Imprint - Masters Of Horror series

[One Armed Boxer]

As a big fan of Takashi Miike I don't know why I didn't get round to watching this sooner, but for one reason or another I've had the dvd for ages without ever putting it into the dvd player.

Does anybody have any opinions on it? I have to say I can watch the likes of Audition, Gozu, Ichi the Killer etc. and be relatively unphased, but Imprint is the first ever film (well, mini-film as it's only an hour long) to actually make me feel nauseous. No wonder it was banned from air, the torture scene was horrible and it's not often I find myself looking away from the screen.

Not too sure what was going on with Billy Drago's acting performance though, I think he may have been going for the intentionally bad, but if that was him genuinly 'acting' then I doubt he'll be offered any roles ever again!

Also, without giving too much away, the ending very much reminded me of Evil Dead Trap, definitely didn't see it coming.

[venoms5]

I thought it was right nasty and I think it was the longest of the first season of MOH running around 65 minutes. A lot of people have a problem with Drago's performance. I didn't really pay much attention to it. I figured he was playing this emotionally exhausted character who was searching for the woman in the story with his journey sending him over the deep end. I think he should have had the Japanese cast members speak their native language instead of English since many of them were speaking it phonetically, a lot of people also complained about the acting of the Japanese participants who shouldn't be blamed for that.

It was easily my favorite of the episodes I had seen from season one. I saw only one show from season two.

[One Armed Boxer]

Yeah I know what you mean in relation to the Japanese actor's speaking English, Miike used the same idea to much better effect in Django: Sukiyaki Western, there it added to the overall surreal effect of the film, however in Imprint I sometimes had to rewind to try and catch what a character had said.

[SlothStyleKungFu]

Drago ruins it for me every time he's on screen. Especially terrible that Rutger Hauer was originally cast but pulled out at the last minute thus the rushed Drago re-casting. Hauer would have been so much better.

I dont like the phonetic-English thing and I wish some Anglo would tell Miike it just doesn't work because its clear he doesn't have the Engrish or the ears to realize it sounds awkward.

That said, despite its flaws, it is a powerful work. His direction and the production values are solid. And, yeah, its a neat story with some stomach-churning elements, not just due to being graphic but the situational elements as well.