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SET VISIT: THE GRUDGE, pt. 2

3.8.04

By Smilin’ Jack Ruby

And we’re back with Part 2 of our coverage from the set of The Grudge in Tokyo, Japan (read part one HERE) currently shooting on the storied Toho Studios lot.

Picking up where we were yesterday, the assembled online press corps and I were camped out behind the monitors outside the large built-up set for "Maria’s Apartment" watching as Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Karen character tried to get information out of Rosa Blasi’s Maria character about the mysterious death of Maria’s husband, Peter (Bill Pullman) from three years before. The scene culminates in Maria retrieving a box of photographs from her closet which she presents Karen to go through. After a few photos, Karen launches herself to her feet, races across the room and investigates a snap already out on a shelf of Maria, Peter and another couple hanging out at the Shrine to the Emperor Meiji in the heart of Tokyo (think: a smaller version of Central Park with a temple in the center).

That’s the whole scene, pretty much. But, as it is full of drama and Shimizu-san wanted to nail it just right, the actresses were put through a number of different takes, which was incongruous with what we’d heard about the shoot thus far - most set-up’s were done in two takes and then they’d move on, Clint Eastwood-style (hell, apparently some of Mystic River comes just out of shooting rehearsals, in fact). As Blasi told us yesterday, when the actresses wanted another take, they’d have to grab Shimizu-san and tell him real quick or the entire (incredibly efficient) crew would already be on to the next set-up.

So, we watched these complicated scenes being shot. The lighting was locked down, but Shimizu-san changed the camera angles around as the scene progressed alternating a dolly-mounted camera at a mid-level angle to a shoulder-high one to a lower-angled hand-held that seems to creep around Gellar as she looks through the photos. One thing you notice about Shimizu-san’s filmmaking is that there are a lot of "lamps" in the shots. As a director who comes from low-budget filmmaking, I wonder if this is due to Shimizu-san’s vestigial reliance on "found" lighting.

Regardless, we watched the shoot as it went through numerous, incredibly specific takes. A little jet-lagged (so excited was I about seeing Tokyo, I’d slept maybe four hours the night before), I started throwing back the Pepsi’s. Between takes, we chatted some more with the producers and English-speaking crew, but then - as Shimizu-san finally called out the last "Okay!" of the night - we were wrangled to head over to Stage 7 to interview the creator of Ju-On.

Let me tell you something about Takashi Shimizu. The guy is always smiling - but not a wide, hey-how-you-doing? smile. No, this is a heh-heh-I’m-making-a-really-scary-horror-movie-and-I-know-it-and-a-few-months-down-the-road-there-will-be-millions-scared-shitless-because-of-it kind of constant grin. That said, he’s a funny guy and according to everyone, has a prankster’s nature towards everyone in the cast and crew. Reminiscent of Guillermo Del Toro or Peter Jackson in that you can see that this "ain’t a job" and there really is nothing else this guy would like to be doing than shooting a hardcore horror film, Shimizu-san was more than happy to chat with the press about his movie - despite having just spent many, many hours behind a camera lens.

Q: Since the Ju-On story has gone through so many incarnations, what story is left to tell?

Shimizu: After the original Ju-On, there are more things that I really want to do, but this Grudge is supposed to be a remake of the original Ju-On. That was the request, so I have to follow the very first one. So, when I was first requested to do this, I actually didn’t want to do it because I’ve already made the original. I felt there was no meaning to do a remake, but these producers - including Sam Raimi - they really wanted me to do it again, because the taste I have has never been done in America as a horror movie and they really wanted to introduce my taste to America. I thought that was nice and I decided to do it.

Q: Can you talk about why you cast Sarah Michelle Gellar?

Shimizu: For the original Ju-On in Japan, we had an actress called Megumi Okina and she was in the same position as Sarah which is they started off as a teenage idols. Sarah was the main actress on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, which means that she has been acting a lot and she’s used to acting and she has the basics, but she still is a teenage idol. When I was told that she wanted to try being in a horror movie, I thought that was very exciting. I thought it was great that she wants to try and I thought it would be nice for me to try with her. It just made me so happy that she wanted to be in a horror movie.

Q: What kind of challenges do you face as a director when remaking your own film?

