Higanjima: Escape from Vampire Island is a 2009 Japanese live-action film adaptation of a manga series by Kōji Matsumoto. It was directed by Kim Tae-Gyun and stars Hideo Ishiguro, Dai Watanabe and Miori Takimoto.
Plot:
Two years after losing contact, Akira discovers that his long-lost brother has been seen on a remote island that does not even exist on the map! He decides to investigate the story with several friends and they find their way to Higanjima, a dark and mysterious place, but what has happened to the island’s inhabitants?
They learn too late that they have been lured into a trap and are quickly surrounded by blood-thirsty vampires. Now the friends must fight for their survival and find a way to escape from Higanjima – the island of vampires…
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Reviews:
” … it feels a bit like ‘The Monster Squad Goes to Japanese Vampire Island’. It’s very broad, way too talky, and sometimes too damn goofy for its own good, but genre fans (particularly those who are familiar with the source material) will certainly be able to get behind the “good parts.” FEARnet
” …it isn’t a complete failure or a complete success. It has a good deal of creativity and energy that keeps the audience engaged, but it can’t seem to get out of its own way. The melodrama is necessary to the story but doesn’t ring true due to the milquetoast main characters. I would say tread carefully when thinking about watching this flick, but there’s enough to enjoy that it can be a serviceable distraction.” The Gentlemen’s Blog to Midnite Cinema
“It’s fun. It’s dumb, stupid, nonsensical balderdash, but it is fun with it. It has some appealing action sequences, and while the premise may be ridiculous, the plot daft as a brush, it also has some appealing characters, and the production values and character performances do elevate it above simple B-movie fare.” Gonin Movie Blog
” …fairly well-made and has a reasonable amount of entertaining action and carnage, but it lags in spots and just doesn’t come together nearly as well as it should have. With these ingredients, it could’ve been as much pure, exhilarating fun as Big Trouble in Little China or as scary as any number of Asian horror flicks, but as it is, it’s a fruitcake.” HK and Cult Film News
“It’s not ground-breakingly good, but considering that this isn’t a Hollywood blockbuster, visually, this film really does impress. Blood, monsters, explosions all in good measure. The end result, a vampire movie that is interesting and entertaining.” Love Horror
“Good but not great. Fans of the manga will have to tell you how faithful to the original material the film is. The rest of us will tell you that it fulfills its purpose of entertaining popcorn horror fun flick and plays by the rules.” Screen Anarchy
“As a campy, vampy romp, this may well work for the sheer humour of how bad it is, but as pure horror, Higanjima is a definite miss.” Theater Byte
Cast and characters:
Asami Mizukawa … Rei
Miori Takimoto … Yuki
Motoki Fukami … Raiki
Dai Watanabe … Atsushi
Kôji Yamamoto … Miyabi
Hideo Ishiguro … Akira
Tomohisa Yuge … Ken-chan
Ayako Omura … Ryoko
Osamu Adachi … Nishiyama
Sujin Kim … Okazaki
Fumito Moriwaki … Pon
Keita Uehara
Kazuko Sakagami … Genki
Tongha Pak … Ohsawa
Keitaro Azumi … Resistance
Technical details:
122 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 2.35: 1
Audio: Dolby Digital
Original title:
Higanjima aka 彼岸島 “Waves and Coast Island”
Trailer:
