Ghost Train (2006 film)

Ghost Train
Directed by	Takeshi Furusawa
Written by	Takeshi Furusawa Erika Tanaka
Starring	Erika Sawajiri Shun Oguri Aya Sugimoto
Distributed by	Shochiku Funimation Entertainment
Release date(s)	July 27, 2006 September 30, 2006 November 17, 2006 November 23, 2006 July 7, 2007 (original release) April 20, 2009 (Re-release)
Running time	92 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese, English

Ghost Train (オトシモノ, otoshimono^?) is a Japanese horror film released in 2006. It was the first Japanese movie that was released in Korea before Japan.

It was first released on July 27, 2006 in Korea, and then on September 30, 2006 in Japan. The film was subsequently released in Taiwan on November 17, 2006 and Hong Kong on November 23, 2006. In July 2007, ADV Films released an English localization dub of the film on DVD. In 2008, The film, along with over 30 other titles from ADV was transferred over to Funimation Entertainment, who then re-released it in 2009.^[1]

The story takes reference to an event that occurred in Mizunashi during 1971, in which a lady called Yaeko Aonuma was killed in a train accident. The director took 2 years to create the plot of the film and develop it with his editor.

A novel and comic adaptation saw publication in the same year, with the publishing of the works handled by the Kadokawa Shoten.

Plot

Takeshi, a boy taking a train, finds a ticket covered in a red bag. He picks it up and a weird woman in black with pale skin and long black hair tells him he's going to die. His classmate Noriko and her older sister bump into him where he tells them he is going to die. Takeshi puts the ticket in the lost and found, and rides on an empty train and heads towards home. When the train passes by a tunnel, the train is stopped by the conductor who sees a dead body and exits to examine the spot. Meanwhile the woman Takeshi saw before is beside him, who blankly mutters "Give... it... back..." Takeshi walks away from her. As he does, the train door suddenly opens up, and he is pulled by the woman outside of the train, screaming for help. The train starts to move.

The next day Takeshi is reported missing. Noriko shows her sister, Nana, the ticket and says she found the ticket Takeshi was holding. Nana touches the ticket and sees the death of a baby and her mother. A conductor (Different man, not from the first scene) is demoted to lost and found organizer because of him stopping the train. The police mention there were 4 reports this month about a body on the railway. His friend asked him if he saw "The ghost". The next day, on Noriko's day back from school, she sees Takeshi walking on the other side of the train tracks. She follows him and is never seen again.

Nana, now knowing something is up with the tunnel, decides to investigate on it. She remembers the name on the ticket as Aonuma Yaeko. She goes and visits the demoted conductor to check the lost and found history. It turns out that ticket has been returned many times and all those who returned it ended up missing. Nana examines the picture of those who went missing. One side of their faces is decomposing with black marks and their eyes have become black. She walks away.

Kanae, Nana's classmate, is on a train. Her boyfriend finds a bracelet between a seat cushion and passes it to her, saying she should wear it, it's brand new. Kanae wears it but later on her "friends" call her a fool for wearing it because it was randomly found. Kanae tries to phone her boyfriend but he does not pick up. She heads to the station, while trying to remove the bracelet, which proves impossible, she sees her boyfriend. She walks up to him in the deserted train station where he reaches out and strangles her. It turns out the spirit which Takeshi saw (Yaeko) is controlling her boyfriend. Kanae pushes her boyfriend onto the tracks and Yaeko leaves the host. Her boyfriend, having very few seconds to spare, tells her to beware of Yaeko and dies, hit by a train.

Nana receives a message from Noriko which tells her she found Takeshi and is going to follow him. Nana arrives to Takeshi's home to find it in a mess. She investigates the mess until something drops from the ceiling. It is Takeshi, pale black, controlled by Yaeko, and naked. He tries to attack her, but she dodges and runs into a room. Takeshi's mother is seen crying repeating "It's not Takeshi".

Nana is at the police station explaining what happened. She leaves without anyone believing her. Outside the window she sees Kanae with her parents with the police. It appears she is thought to be the murderer of her boyfriend.