Shimizu: Yes, it is a very big challenge for me because when I was first offered to do a remake, I was very confused if I wanted to do this or not because it has only been a year and a little bit since I made the first one, so I was going to refuse the offer, but then I thought about this again. This is going to be a movie for Americans, which means it’s going to be seen by a people from a completely different culture. So, I thought that was kind of interesting. Also, since I’m doing this over, there were things I never could have done in the first one and maybe I can do those things in the remake. Also, I can review the first one and go over the things I couldn’t do and maybe I can experiment a little bit. I that way, those experimental things are a big challenge for me. I don’t think there was anyone who has done their own remakes in this short time. I think I’m the very first one, so that’s exciting also. With Ju-On and the perspective I have for this movie can’t be done by other people, I don’t think, and that’s what the U.S. producer wanted. The taste of Ju-On can only be brought by me and I think that taste would be lost if it was directed by another director, so I’m really happy to be doing this and yes, it’s a big challenge.

Q: What kind of ’experimental things?’

Shimizu: Actually, I cannot tell you much about this picture when it has something to do with the story itself, but technical-wise, the original Ju-On was filmed at an old house - an actual practical house - and we rented that house to shoot the movie. However, for this one, we actually built the house and it’s a set, which means we are able to break the walls whenever we want to and we made separate sets for the attic and hallway and the room, which means we can go into any camera angle wherever we want. There were some camera angles that were impossible to shoot in the original and we have a lot more ability to do a lot of different angles. Also, when we were doing the original Ju-On, there were only a limited number of staff allowed in the staff, so we had a hard time doing it, but now it’s a lot easier. There are a lot more camera positions and we were able to create the darkness we wanted to this time. (adds after first part is translated) At the same time, though I said we were using different camera angles, I just keep going back to the same camera angle. I realize that now. For the original, we did have a hard time going into the camera angles that I wanted, but at the same time, I did choose the best angles, so I guess I ended up at the best angles again not knowing what I was really going for.

Q: What are some of the elements of Japanese horror films that American audiences will find new that made having you direct it so integral?

Shimizu: What I concentrated on was the importance of Japanese tastes, meaning the Japanese culture and the Japanese house and most importantly, the Japanese ghost with black hair. I think that the most scary thing ever and that’s the most element for me and for the movie. This was also wanted by the American producers who felt Japanese tastes were very important to show in the movie. We are using American actors, but with the Japanese house and culture, we can bring in the Japanese tastes to America.

Q: Can you talk about how the presence of the American actors changes the film for you?

Shimizu: First of all, when we started, Americans and Japanese have such different filmmaking systems, so that we were all confused and just had a really hard time working together. We just had such big differences. Also, this movie takes place in Japan and these Americans came from America to live and then had all these incidents happen. If they were Japanese, they wouldn’t have any language barrier or they wouldn’t have any cultural difference so that they can just get help from others. But since they’re Americans, they have a hard time getting help from others, so we were able to show the loneliness and how they felt unsafe in Japan. Those actors in this movie were mostly in Japan for the first time, so they were able to feel what those characters actually feel in the movie and that worked out very nicely. (adds after first part is translated) Those actors, like I said, were here for the first time in Japan and they had this English problem. If I could speak English, it would have been better, so I felt a little uncomfortable to start with and they probably felt the same. So, I hope this kind of situation was subconsciously shown in the film and I think it did work out that way.

Q: "Ju-On" is translated as "the grudge," but I understand that in Japanese, it actually means something stronger - could you explain about what it really means and how you created the word?

Shimizu: When we first came up with this word, ’Ju-On,’ it didn’t really have that deep of a meaning. We were just taking the Japanese characters - called kanji - and we were just having those words around and we were trying to find the best characters to give an impression of the horror and scariness and all this - something that had a relation to horror - and we were just doing the puzzle and picking and matching all these Chinese characters and we came up with ’Ju-On’ because it was short and very sexy and easy to remember. It’s not an actual word, we just made it up. The producer for the original video Ju-On - Taka - who was the producer of the original Grudge, were working on this and we were just trying to find a nice word and we decided to go with ’Ju-On.’ When we first came up with the word, ’Ju-On,’ I never thought it would go to Hollywood.

Q: In the script stage, there’s obviously stuff taken from Ju-On: The Grudge, but the screenwriter Stephen Susco has mentioned that for the remake, elements were taken from Grudge, but also the first two Ju-On video films - could you talk about how it was decided what would be used from each?

