Eastern Premise #57 — Ekusute (Exte)
In this instalment of Eastern Premise Jason Julier takes a look at Sion Sono’s Ekusute.
This week we’re ignoring the classics and injecting a little bit of fun and mischief into Eastern Premise in the form of Ekusute, otherwise known as Exte. This J-horror is staple fare and relies on three elements to separate it from the massed ranks of bland Asian horror DVD titles.
This formidable trio don’t elevate Exte to greatness, but at least their presence ensures a fun and imaginative 109 minutes that doesn’t outstay its welcome. Being written and directed by Sion Sono, who has since gone onto international acclaim, guarantees that Exte won’t be run of the mill. Thankfully this is the case with that second vital ingredient; hair extensions. Yes, this is a film about supernatural, cursed and gloriously fashionable hair extensions. Rounding off the key ingredients is the presence of Chiaki Kuriyama playing the lead role of trainee hairdresser Yuko, who is best known outside of Japan for her schoolgirl-come-assassin in Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Volume 1 and Battle Royale.
As I stated previously, Sion Sono’s work is a rollercoaster of quality ranging from the heights of Love Exposure and Suicide Club to the less admired Guilty of Romance. In his body of work, Exte is towards the bottom of the pile, yet without his involvement the end product would have been terrible beyond words. Sono plays down the supernatural aspect, underpinning events with a sisterhood dynamic that maintains your interest. A surprise is that the most barbaric and unsettling injuries are not those inflicted by the unstoppable extensions, but rather those on Mami but her abusive mother, Kiyomi.
Kiyomi is Yuko’s older sister and very much from what we soon see, the black sheep of the family. She cares little for her daughter, often locking her away whilst she goes out for a good time. Kiyomi is the true villain of the film and is portrayed as much by Sono, when trying to manipulate Mami to let her into her sister’s apartment. Mami knows too well the evil nature of her mother and she might as well be letting an evil spirit into her haven, after tormenting the younger with relentless banging and anger. This child is not only physically scared but we soon realise is mentally afflicted as well.
Amidst all of this are those cursed hair extensions. Human hair is literally everywhere in Exte from the opening scene in a harbour container facility, where customs make a startling discover in a shipping crate. Amidst a rancid smelling cargo of hair, a body is found and dispatched to the local morgue. The local police are represented by a blundering duo, who do little to portray law enforcement as an effective tool in Japan. Unable to identify the corpse, they soon lose the body in the morgue before; finally, identifying the culprit long after a struggling Cluedo player would have given the correct accusation.
Yamazaki, played by the frankly absurd Ren Osugi, is a morgue worker who has a fetish for human hair and makes a profitable side-line by selling extensions to local beauticians and hairdressers. His customers seem to be consistently impressed by his samples and ask no questions where this Japanese equivalent of Burke or Hare, harvests his product from. He notices the shipyard corpse offers a consistent supply of top grade black hair and cultivates this bounty whilst playing out his own fantasies in his seaside hideout. More fool than a killer, Yamazaki does not blend into the environment and seems under the spell of the corpse itself.
The most challenging scenes are those of that hint at what happened to the young woman who would eventually unleash her own revenge via her hair. A victim of body organ harvesting, her own fate is tragic and gruesome. This goes some way to explain the anger of the individual and the need for revenge that fuels many J-Horror storylines. Long haired, deathly pale females are ten a penny in this genre, representing the staple vessel for destruction. Sono does not offer many answers to the origins of this tormented woman, she is deliberately an enigma in search of peace after her struggle to merely survive.
Exte is a prime example of the frustration of Sion Sono’s work, where he tries to fuse different genres together in one convenient package. This worked somewhat with Love Exposure, in Exte there is an unbalanced marriage of drama and supernatural horror at work. Many will purchase Exte in search of cheap scares and a thrilling experience, instead it is the family drama that forms the main body of the film and leaves the lasting impression. The cast for such a genre piece is excellent and really lifts the film with Miku Sato taking the plaudits for her portrayal of the abused daughter.
The DVD release of Ekte is very much of the bare bones variety. A very poorly defined transfer, presented at the wrong ratio, it suggests little effort has been spent on this release, which lacks any extras. Only the bargain bin pricing of this release justifies any recommendation, as for just a couple of quid you are guaranteed a unique experience.
