Lorelei: The Witch of the Pacific Ocean (2005)

I expected way better

The directorial debut of Shinji Higuchi, Lorelei very quickly sinks into ridiculous territory despite the promising initial set-up. Sadly, for all the inspiration it can take from Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot, the humanisation and exploration into the psyche of the submarine crew was not one of them; so much of the film flounders around with nonsensical political undertones that I've seen people criticise Takashi Yamazaki for, yet it's one full display here. Glorifying suicidal charges and glossing over human experimentation as if it were a trivial matter. So much of Higuchi's talent and style isn't here, often coating everything in a horrendous digital sheen; the direction is okay at best but honestly, it could have been anyone else behind the camera, let alone Higuchi. The acting is easily one of the better aspects with everyone turning in solid performances, however, the cast is given so little to work with that all their characters end up as one-dimensional cutouts. The music by Naoki Satō is passable but far from his best work and the less said about the incredibly rough CG effects, the better. I really wanted to like Lorelei going in, but the dubious political alignments and underwhelming filmmaking stamped out any form of entertainment I could have gotten from this, I expected far better.

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