Uzumaki (film)

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Uzumaki
Image:UzumakiDVD.jpg The Region 1 DVD cover
Directed by	Higuchinsky
Produced by	Sumiji Miyake Dai Miyazaki
Written by	Takao Nitta Chika Yasuo Kengo Kaji (supervising screenwriter) Junji Ito (manga)
Starring	Eriko Hatsune Fhi Fan Hinako Saeki Eun-Kyung Shin
Distributed by	Lighthouse Pictures
Release date(s)	Image:Flag of Japan.svg February 11, 2000 Image:Flag of Germany.svg September 13, 2001
Running time	90 min.
Language	Japanese
Budget	$1 million
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Uzumaki is a Japanese horror movie directed by Higuchinsky. Uzumaki, released in 2000, was based on Junji Ito's episodic manga of the same title, Uzumaki.

The Japanese word uzumaki (渦巻), often translated as "spiral," is generally translated as "vortex" in the context of this movie. The plot concerns a town infected with malevolent spirals. This abstract concept manifests in grotesque ways, such as a teenager's long hair beginning to curl and take over her mind, or a corpse wound around itself.

Among many bizarre features of the film is a heavy treatment with green colour filters, aping the stype of the colour plates in the manga, and the fact that the trailer for the film is a pastiche of Jean-Luc Godard's seminal trailer for À bout de souffle (1960).

The movie covers some of the notable stories from the manga, with varying degrees of faithfulness. The movie and the manga have different endings.

Its theme song was "Raven" by the band Do As Infinity, which was on their "Yesterday & Today" single.

Also in 2000, Higuchinsky adapted Junji's Nagai yume ("Long Dream") for Japanese television.

[edit] Plot

Kirie Goshima lives in a pretty normal town, until the day her classmate falls to his death from the top of a spiral staircase. Bizarre things start to occur; a girl's hair grows in an uncontrollable spiral pattern, a man kills himself by climbing into a running washing machine, a woman cuts out her inner ears and fingertips because they have spiral patterns, and a boy gets trapped beneath the tire of a car and twists in such a way as to become a spiral.