Fuji_Jukai.mov

Content Warning: The following review discusses acts of suicide within the story of the film. 

Fuji_Jukai.mov is a truly special found footage movie, shot entirely on an iPhone. The film incorporates iPhone tech in a way that other found-footage films like Unfriended used in-screen video calls and screen sharing as the crux of the footage. The story starts with a news crew filming a segment at the trailhead into Fuji Jukai, aka Japan's infamous forest. While filming, they find an abandoned iPhone with a long video. As we watch the video play out, the film follows three high school girls, Ami (Ami Okuma), Mi-Tan (Mirei Ohtonari), and Hinata (Setsu Kohinata) as they decide to hike into the forest to live stream Ami taking her life.

The film switches between the perspectives of the three girls, interspersed with cuts to the TV crew interviewing folks who work in and around the forest, creating a welcome buffer from what the girls are up to. The main portion of the film is the three girls trying to find an adequate spot for Ami, while they walk deeper into the forest, they talk about why people end their lives, the two girls that accompany Ami talk in an unfeeling cruel nonchalant way about her taking her own life and how she’s going to do it as if someone coming to the forest to die is something that should be encouraged for online engagement. Really, this film is ahead of its time in the depiction of teens being completely sociopathic for the clicks on social media. This film also predated the infamous video in which one of the Paul Brothers live-streamed his walk through the same forest and came across a corpse, which obviously stirred plenty of controversy at the time.

As the girls make their way into the deep forest, they come across strange artifacts throughout the trees. They find notes along with dolls and symbols tied to trees. The deeper they go into the forest, the more they find the strings of people left behind in case they wanted to escape, long abandoned. The final strangeness the girls discover is an entire village in the forest of those who entered the forest to die, only to find community instead. But this community is actually more of a cult, scarring the girls back into the forest and onto a tragic path of self-discovery.

What makes this film really great is the shifting from the found footage the girls left behind, and the news team interviewing the people who encounter the forest daily. The crew talks to prevention volunteers who patrol the trails with efforts to talk people out of killing themselves, who we see in security footage talking to the three protagonists to no avail. The other folks they talk to are a shop owner who talks about the creepiness of the forest, not just the aspect of people taking their lives, but these conversations are also how we get introduced to the lore of the cult and those who live in the depths of the forest. All around, this film has great worldbuilding, is structured incredibly well, and leads to a phenomenal twist. 

Vital Disc Stats: Blu-ray
Thanks to Bleeding Skull and OCN Distribution, Fuji_Jukai.MOV finds a terrific single-disc Blu-ray release.  Pressed on a BD50 disc, the disc is housed in a clear case with reversible insert artwork. If you ordered from Vinegar Syndrome's website fast enough, you could have snagged a limited-run slip cover that is now out of print as of this writing.

For a film that is completely shot on an iPhone, this film looks really great. Presented in 1080p, the film is crisp where it needs to be, and when the shot calls for some visual noise for effect its done great. There’s a scene where the girls are looking at the creepy dolls and notes nailed to a tree, and you faintly see the visage of a man walking by, who is only revealed in the next scene in a show of insanely good restraint and visual storytelling. I also love the shots in between the news crew’s story and the girl’s story, where it’s a static shot of the forest, but there are small orbs floating around in a mix of beauty and unsettling. For a label that largely punches out lost SOV gems from the rental-shop era, this is one of its best-looking releases. 

The sound in this release is great as well, which is presented with a fittingly ominous Japanese DTS-HD MA 2.0 track with English subtitles. The film uses the forest's natural sounds to a really spooky effect, letting that sense of menace linger in the quiet spaces of rustling leaves and cracking branches. To great effect, there’s almost a dead silence except for the wind when the three girls are silent, which isn’t that often, but it’s used in a way that sends a chill down your spine. Otherwise, dialog and other audio elements are well-appointed and true-sounding for a dynamic mix that knows how to use the audio channel space to maximize the tension and fear of the moment. 

As always, Bleeding Skull goes the extra mile in the supplements section. There is a great audio commentary of the film from film programmer Jenny Nulf, which provides great context for the film’s inception and making, as well as its pace in the found footage genre. The introduction of the film by its director, Katsumi Sakashita, is a really great touch, even if it's a tad short. The video essay by Bleeding Skulls’ own Joseph A. Ziemba is such a great love letter to both J-horror and found-footage films, and to how Fuji_Jukai.MOV should be better known. There is also another full cut of the film with pared-down visuals in the style of watching the film on VHS, which is a cool way to enjoy the film for the curious-minded.

• Video Introduction by director Katsumi Sakashita (HD 1:55)
• Partial Audio Commentary by film programmer and critic Jenny Nulf
• Go To Your Happy Place: An Appreciation of FUJI_JUKAI.MOV - Video essay by Bleeding Skull's Joseph A. Ziemba (HD 9:10)
• Original Trailers (HD 01:42)
• VHS Version (SD 84:31)
• Behind-the-Scenes Photo Gallery

I loved Fuji_Jokai.MOV. This film is such a great addition to the Found Footage and J-horror genres. Menacing and creepy Fuji_Jokai.MOV is is a haunting film that takes you into the darkness of overly online teens and how quotidian death has become oversaturated in online spaces. The release itself from Bleeding Skull is great too, and this is probably the best film they’ve released to date. The AV is great and well-suited to this style of film; the only supplement I think it could use is a booklet with an essay by someone who loves J-horror and Found Footage. I would 100% recommend this to any horror fan, especially those into these unique Horror sub-genres. Highly Recommended