Shimizu: When we were doing the script, Taka and I had been working on the series for a long time and had a hard time coming up with new ideas. So, we asked Stephen Susco and the U.S. producers to look at all the Ju-On series and come up with the ideas they wanted to use, so we waited on them to come up with something and they took some episodes from the video versions of Ju-On and the theater versions of Ju-On. There are some ideas I wanted to use, but sometimes the U.S. producers would say, ’That’s not for American audiences.’ It does basically follow the theater version of the first Ju-On. (adds after translation) We actually had a very hard time making the script because Stephen Susco saw the original before he wrote it and we were actually expecting him to come up with new and creative and different ideas. However, after he saw the original, he was so affected by it and he had a very hard time coming up with new ideas, so it was difficult. It’s a remake, so there’s really not much that we can do.

Q: Takako [Fuji] has been in all the Ju-On films and I’d like to get a comment on the evolution of your working relationship.

Shimizu: We worked together on the first films, so sometimes I have a hard time telling my directions to the actresses, but she understands everything I say immediately. I can tell her one sentence and she will get it completely right. So, that’s very nice. I found her when she was doing theatrical stage and didn’t know her at that point, but was introduced to her by the people who worked with her on the stage. She was very surprised when I first asked her to do it - ’Why am I doing a ghost?’ - and it was kind of awkward for her, I guess. We started with the videos and then it became a theater version and we did those before and now we’re doing Hollywood. So every time we meet up, we always say we’re moving up. It just gets bigger and bigger every time. She’s obviously my friend and is just a teammate. We work together really well. This is something really interesting. We found this out last year when we got to know each other quite well - we are the same age and were born on the same birthday, so maybe it does have some meaning. I don’t think it’s just a coincidence.

Q: Do you have any last comments?

Shimizu: (smiles and does croaking sound from movie)

Q: Is it going to be your voice doing that sound again?

Shimizu: It has been my voice as the bass, but we did use other peoples’ voice and edited them and composited them and it’s going to be that way again. (adds after translation) I actually remembered something new about the remake - the explanation as to why Kayako makes this noise is explained in the remake for the first time. That has never been expressed in the Japanese Ju-On, but you will know in this film why she makes this noise. (adds again after translation) This noise is actually something I came up with when I was little. I was always making this noise and my parents would tell me to stop making this noise. Since I was very little, I kept thinking I wanted to use this noise for something - some time in the future this would become something. And I started to think it could be used for a movie and I did it, it worked well and it’s going to America now! I can’t believe that. Sooner or later, all Americans will be making this noise. How exciting is that? I would like to end the Ju-On series with Americans making this noise everywhere.

With that, we broke up our interview circle, wandered out of Stage 7 and piled into our shuttle van to head back to Shibuya-ku. I think I made it about a quarter mile before I collapsed against the side of said bus and fell asleep. When I got to the hotel, I stumbled upstairs, flipped on the TV and saw the horrific news from Baghdad and Karbala, but then fell asleep the moment I hit the bed.

The next morning, I woke up early and, well, started writing Part 1 of this series while watching the BBC World Service’s continuing reports on the bombings (CNN-J was dubbed in Japanese) and eating breakfast. I got through about half of it and had to throw on a tie to head back to the set (we were asked to wear suits and ties - Patrick and I, the two who packed suits, were repeatedly told that we were the "best dressed journos" anyone had seen. Never again!).

We piled into the van and raced through the streets back to Toho, a surprisingly easy task and we made it there in about half the time as the day before. The van pulled up outside of Stage 2. No sooner had we arrived than we were greeted with the First Sign of Trouble.

I don’t report bad things that happen on sets as that’s not my beat (I actually know a reporter who was on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie the night of the "accident" who decided never to write about it), so know that I was being facetious in my last comment. What I’m going to type actually was not a bad thing, but said a lot about the Japanese crew and how guarded they were both of the film and of its director, Takashi Shimizu. Before we were even let in the door, we were told that we wouldn’t be allowed to watch filming that day - much to the surprise of our escorting publicist.

You see, though some filmmakers don’t mind having journalists tromp around on set (well...that’s probably not true), the makers of The Grudge were ready to have us gone because the scene they were shooting that morning was, in fact, the very opening scene of the movie and was a ridiculously SPOILERIFIC scene. I have already mentioned that Karen went to visit Maria who lost her husband, Peter, three years previously. This scene of "losing" said husband was the scene they were shooting.

