-centric orderly system. The representations of chaos, whether affecting spatial and temporal reality, psyche, or social structures can be seen in virtually every contemporary Japanese horror film, while technology re-emerges as a channel for the supernatural and a site of supernatural materialisation. Sadako Yamamura, Chaos personified, may serve as a perfect example of the above.

Published in Asian Journal of Literature, Culture and Society vol. 1.1. Bangkok: Assumption University Press, 2007.

I THINK I’M TURNING JAPANESE, OR, ASIA DOES HORROR

The article examines the phenomenon of Asian horror and its effect on contemporary Western horror film industry marked by such factors as continuous presence of Asian horror films in mainstream Western cinema chains since the opening of Hideo Nakata’s Ringu in 1999, numerous instant remakes of the most successful Oriental productions by big American studios, the employment of Eastern film directors to re-shape horror and related genres in the West, or simply the growing number of Asian motifs and influences in new horror films. Referring to the Freudian concept of the uncanny the article introduces the notion of alternative Asian reality and suggests the re-evaluation of the term “cultural difference” frequently used as an excuse to avoid any attempts at interpreting foreign texts. Finally, the article undertakes to analyse a number of mechanisms and techniques employed in Asian horror films responsible for their success with the audience.

Published in Literature and Linguistics vol 3. Eds. P. Kakietekr and W. Kalaga. Czestochowa: WSL, 2005.