Re:Born Now Streaming on Shudder - The Perfect Film to Deal With Horror Fatigue
Horror and action, specifically martial arts have always had a very close relationship. We can go all the way back to 1974 to the Hammer/Shaw Brothers collaboration The Legend of 7 Golden Vampires in which Van Helsing knows Kung-Fu and Dracula has an army of samurai. The grind house cinemas and late night drive-ins not only included B-Horror movies like Basket Case but also B-Action movies like Deathstalker. Furthermore, when the Video Nasties panic occurred in England in 1984 it wasn't just horror movies included on the banned list, there were also samurai films like the classic Shogun Assassin. Throughout the decades horror and action, specifically martial arts type movies, have been linked and Shudder continues this great heritage by including many great action/martial arts movies like Ong Bak, 13 Assassins and their latest exclusive Re:Born.
Re:Born is a blood soaked, hyper violent Japanese action film from director Yuji Shimomura and starring Tak Sakaguchi who you may know from horror adjacent films like Tokyo Gore Police and Versus. The film centers on Toshiro aka ‘The Ghost’ a former special operations soldier as he tries to manage his post military life. Fighting pill addictions, memories of past horrors, Toshiro tries to provide for his young niece Sachi and hold back the monster within him. One day, for no discernible reason, a group of assassins descend into his life and look to take him out. Toshiro, with a roll of his shoulders and a puff of his cigarette, transforms from the lowly convenience store owner into the bullet dodging, knife wielding operative Ghost.
The depiction of Ghost in the film isn't too far removed from how ghosts are portrayed in horror films so this is perfect curation by the folks at Shudder. He moves in silence, pulling victims into the shadows to quietly slice their throat before moving on, calmly, slowly searching out his next victim. His movements are very eerie, his ability to fight and even dodge bullets is almost supernatural. This is all accentuated by fantastic choices by the director, first the action is basically gun free. Instead of John Wick style shootouts, we are blessed with close quarters hand to hand combat with knives, including an impressive fight scene in a phone booth while Ghost is trying to talk to his niece and let her know he won’t be home until late. Second, there isn’t much dialogue in this film. The imagery speaks for itself, from Toshiro sitting by the bed, smoking and pretending to sleep to ease his nieces mind. To the intense final showdown with his arch nemesis known only as The Abyss Walker. In the horror world, this type of aesthetic and pacing would have the film fall into the category of a slow burn.
The slow burn aspect of the film doesn’t really last long, the film clocks in at 101 minutes and the final fight starts at about the 50 minute mark. Yes, the final fight is a dialogue sparse, extremely gory blood bath which lasts a good 45 minutes and includes Ghost along with two of his buddies fighting off 200 soldiers in the woods. I know that sounds absurd, but it’s actually very believable with Ghost creeping through the woods picking off soldiers one by one, slitting their throats and stabbing them to death. After the march through the woods we get a bit of back story from the main villain. Apparently the girl is not Toshiro’s niece, she is a brainwashed child he kidnapped the day he left the mercenary group he was apart of. It’s such a little bit, but it’s just enough to make it a movie with a purpose and not just a martial arts demonstration.
Overall Re:Born is a fantastic action film with enough of a supernatural aspect to appease even the most devout and unwavering horror fan. The very first action sequence, a near silent shootout in a crowded square that happens without alerting anyone is certainly a scene that will go down in history as one of the best. A fantastic addition to Shudder’s growing collection of non-horror movies and a perfect film to watch if you're feeling a bit of horror fatigue after the marathon that is October. Check out Re:Born now streaming on Shudder, give this one a chance and embrace the decades old relationship between horror and martial arts action.
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