A quick lesson in filmmaking for those who haven’t been to film school (I sure as hell haven’t been) - almost no movie is filmed in continuity. Though actors would love that, it just doesn’t happen. Otherwise, every day would find you zipping all over a studio backlot, an entire city or in some cases, all over the world. Imagine if, say, Hannibal was filmed in continuity. You’d have Ridley Scott, for the first half of the movie, racing from America to Italy every other night. Now, imagine that happening with a James Bond movie. You’d earn some miles, but the cost would be nuts. So, here on The Grudge, they had all the cameras at the "Maria’s Apartment" set. So, naturally, they’re going to shoot every scene that takes place there in a row as they could to minimize how many times they’d have to move the cameras and accompanying equipment from stage to stage.

Yes, I know 90% of you film fans know such a thing, but hell, when I was a kid I thought George Lucas simply packed his cameras on the Falcon and flew from Hoth to Dagobah and then back and forth from there to Bespin every night. Imagine my surprise when I first heard the name "Irvin Kershner."

Anyway, so there we were hanging out outside Stage 2 waiting for everything to get sorted when Takako Fuji and her husband walked up as they were visiting Shimizu-san on set. Fuji, as you remember from Shimizu-san’s interview, has appeared in all the Ju-On movies and returns here in the remake of The Grudge. Incredibly outgoing and gracious, the talented actress introduced herself and her husband to all of us and bid us to have a good time hanging out on set. After a few moments, she walked in to see Shimizu-san and we were escorted back to the monitor banks to watch the opening scene from the movie taking place in Maria’s apartment.

In deference to the crew, I won’t say much more. The secrets of that opening scene won’t be revealed by me any further than saying that we saw Rosa Blasi and Bill Pullman interacting on set and what Shimizu-san was shooting looked great. We saw the entire scene done in two different set-ups - the first half in a few different takes and the second half done in a few different takes. End of story. Sorry to all you spoiler fans, but the movie’ll be out sooner than later.

The crew still looked a little nervous with us hanging around, which translated into a great opportunity to interview producer Taka Ichise, the "Dino De Laurentiis" of Japanese films who has shepherded the entire Ju-On series and also produced Hideo Nakata’s Ringu, Ringu 2, Last Scene and Dark Water, but also non-horror films like Crying Freeman, Fist of the North Star, The Princess Blade and the classic cult masterpiece, Drive, arguably Mark Dacascos’ finest fight film.

Ichise led us out of Stage 2 and back over to Stage 7 and the giant house stage, taking the seat where we’d interviewed Shimizu-san the night before. After nabbing a translator, we sat down for a Q&A...

Q: Will you talk a little about your first meeting with Shimizu-san and why you wanted to work with him?

Ichise: First off, the scriptwriter for The Ring Hiroshi Takahashi was a schoolteacher at a film school and there was a request from a company to me that they wanted to distribute on mobile phones some scary stories - you have to pay some fee - but there was a request from the company to shoot some scary stories, so I thought Takahashi would be the perfect person. But, he said there is a student at my school that would be very good to direct and write the story for that, so that’s how I met Shimizu.

Q: Were the scripts text or video?

Ichise: It was not a script. You could hear it through the phone. So, I worked with him on that mobile story and thought he was a very interesting person. He showed me some of the short films that he worked on and they were very interesting. Most of the Japanese horror films will show the ghost or the figure and it’s blurred or somewhat visible - it’s visible, but you can’t really tell the figure, it’s more like a silhouette. Shimizu’s talent is that he lets the ghosts be visible on the screen. It’s very visible, but still scary, so that’s a new talent that I found.

Q: After so many horror films you’ve made like Ju-On, Ringu and Dark Water, where does your interest in horror come from?

Ichise: The first thing is because many people requested me to make horror films. Secondly, because if I make horror films, they’re a big hit. Thirdly, the horror films are the ones that require a director’s technique. It’s not just the director feels like he wants to make a good film, it’s not just an emotion or spirit towards the film - he or she needs to have a really good technique to make a horror film. That’s why I thought it would be a good way to find a good and new talent out of horror films and just keep growing with a person. So, that’s a way to find new talents.

Q: It’s a unique experience merging the Japanese and American styles of filmmaking - what are your thoughts on that?

