Bloody Filthy Heathen

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni is a rather strange series based on a video game series, later adapted into not only this anime but a series of light novels and manga. What makes it an unconventional series is how it's structured. The first two-thirds of the series is presented in four chapters, considered "Question Arcs", each of which basically tells the same general story over and over again, but with variations in events and character importance, all the while very gradually revealing a bit more of the overall story. This technique at times, particularly the early episodes of each chapter, leads to a strong sense of repetition. The final third of the series consists of two chapters, considered "Answer Arcs", which brings about resolution to many of the questions presented in the earlier episodes. Overall the series is a very odd blend of genres, from cutesy harem to sci-fi metaphysical to plain old horror. I didn't personally find it all that suspenseful as others have, but I did think that it was well drawn, written and performed, and just unique and interesting enough to overshadow some of its flaws. It should be noted that this is a 26 episode series, so expect at least two more discs, Vol. 5 and Vol. 6, to be released later in '08 and early in '09, respectively.

My thoughts about this film are conflicted. On the one hand, I really appreciate what Hsiao-hsien Hou tried to put together here. On the other hand, I don't think he did it all that particularly well. That's probably too strong, since I do think the first and third stories were well conceived and executed. The second, however, was a disaster. I say that only because it irritated me to no end that he would go to the trouble of making it a silent film, since the story itself takes place in 1911, presumably, and yet he still shot it in color and with all the other advantages of modern day filmmaking technology. It didn't work, and felt extremely gimmicky. Comically gimmicky. As I said though, the other two stories were both rather beautiful in their simplicity and emotion. All three stories, in fact, were completely emotion driven, lacking considerably in dialog and relying very heavily on music to relay the message. So while I enjoyed the minimalism of it all and found the performances to be top-notch, particularly Shu Qi's, who is smoking gorgeous by the way, that middle story nearly ruined the whole production for me. I suspect most people will not enjoy it either.