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J-Horror

J-Horror

J-Horror is a term used to refer to Japanese contributions to horror fiction in popular culture. Whereas American modern day horror films tend to rely heavily on special effects and a multitude of sub-genre (i.e. slashers, demons, extraterrestrials, etc.), J-horror tends to focus on psychological horror and tension building (anticipation), particularly involving ghosts and poltergeist. Certain popular J-Horror films are based on manga (e.g. Tomie, Uzumaki and Yogen). Many contain themes of folk religion such as: possession, exorcism, shamanism, precognition, and yokai (apparitions, spirits, or demons).

The origin of the J-Horror can be traced to horror and ghost story classics of the Edo period and the Meiji period, which are known as kaidan. Elements of several of these popular folktales have been worked into the storylines of modern films, especially in the traditional nature of the Japanese ghost.

The success of the 1998 film Ring brought the image of the yurei to Western popular culture for the first time, although the image has existed in Japan for centuries.

Yurei are Japanese ghosts, ones who have been bound to the physical world through strong emotions which do not allow them to pass on. Depending on the emotion that binds them, they manifest as a particular type of ghost. Most common to J-Horror is the onryo, a yurei bound by a desire for vengeance.

Like many creatures of folklore, like vampires or werewolves, yurei have a traditional appearance and follow a certain set of rules.

They are generally female, although male yurei do exist. They wear white clothing, which is the color of funeral garb in Japan. They have long, often unkempt black hair, which comes from Kabuki theater where each character has a particular type of wig that identifies them to the audience.

In the past few years, there has been a trend going on to localize some of the more popular Japanese Horror films, but rather than simply adding subtitles or dubbing the works, they have been entirely remade. Ringu was one of the first to be remade in America as The Ring, and later The Ring 2 (although this remake bears almost no similarity to the original Japanese sequel). Keeping in the recreating of Suzuki Koji's work, Dark Water was also recently remade. The Grudge and Kairo - Pulse, are other examples of this.

Interestingly, many of the original directors who created these masterpieces of Asian horror have gone on to direct the American remakes. For example, Hideo Nakata, director of Ringu, directed the remake The Ring Two and Takashi Shimizu, director of the original Ju-on, directed the remake The Grudge.

Several Asian countries have been remaking these Japanese horror films as well. For example, Korea created their own version of the J-horror classic Ringu, titled The Ring Virus.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "J-Horror".

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