Ichise: Of course, not just Japan and the States depending on where you are, they have different filmmaking methods. So, I wouldn’t just say that Japan and America are different. But wherever you go, you can find talent. It doesn’t matter where you are or what country that is. In any country, you can find that kind of talent. I personally don’t believe there are that many differences in filmmaking. I also feel that it’s sort of strange and I wonder why we didn’t have this kind of opportunity in the past because there are so many times in the Japanese past and in the industry and so many people in the States, but we didn’t have an opportunity to work together on one film. So, I hope this particular film will be the bridge between the U.S. and Japanese film industries. Hopefully in the future, we will work together and maybe we will have more collaborations and find good parts in America and Japan and connect those good parts together.

Q: Why do you think American audiences have responded so well to Japanese horror?

Ichise: Before I made Ringu or even thought of Ringu, I was living in the States for four years and was making big action movies. I felt that it didn’t do any good, so I might as well go back to Japan and make another new film. So, first of all, the Ring was for a domestic Japanese audience. I didn’t even think of any global audience. So, I hope that a Japanese audience would like the film and it just happened to go overseas and the Japanese audiences liked that film. I felt that was an interesting way of delivering my films to an overseas audience. I feel with the horror that audiences will feel horror globally - people will get scared the same way. That’s what I realized after making The Ring. I didn’t think of the global market before making the film. So, when I found out that it appealed to the foreign audience, I was very happy and I was honored to hear that it was a big hit in the States.

Q: Is there an American or European horror film that you’ve particularly enjoyed of late?

Ichise: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - I thought that was pretty interesting. I like Tobe Hooper’s, but I thought the remake version was pretty good, too.

Q: What do you think the inclusion of an American cast in an essentially Japanese movie will do?

Ichise: When I first talked to the U.S. producers, I said that American actors over-react too much. But, then the U.S. producers told me that they think the Japanese actors over-react too much in horror movies. So, I think it’s a cultural difference. It’s difficult to explain with language how it is, but I think that the director, Shimizu, had the hardest time dealing with that. He’s the kind of person who would give specific orders on the reactions to the actors and that’s his style. So, he gives directions on how to move, how to react and the tiny details of their performance in scary moments. So, I think Shimizu is having the hardest time in this production, but I think he has the right eye to look for the performance he wants. It doesn’t matter whether that’s an adult or children - younger actor or older actors - I think we can keep everything the same.

Q: Have you seen Lost in Translation and what has been the reaction of Japanese people to this movie?

Ichise: The movie hasn’t been released here yet, so I don’t know how the Japanese audience will react. I didn’t feel anything of depth, but I enjoyed it.

Q: Are you making more horror movies right now? What else is next up for you?

Ichise: I have many plans with Japanese directors and also English horror films with non-Japanese directors. So, I have many offers as well. There are many other genres besides genres I’m thinking of. The film I’m actually going into production on now is about a dog. It’s not a horror film. It’s geared towards adults, not children.

Q: Do you have your eye on the next hot film director?

Ichise: No, I cannot say! (laughs)

Q: As you’ve worked in Hollywood, should Shimizu go to Hollywood to make horror films, do you have any advice for him?

Ichise: Well, Hollywood is a scary place... It’s not my ultimate goal to build to Hollywood and make Hollywood films. We’re not aiming Hollywood - the place - to be ’big’ in Hollywood. What we want to and what I want to do is make good films. Of course, there is money there in Hollywood, so that’s the place I would go to make good films that I want to make.

Q: Could you talk about working with Sam Raimi?

Ichise: I’ve liked Sam’s style a long time and I’ve seen his horror films. I actually didn’t get scared when I saw his films, I was just laughing. I enjoyed his films, so when I actually came to the reality that I could work with him on this production, I was very happy to find that out and very pleased. While we working on the script, we got some comments from Sam and there were many things on which I agreed with him, so I was very grateful for his comments. Also, he said that he would trust me and Shimizu - ’Do whatever you would like to do and I’ll support you.’

At that point, we said our good-byes to Ichise and headed back to the set for a few minutes. Again, we watched a couple of takes of the spoilerific scene, but then said our good-byes to the crew members around and headed off of Stage 2 to be whisked back to the Cerulean Towers Hotel to interview Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jason Behr. If I wrote that it wasn’t a little "too bad" that we were leaving the fabled Toho Studios for good, I’d be lying. I mean, seriously - when the hell will I ever return to Toho? But, it was great seeing the storied stages and, of course, meeting Godzilla (What? You missed Set Visit Part 1.5? Cad! Click HERE).

And that’s it for Part 2 of our Set Visit to The Grudge in Tokyo, Japan. Check back tomorrow for Part 3, our exclusive one-on-one interviews with actors Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jason Behr!