The world of Asian cinema has seen a vast share of their most recent fare emanating from manga adaptations, with titles ranging from Rurouni Kenshin, “Death Note,” Blade of the Immortal, and Gantz finding their inspiration coming from its pages. Such is the origins of the latest Netflix release in Eiichiro Hasumi's adaptation of “Re/Member,” which started out as a multi-year run in the early 2010s and was followed by an anime adaptation several years later before this current live-action feature.
After what seems to be a normal day, high-school student Asuka (Kanna Hashimoto) sees the ghost of the dead student Haruka at school, asking her to find the girl's dead body. When she and Takahiro (Gordon Maeda), Atsushi, (Fuju Kamio), Rumiko (Maika Yamamoto), Rie (Mayu Yokota), and Shota (Kotaro Daigo), a group of students, set out to find the various scattered pieces of Haruka's corpse buried in the school, they find themselves suddenly trapped in a never-ending time-loop by a malicious ghost intent on tormenting them. After learning the rules of the game and what will happen to them if they fail their task, the group must find the cause of the curse that's affecting them to break the deadly chain of events from repeating themselves.
On the whole, “Re/Member” has quite a lot to like about it. Among the more likable facets present is the fine storyline from writer Harumi Doki that manages to bring about a genuinely terrifying concept. The main point of the film is the engrossing game that's at the center of everything which has a fun urban legend idea taken to a grand extreme. With the whole thing starting with Haruka appearing to Asuka and urging her into finding the various body parts of her dismembered corpse scattered around the school, things take a pretty chilling turn quite quickly. This is only enhanced by the means through which the group goes about getting inducted into the game of following through on the quest within the darkened school. This all easily manages to fall under the type of easily-digestible urban legend rather nicely. The means through which they find themselves stuck in a time loop as a consequence makes for a fine time as well and gives this a solid bit of tension to ensure the game is played.
With this setup in place, “Re/Member” manages to come off rather nicely with its ghostly encounters. The initial sight of the ghost is genuinely terrifying with the scarred face, blood-covered appearance, and association with the creepy doll. This all leads to a fantastic first appearance in the prologue that sets everything in motion. The later scenes with the massive figure towering over Asuka and the group while hunting them down through the school grounds and hallways is just as much fun with the incorporation of group battles against the massive being which signals the start of a secondary twist in the storyline that's introduced naturally while adding a nice bit of spice to everything. This adds plenty of frenetic action in the second half where the battle to stop the ghost takes place alongside the intriguing means of finally enacting the means of stopping the curse as well as the wholly effective practical effects for the main ghost-form shown here.
There are some flaws with “Re/Member” that hold it down. One of the bigger detriments is the highly underwhelming pacing that highlights a slew of teen-friendly content at the expense of genre thrills. With Asuka and her friends well-aware of the game to be played, a run-through of the body=finding tactics in the hallways is soaked up as a music video montage taking each encounter with the ghost as a single split-screen shot at once while an obnoxious pop song plays over it. This completely destroys any and all attempts at scares, despite the horrific ways the ghost destroys the group and mutilates their bodies during the sequence. Other scenes like the group hanging out in the classroom laughing about dying the previous night or enjoying a beach party also manage the same feat of appealing to the teen crowd while dragging the tempo down and lacking in genre thrills. The last flaw is the generally tame tone featured, with very little on-screen blood or gore and a reliance on cheap jump-scares which continue the teen feel and hold this one back.
Taking plenty of likable factors with only a few minor drawbacks, “Re/Member” features a highly likable approach that makes this one quite appealing for a specific subset of genre fans. Viewers who favor this teen-centric style of genre effort or are willing to go along with the content featured here will have a lot to enjoy.
