The Sleeping Bride: So bad it's bad.
This is a really bad movie. SO bad it warrants its own post + review. With a detailed plot summary so you can appreciate the badness.

You know how sometimes you'll be watching something, and it'll start off quite decently, seemingly well made, a fairly good plot, and poor but relatively effective performances from the actors, only to have it all go to hell exactly halfway through? This movie is one of those things. The first half is really quite decent: it's perfectly sweet and what you'd expect from a modern day retelling of a fairy tale. The movie looks dated, but as the story is set in the mid 50's to early 70's, the grainy feeling is actually a nice touch.

The basic plot: seven year old Yuichi, admitted to hospital for asthma, meets a comatose girl, Yumi, who has been asleep since she was pulled from the wreckage of a crashed plane as a newborn. After a nurse tells him she is "Sleeping Beauty", Yuichi attempts to wake her up with his kiss as though he were Prince Charming. He's unsuccessful, but continues his mission until the day Yumi's resident physician, Dr. Hikawa, catches him in the act and tells him his efforts are useless. Ten years later, after seeing Yumi on tv, Yuichi remembers his mission and returns to kiss his sleeping beauty once more... only this time she wakes up.

I forgot to mention above the backstory of how Yumi's mother was the sole survivor of a plane crash, but died in hospital shortly after. Yumi (comatose, of course) was taken from her womb. Not to mention her father, who went bankrupt trying to pay for all the best doctors and latest medical treatments to try to wake her up. For some reason he goes missing, but still sends money to the hospital for her treatment, and there's one scene midway through of him working in a noodle shop.

Up to her waking up (after Yuichi kisses her dramatically in the middle of a stormy night, which was a strangely Frankenstein-ish moment), it's all good. Yumi can't speak, can't walk, and is basically like a newborn child (only to be expected) - again, all good. But miraculously, by the next day (her second day awake), Yumi has progressed to the mentality of a small child, and can speak and read and do amazing charcoal portraits. She draws a likeness of her father, who she has never seen. "IMPOSSIBLE!" says Dr. Hikawa. Dun dun dunnnn. Randomly, Yuichi and Yumi are allowed out to go on a date that same day. I must note that by this point, the acting is laughably bad, but that's only secondary to the ridiculous plot.

The third day, Yumi is discovered by the media, but is whisked away by Yuichi. They have a deep philosophical chat about life and death, and Yumi reveals that she only has 2 days left to stay awake. How does she know this? Nobody knows, she just does. Then Yumi describes a strange, painful emotion she gets when she thinks of a certain person. Yuichi tells her this is love. (Really, Yuichi? Could it not be... I don't know... potential symptoms of post-comatose stress? Heart disease? No? Love? OK.) Yumi declares that this must mean she is in love with Dr. Hikawa (sorry, but ROFL), which breaks Yuichi's heart.

Yuichi goes to confront Dr. Hikawa and tries to make him promise to marry Yumi to make her happy. Yuichi decides that Yumi's five day limit must be the result of autosuggestion and that it will be true because Yumi believes it. *insert incredulous laughter from calixa for a good five minutes here* Dr. Hikawa thinks Yuichi is retarded and tells him he doesn't believe any of it, nor does he love Yumi. Yumi, who is standing outside, overhears all of this and tries to commit suicide, only to be saved by Yuichi *more incredulous laughter*

On the fourth day, the nurse who originally told Yuichi that Yumi is a sleeping beauty returns to see him (it was mentioned previously that she had quit during the ten years lapse), and tells him that she knew about his mission to wake up Yumi. She also tells him that the reason why Yumi could draw a picture of the father she never knew is because Nurse used to show her a picture of him, which Yumi apparently COULD SEE WITH HER EYES CLOSED. That's not all: Nurse goes on to reveal that the reason why Yumi thinks she is in love with Dr. Hikawa is because Dr. Hikawa had been doing something sexual to her at night, and that Nurse left the hospital upon discovering this. YES. I SHIT YOU NOT. Yuichi fake-punches Hikawa (hahaha), and leaves Hikawa sobbing on the floor and moaning about his impotency. Again, I KID YOU NOT.



Then Yuichi and Yumi kiss and Yumi realises it was Yuichi all along whom she loved, not the rapist doctor, and they decide to get married the next day. As you do.

After the wedding they board a train, for some reason, and Yumi promises to be with Yuichi forever. Then she falls into a coma again for 27 years. There's another time lapse, and Yuichi, now with grey hair, comes home to find her dead. The film ends with Yuichi giving an emo voiceover as he watches Yumi's tv interview.

I think this sequence of caps says it all, really:

















The end. *insert disbelieving laughter + brain breakage from the stupid*

Wow. Also, this movie is made by the guy who made The Ring. Clearly he should not try to make romances.

+ 11/50 in 2008