The next day, Kanae is walking down the subway until she sees a shadow. Yaeko grabs Kanae by the arm towards the railway tracks until Nana arrives. Yaeko dissipates. They both talk and become friends who agree to tackle the mystery to find Noriko and avenge Kanae's boyfriend. On the way there, Nana gets a phone call from the hospital where it is revealed her mother had a seizure. She goes to visit her mother while Kanae braves the subway on her own. In there, she sees a black shadow right away. She hides behind a pillar. Nana phones her to ask her how she's doing. Just then, Yaeko appears out of the tunnel and drags Kanae's hand with the bracelet onto the railway tracks with a train coming. Just then a hand appears...

Nana, distraught over Kanae's death, visits the lost and found employee. She blames him for not telling her that he knows what is going on. Just then she finds a scrapbook (which he found in his friends locker who said "Did you see the ghost?") and he shares what he learned. Yaeko was a person who died in the tunnel presumed by a train. She also gave birth before she died but the baby is either dead or alive. Her bracelet and ticket are missing after the crime scene so they figure out Yaeko is after her belongings and her baby who the man thinks is dead.

Meanwhile, Kanae wakes up to find herself in a house. There is a person there who reveals she lost her son, Yuuki, to Yaeko too. She reveals that her son was possessed when he came home. When she opened the door, her son (Pale white and Yaeko in the shadows) jumped on her and pushed one of his thumbs into her eye, and one into the right side of her forehead. She reveals those places he touched were disfigured like they were badly burned. Kanae phones Nana to tell her she's okay. Nana says that she was her only friend, and that she will save Noriko even if she dies. Kanae plans on going to the subway to stop her, saying she has no idea what she's dealing with after she heard Yuuki's mother's story. Nana hangs up and goes with the lost and found employee to the subway. Kanae and Yuuki's mother head to the subway to stop them.

Kanae and Yuuki's mother are in a car and are riding in an open field. When they come across train rails which lead from the tunnel, a train comes so they must stop. Suddenly a bunch of hands appear on the backseat window. Yuuki's mother is pulled out of the car and Kanae is trapped in the car. The hands force the car to drive in front of the train, and Kanae says, "Please Save Nana!" just as the train crashes into the car.

Yuuki's mother meets Nana and the lost and found person at the subway. She introduces herself and says that she will go with them. The lost and found person drives a loose train into the tunnel for a quick getaway. They make him wait there. The mother and Nana find Yaeko crawling toward them. She grabs their faces and they experience the past. It turns out Yaeko was a victim too. She found the bracelet over the tunnel. When she wore it, a spirit pulled her into a tunnel just when the train came. She gave birth after her injury. The spirits dragged her to her death as her child stayed there crying. Nana sees that there are three scar marks on the baby's chest. Due to Yaeko's sadness and hatred, she was a stronger spirit than the ones who died there.

Afterwards, Yuuki's mother is distraught over her dead son, which she can't avenge. Nana backs away from Yaeko's spirit and bumps into the wall, which collapses. The wall reveals a cave. She enters the cave to find the cause of this evil, a statue of some ancient burial ground. She finds Noriko sleeping on a mountain of dead bodies. She wakes her up and is about to escape until Yaeko (under control of the statue) attacks them. Yuuki's mother drags the spirit down onto a stalagmite. Yaeko's spirit dies, Nana sees the same scars on Yuuki's mother's chest exactly the same as Yaeko's baby and that Yuuki's mother is in fact Yaeko's child. Yuuki's mother dies whispering that at long last she can be with her child.

Nana and Noriko run out and back into the tunnel, suddenly they can hear screams and the dead bodies starts to revive back as zombies chasing after them.

The sisters escape into the cave. Just then the floor below Nana's feet collapses, which leads into a bottomless pit. Holding onto the edge, Noriko tries to pull her older sister up but the zombie mob is getting closer. A spirit is behind Noriko and tries to grab her but Nana grabs the spirit and lets go of the platform. She falls but the lost and found guy grabs her hand and pulls her up. When he was grabbing her, she saw Kanae's spirit pulling her up also. They escape on the train, running over a couple of zombies on the way. Nana comments that this will not stop, and the man states he can't leave it like this.

The next day, Noriko and Nana visit their mother. On the news, the lost and found guy has caused an explosion in the tunnel to seal it forever and preventing any more deaths by the hands of the unknown evil.

References

1. ^ "Funiamtion Picks Up Over 30 Former ADV Titles". Anime News Network. 2008-07-04. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-07-04/funimation-picks-up-over-30-former-ad-vision-titles. Retrieved 2010-01-11. 

External links

• Ghost Train at the Internet Movie Database