| DemontauruS |
| (stranger) |
| 07/20/06 05:53 AM |
Explain: Imprint
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Recently got a chance to see Masters of Horror's IMPRINT. Thought it was intensely dark and dreamlike - liked it a lot. Does anyone understand the plot enough to explain it to me, because at the end, I became totally lost. Was the whole thing a hallucination in his cell, did he go to hell, did the siamese twin just drive him crazy and he was charged with the crimes of those deaths... Would love to hear a clear explanation...
| DemontauruS |
| (stranger) |
| 07/20/06 07:31 AM |
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Re: Explain: Imprint
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I guess what Im seeing is that at first - he's the "good guy" and the "whole twin" looks questionable, but its obvious that she's playing head games. Then the plot opens into her being "bad" and doing Komono in. Then in the end it seemed that she was doing a good deed - killing her before the trade ruined her - and sending her to Heaven. Thats what I got from it. But in the end - Christopher was his name? He was in a prison cell with his dead younger sister's spirit and Komono's spirit. Thats where it lost me. Otherwise its in the top three horror pieces Ive seen all year.
| Knifey |
| (Flesh Eater) |
| 07/22/06 03:10 PM |
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Re: Explain: Imprint
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Sorry, man. Have not seen this.
| Fenril |
| (Rotting Corpse) |
| 10/11/06 05:34 PM |
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Re: Explain: Imprint
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Here's a review I did of this episode for another board, with my own interpretations:
- Imprint. Takashi Miike's... WOW. I have to start with this: even through this was produced by an american company and it's spoken in english, it is NOT an American work, its 100% (okay, 98%) Asian.
That is, everything in it follows oriental aesthetics: the rythm of the character's dialogues, the combination of beautiful backgrounds and raw human violence (without even the stilization that European Horror often employs), the perpetual coexistence of the supernatural and the "real", the horribly twisting storyline, the ending completely open to interpretation... everything about "Imprint" is Japanese Horror.
The story is deceptively simple at first and appears to be grounded, like many other MoH episodes, in gory violence (through here we have a long torture scene that would have made the Marquis de Sade proud and that is seriously the most disturbing thing I've seen in this series so far), but just as things appear to be drawing towards a logical conclusion, the viewer is assaulted with a series of plot twists until we can no longer tell what really happened.
...By the end, I guess there could be at least three explanations of what happened:
***MAJOR SPOILERS****
1. The woman with blue hair is yet another of those kami (supernatural beings) that often plague japanese horror tales and that can manipulate their victim's perception of reality. She has taken prey of the reporter and has completely destroyed his sense of reality.
2. The reporter did indeed kill his sister back in USA and now he has killed Komomo. He was insane from the get-go.
3. The reporter is dead from the start and is now trapped in Jigoku, the Budhist version of Hell --Large bodies of water are through to be the gateway to the oriental otherworld, and the episode starts with him and other "lost souls" crossing a lake infested with petrified corpses...
***SPOILER END****
...Or maybe none of them are entirely correct.
This, frankly, is what I admire most about Oriental fiction in general, that unlike most of its occidental counterparts, rarely offers clear-cut conclusions, and the viewers must always figure things out for themselves.
In sort, Great episode, I was pleasantly surprised by it.
I hope that helps some.
| EdgarAllen |
| (Living Dead) |
| 06/14/07 02:22 PM |
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Re: Explain: Imprint
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Saw this yesterday and must say I found parts of it pretty sickening....
....SPOILERS....
....Specifically the continual scenes of aborted fetuses being tossed in the river and rolling downstream. I thought Showtime's decision to pull this episode from the MoH line-up was understandable and not a ploy or PR stunt at all.
The ending is definitely ambiguous. I did not feel confused at all until Christopher (Billy Drago) shot the prostitute in the torso and then the brain, at which point prostitute's identity suddenly changes to Komomo's. My first reaction (and the one I think makes the most sense) is that Christopher was somehow hypnotized into believing he had shot lost love Komomo. But the more I think about it, the more confused I get. Regardless, it seems for sure at some point he is brainwashed into believing something that is not real.
I don't know about anyone else, but I couldn't help but think of Basket Case once the sister was revealed. Similar both in story set-up and the make-up effects.
| Uncle_Ash |
| (Living Dead) |
| 06/14/07 05:29 PM |
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Re: Explain: Imprint
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Imprint is my favorite MOH piece so far. Very dark and cozy in a way. The story as it changes is increasingly interesting and Drago is terrific as always.
| Ginose |
| (newbie) |
| 06/26/07 03:46 AM |
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Re: Explain: Imprint
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...I dunno. I can't explain the ending either... didn't make it any less beautiful. This is the best that MoH has given us, thus far. I don't think any other director can top Miike, but I welcome them all to try... funny thing being" Miike's not even really a horror director. He's directed a handful of horror material prior to this and it's like he said himself in his interview on the "Imprint" DVD:
"When they picked me, they were probablly just thinking: Let's get the guy who made Audition."
And it worked. Miike is the god of film.
| korosh1ya |
| (Rotting Corpse) |
| 06/26/07 12:47 PM |
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Re: Explain: Imprint
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I can explain IMPRINT...you get to watch a really shitty actor scream "this place is truly an EVIL PLACE!" and then the flick becomes shear awesomeness.
as for the ending, it lost me too...