Ghost Killer

Another year brings another Japan Foundation Touring Film programme. Checking out the listings, I requested an absurdly long number of screeners. I was kindly given a good number, the first I took it upon myself to watch – someone has to, you know, it’s tough but someone must – was Ghost Killer, directed by once stunt/action coordinator, Kensuke Sonomura.  

College student, Fumika (Akari Takaishi) is working the bar job from hell, has to put up with drinks with tedious influencers hoping to find work there, then one day finds a gun cartridge on her way home. This just happens to contain the spirit of Kudo (Masanori Takaishi), an assassin whose own organisation had him killed. Able to possess Fumika, he seeks revenge upon his killers. 

There’s an essential problem with trying to precis Ghost Killer, because the film has some great moments but is tonally a mess. Part mismatched buddy movie, part gritty realism and part action movie. The film slides between tones within scenes, sometimes within seconds and these can tend to sit uneasily alongside each other. The director having come from working on stunts before working as an action director brings to mind the John Wick movies and the first one of those knows just what it is about and that it is why it works. It has a focus that Ghost Killer lacks. Watching the film I could not work out quite what is at fault, the script or the director, or both – I suspect it is a little of both because the main roles, of Fumika, Kudo and, as the narrative progresses, Kagehara (Mario Kuroba) all do good work with what they have. Plus the film is not some unmitigated disaster. In some ways it would have been better if it had been, because it would have been easy to just dismiss Ghost Killer, but some aspect work very well and often for very different reasons. 

This is evident in one of the earliest moments where we see Kudo possessing Fumika. Firstly, this is something he requests, he doesn’t force it on her, but here Fumika’s friend Maho (Ayaka Higashino) we discover is being beaten up by her boyfriend, and Fumika stumbling upon them as she is trying to work out how to rid herself of this sudden ghost, ends up allowing Kudo to take over her body to give the violent boyfriend, Ryu, a well deserved kicking. But in the end it’s Maho who puts an end to it. It’s not man but in a woman’s body saviour moment. Maho chooses herself and her friend, even if she does so with a brick to Ryu’s head. This is a theme that crops up throughout; yes, Fumika may be one of the few characters that we meet that is not violent or a downright killing machine, but she is no wallflower. When it comes to the ultimate revenge, it’s as much for her as it is for Kudo. 

Fumika then as an active character is very much in the film’s favour. When possessed, it is a choice she must make, and when she does so both parties are conscious; she moves between talking as herself and as Kudo and she does this well, but this can mean there is often a running commentary that moves into comedy during moments of seriousness and can tonally fall flat. I assume this is often looking to leaven violence with humour, but the director just doesn’t seem to know how to make this fly. Part of it perhaps is that the action is crunching – it reminded me of One-Percenter, and it’s no surprise to see that the director was the action director on that film – there's nothing too balletic though, which might allow for the humour to shine through. 

Equally aspects of the script seem to be there for reasons hard to discern. In my attempted synopsis I noted the influencers she goes off to meet in a bar and how she wants to work in media, in whatever capacity she can. There’s a subplot about how Fumika firstly meets a tedious man – you assume a date but it’s not – and then the same guy and some influencer in a bar and it’s not really clear why. It’s all very vague and there to once again push Fumika towards allowing Kudo to possess her. It’s so underbaked and yet there are moments in it that do work: the two men seem to disrespect her personal space and are painfully dull, but the idea as a whole just doesn’t really work at all. It's apropos of nothing until the action kicks in. 

It’s disappointing because the dynamic between Fumika and her ghost killer Kudo is often very charming; as is the relationship between the two and Kagehara. They almost work together as a dysfunctional family unit. Each of the actors, too, gives their all and I struggle to fault any of them. Takaishi's Fumika is easy to root for and has energy about her; Takaishi's Kudo has real hangdog charm. Together their charisma keeps the film engaging, in spite of the director’s inability to maintain any consistent tone. 

Where Sonomura does excel, unsurprisingly, is with the crunching action and this he handles with aplomb. Such a shame that the story has the organisation that Kudo and Kagehara work (or worked) for be so utterly tiresome. The new head of it is the usual tracksuited psychopath who bowls bowling balls at someone’s genitals for fun. It’s the worst kind of laziness, no imagination at all. True in best swashbuckler fashion the head of the organisation isn’t the key villain, rather the henchman who steals the show and gets a big fight with Kudo. I say with Kudo because we mainly see him fight though in Fumika’s body. This as you imagine is one of the longest scenes and one where the close quarters action is tight, but it cannot make up for much of what comes before. 

There are so many ideas in Ghost Killer, many of them are excellent, but required a director with a deftness of touch, of nuance, who can set and maintain tone, but sadly this is rarely in evidence. The action is great; I enjoyed the performance of the leads but the uneven jumble of it all just struggles to make any cohesive whole.  

Ghost Killer is showing as part of the JFTFP  and screenings can be found here.