JAWS IN JAPAN (PSYCHO SHARK) While America has produced 100's of killer shark B-movies Asia surprisingly hasn't. Shark attacks are actually very rare in Japan and this is the only J-shark movie I've been able to find.
Have you ever wanted to watch a film that captures that feeling of boredom of sitting, sleeping in a hotel room with nothing to do? Then this movie is for you! Unfortunately for most who seek out this movie they weren't searching for an Asian or Euro Art film. NO they came for a shark film. And if it weren't for the title you'd be forgiven to think you were watching an incompetent J-horror found footage film, a student film attempt a psychological thriller OR more likely you'd think you were just watching someones raw video footage of their Okinawa beach vacation.
The protagonists are two young women on vacation in Okinawa. They aren't your scrawny Japanese types but full bodied, vivacious women. They're hard to distinguish from each other as they both have similar facial features, body types and long hair. Even tho there's lots of scenes of them bantering with each other we learn nothing about them and we're given no distinct personality traits to tell them apart. Tho we do get lots of cleavage shots.
All the scenes last way too long - with no story points or plot and many scenes are repeated adding more padding to the movie. Most of the movie is video 'found footage' but the movie also switches to locked off omnipresent-view shots. 30 minutes in nothing much happens, it's honestly like watching someones unedited vacation footage. There is a serial killer Psycho POV type shower scene (is it a land shark? the spirit of the shark?). About 36 min we finally see a bad CG shark fin indicating that indeed this is supposed to be a shark movie (filmmakers using VFX pay attention to EYELINE! Where is your actor looking at)
One of the main characters then spends much of her time watching a video tape she finds in the room and in RINGU like scenes watches another group of young Japanese beach vacationers who also become main characters - tho none of the characters are given any personality traits.
The women are seduced by a young local guy named Kenji and we are hinted this has something to do with a shark. Watch out for those charming local beach boys! There's some evil afoot but did the filmmakers really want to make a shark movie?
At 1 hour 10 min JAWS IN JAPAN could prob be re-cut into an artsy 5 min psychological thriller short.