One of the best qualities of the horror genre is to make normality appear scary or creepy. The transformation happens slowly perhaps or through a sudden revelation the main character experiences, but when the viewer realizes is truly terrifying. When J-Horror appeared on the map of every horror fan in the late 1990s, features such as “Ring” or “Ju-on” put their ghosts amid our modern world or actually made them part of it, which made them even scarier. In his first feature “Best Wishes to All”, produced by Takashi Shimizu (“Ju-on”), director Yuta Shimotsu follows the same principle while also tackling the pressing issue of an aging society. Overall, the result is quite effective and suspenseful.
Best Wishes to All is screening at Nippon Connection
Just before she finishes her job training as a nurse, a young woman (Kotone Furukawa) visits her grandparents in the countryside. It is a welcome break from the stress and the pressure of her final test, which will take place in the following weeks. Her grandparents are just as happy to see her, making her feel at home as best as they can and cooking the dishes she likes ever since she was a teenager.
However, she feels something is not right with her grandparents as well as the people of the community. Time and time again, she notices her grandfather and grandmother behaving strangely, and when she confronts them later, they evade her questions entirely. An encounter with a childhood friend does not bring any new answers, in fact, it makes the situation with her grandparents even worse as they forbid her from ever seeing her friend again. As she investigates further, she makes a gruesome discovery.
As mentioned in the opening, “Best Wishes to All” first constructs a concept of normality, only to slowly reveal it as disturbing, scary and even dangerous. We follow the main character as she uncovers the truth of her grandparents' weird behavior, with each revelation making the story more tense and emphasizing another layer of the bizarre truth. Horror movie buffs will likely have seen other alterations of this story in other features, but Shimotsu's approach is much subtler in comparison, as he takes his time before showing the true scale of the danger his main character is in. Visually and narratively, he and DOP Ryuto Iwabuchi work a lot with the contrast between the urban and the rural world, but also the young and the old, resulting in a feature which is quite multi-layered and even contains some ironic hints at society's image of the elderly.
Similar to other examples from the genre of J-horror, “Best Wishes to All” also centers the horror right in the middle of the family. Our nameless protagonist actress Kotone Furukawa gives a great performance as a person equipped with an annoying case of helper syndrome and whose world, as mentioned before, falls apart as she gets closer to the truth. Motivated by a dream, she has to decide whether to follow it (and eventually fulfill it) or stick with her family, as bizarre as they may be. The fact she has forgotten about them or had a naive image of them comes with a price, as their support has run dry and it is now she who has to keep it all together.
“Best Wishes to All” is a truly effective horror drama, a great calling card for actress Kotone Furukawa as well as director Yuta Shimotsu. Apart from its aesthetic and narrative aspects, it is also a feature which offers some interesting, ironic comments on the topic of the aging society and how some people have forgotten about their elders.
