Dark Water (2002 film)

Dark Water
Directed by	Hideo Nakata
Produced by	Taka Ichise
Written by	Hideo Nakata Takashige Ichise Yoshihiro Nakamura
Starring	Hitomi Kuroki Rio Kanno Mirei Oguchi Fumiyo Kohinata
Music by	Kenji Kawai Shikao Suga
Distributed by	Toho Company Ltd.
Release date(s)	January 19, 2002 (2002-01-19)
Running time	101 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Budget	~$4.0 million

Dark Water is a 2002 Japanese drama-horror film directed by Hideo Nakata, the director of Ring and Ring 2. Dark Water is based on Floating Water, a short story by Koji Suzuki. Its Japanese name is Honogurai mizu no soko kara (仄暗い水の底から), which is also the name of the horror anthology by Koji Suzuki. There is also a manga adaptation that holds little similarity to the film, although the apartment building is identical.

Plot

Yoshimi Matsubara (Hitomi Kuroki), in the midst of a divorce, moves to a run-down apartment with her daughter, Ikuko (Rio Kanno). She enrolls her daughter in a nearby kindergarten and in order to win custody of her daughter, starts working as a proofreader, a job she held years ago before she was married. The ceiling of the apartment has a leak, which worsens on a daily basis. Matsubara complains to the janitor of the apartment, an old man, but the janitor does nothing to fix the leak. She then tries to go to the floor just above her apartment to find out the root of the leak, and discovers that the apartment is locked.

Strange events then happen repeatedly: a red bag with a bunny on the front reappears no matter how often Yoshimi tries to dispose of it. Hair is found in tap water. Yoshimi gets glimpses of a mysterious long-haired girl who is of similar age to her daughter. Yoshimi discovers that the upstairs apartment, the source of the leak, was formerly the home of a girl named Mitsuko Kawai (Mirei Oguchi), who was of similar age to her daughter. She had attended the same kindergarten Ikuko now attends. Mitsuko was abandoned by her mother and vanished more than a year ago.

Yoshimi finds her missing daughter one day in the apartment upstairs, which has walls pouring with water with the entire apartment flooded ankle-deep. Convinced something eerie is happening, she decides to move, but her lawyer convinces her that her eyes may be playing tricks on her and that moving now would weaken her position greatly in her divorce.

One evening, after yet another strange occurrence involving the red bag, Yoshimi is drawn to the roof of the building, and while examining the huge water tank she notices that it was last inspected – and thus opened – over a year ago, on the day Mitsuko was last reported seen. She comes to the horrific realization via a vision that Mitsuko had fallen into the tank while trying to retrieve her red bag, and was thus drowned.

Meanwhile, Ikuko, left alone in the apartment, attempts to turn off the bath tap, which has started to spurt filthy water. Mitsuko's spirit emerges from the flooded bathtub and attempts to drown her.

Yoshimi finds Ikuko unconscious on the bathroom floor. Intending to escape, she rushes into the elevator, fleeing apparently from the apparition of Mitsuko. But as the elevator door closes she sees that the figure pursuing her is in fact her own daughter – with short hair – and realizes she is carrying Mitsuko, who, gripping her neck, claims Yoshimi as mother in a torrent of water. Yoshimi realizes that Mitsuko won't let her go and with Ikuko looking on in tears, Yoshimi sacrifices herself by staying on in the elevator to appease Mitsuko's spirit and pretending to be Mitsuko's mother. The elevator ascends and Ikuko follows, but when the doors open, a flood of murky brown water rushes out and nobody emerges.

The end of the film shows Ikuko, now sixteen (Asami Mizukawa), re-visiting the abandoned block. She notices that her old apartment looks oddly clean and seems occupied. She then sees her mother, and they have a conversation. Her mother affirms that as long as Ikuko is all right, she is happy. Ikuko then pleads to stay with her mother, whom she thinks is alive, and though Yoshimi smiles, she tells Ikuko that that would be impossible. Sensing someone behind her, Ikuko warily turns, but sees no one (the audience though sees Mitsuko for a split second). When she turns back, Yoshimi has also disappeared. As she leaves, Ikuko realizes that her mother's spirit has been watching over her.

Remake

A U.S. remake of the film, directed by Walter Salles and starring Jennifer Connelly, was released on July 8, 2005.

Reception

The movie received positive reviews upon its release. This film currently holds a 77% "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

External links

• "仄暗い水の底から (Honogurai mizu no soko kara)" (in Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. http://www.jmdb.ne.jp/2002/dz000140.htm. Retrieved 2007-07-21. 
• Dark Water at the Internet Movie Database
• Dark Water at AllRovi