Higanjima otherwise known as Vampire Island was a recommendation and not something I'd ever heard of. It was an absolute beast to find an English subtitled copy of but I'm very happy I managed it.It tells the story of a young man who learns that his missing brother is on a mysterious island that has been taken over by vampires. With friends in tow he sets off to find his brother and combat the undead force.Japanese made with a little help from South Korean production Higanjima has plenty of the usual over the top Japanese tropes and is all the better for it. Very gory, action packed and perfectly paced it exceeded all expectations that I had.On the flipside the lack of budget shows in places, when CGI is required it really looks quite bad. The movie is also oddly a bit camp, I'm not sure why that approach was used and our vampires look like extras from Big Trouble In Little China (1986).Despite its flaws Higanjima is a lot of fun and though I'd argue against it entirely being classed as a horror its certainly something I'd have liked to see more of. It could have easily been turned into a television series and one that I really would have watched.Silly violent fun.The Good:Some great momentsLooks the partVery well constructedThe Bad:Some ropey cgiSome unanswered questionsThe vampires could have looked a tad betterThings I Learnt From This Movie:Banishing vampires is as easy as locking them in a cupboardPong was right, they were terrible friends

"Higanjima" is not a great movie by any means, but it is quite entertaining and offers almost two hours of fun.The story is simple enough. Hideo Ishiguro's Akira is a high school student that has his group of friends and a regular life. The only bitter point is the death/disappearance of his older brother a few years ago. But then, one day, when he is running away from some bullies, he meets a mysterious woman that tells him his brother is still alive, in a out-of-the-maps island... full of vampires. Will Akira believe her and decide to go the island with her, or will he decide that she is just crazy and a liar?From that moment on the movie offers a nice mixture of horror, action and humor. It never raises the bar too high, and some of the acting is a little bit shaky (good enough, though, in general), but it keeps the action going. The plot is simple, but the characters, even if caricatures, are well developed and the actors made them interesting and charismatic. The CGI is meh, but it is not really important.Too bad that it becomes a little bit repetitive and overlong, and that some moments could have been greatly improved if they had tried just a little bit. Otherwise, a trip to "Higanjima" is absolutely worth it.

The opening sequence shows a lone vampire killer successfully plying his hobby. This is on some island where there are many vampires. The VK does in several, then talks to a man who is in the process of turning to a vampire. Before they meet, the defenseless man spoke of a woman who 'tricked' him into coming to the island.Next sequence is at a high school. Akira the tall and confident talks to his friend Pon who can't defend himself against his brother. Akira gets challenged by some local bully (and his gang of eight or so) whose sister claims Akira ditched her. Great. High school nonsense that has brutal consequences. Akira wisely runs for it, and manages to get off campus.Rei saves him from the chase, and offers him a challenge of sorts. Also, Rei assures Akira that his brother is alive and well.Akira's parents tell him that the family fortunes are not going well. Akira volunteers to work instead of save for college. They ignore him, wishing only that the older brother Atsushi had not gone missing, wailing and moaning.Akira and his friends try to find Rei. They find vampires instead, and do not do well against them. His older friend Ken gets changed, Yuki gets roughed up, and Akira takes one huge sequence of beatings. Rei appears and turns the tide. She starts explaining Higanjima Island and the vampires there.Akira decides to go to the island; the others are not in favor of it. There are some changes of heart overnight. So a team of gawky teens goes to fight a horde of vampires on an island.They find a village, which seems deserted. The lights come on, soon they are surrounded by vampires, and Rei has vanished on them. This is reminiscent of the opening sequence. Rei has an earnest discussion with Master Miyabi, the leader of the vampires. He is not particularly happy with her, but she is his plaything, and he wants to taste the hate and fear in her blood. The vampires outside start to eat the teen-aged group. The first is Ken, who will be lab rat. The teens get free after one of the vampires drops a key.Yuki, Ken, and Akira find Atsushi, who is not that pleased to see them. Soon they meet up with two other escapees; Pon is not with them. The larger group goes to a safe place to sleep that Atsushi shows them. He does recon; they sleep, mostly. Pon finds them, and starts venting. He has plenty to vent as an omega male. Plus, now he's a vampire. More vampires show up; Atsushi leads them away.Hm, the teens did not find the weapons that they brought, and have not re-equipped themselves. Fighting and fleeing goes on. One of the flying vampires abducts Yuki. Akira handles that stupidly, but Atsushi comes up with a plan for rescuing her. First though, there is a long flashback to where Atsushi first came to the island (pre-vampires); he and his fiancée Ryoko implore her family to bless their union. At a local shrine, Atsushi unwittingly releases Miyabi, who proceeds to kill Ryoko. After that, the small group meets with the local resistance fighters. Meanwhile, Miyabi is concentrating on creating the 'perfect being,' whatever that might be.Nice, we have the setup for a more major battle to come. Atsushi, then Akira, set off alone to rescue Yuki. Rei joins them after a while. The odd vampire 'creations' get dispatched.Most of our heroes go home, but is it really over? (Sequel alert.)------Scores------Cinematography: 7/10 The camera work here reminds me of how stunningly beautiful visuals can be. The aspect is 2.35, which I like a lot, and the quality of the filming is high to go along with this. During rapid motion sequences, jerky camera movements are common. There was a high proportion of dark, low contrast footage toward the last third of the film.Sound: 9/10 On Netflix, this film comes in either Japanese or dubbed in English. One can switch back and forth on the fly. The Japanese sounds a lot better to my ear; the young men sound like young men. In the English dub, they sound like screeching chimps. Also the English dub is fairly poor for lip sync. The incidental music is incredibly loud; have your finger near the volume adjustment. Much of the incidental music is is lush and fine, even if loud. The sounds of the rain are nicely captured.Acting: 6/10 An adventure movie starring teenagers. Oi. The resistance group just seemed to be extras standing around for the most part.Screenplay: w/10 Which vampire rules were in place? The vampires seemed to go about in sunlight with some impunity, and what it took to kill one (destroy one?) seemed unclear. Rei's character was puzzling. It seemed that Miyabi, the teenagers, and the resistance all had sufficient reason to kill her on sight, yet that did not seem to be the case. Interesting juggling, there.SFX: 7/10 The winged vampires were very nicely done. Some of the later appearing monstrous creations were not nearly as impressive.

Doesn't it just annoy you when an at first promising film slowly slips in the wrong direction? This one starts out with a swordsman dressed up heavily in some waterproof clothes taking on an onslaught of vampires whom are wearing old fashioned Japanese attire. We then skip to Japan where we meet a group of friends. It's witty, well shot, the acting is great and there are a lot of unanswered questions; it breaks out like a good action horror movie. It also wouldn't be a stretch to say it carried shades of another well known J-horror, Battle Royale. It has that same camaraderie and wit, with subtle moments of horror, but at the same time being very down to earth. It slowly begins to slip though. The brother of the swordsman is amongst this group that we met, and they all go to find and help him. After much melodrama and annoyingly overacted teen angst, after meeting some strange women whom tells them of a situation involving vampires on her home island, it all begins to get a bit grating as we are hammered with ridiculously over the top nonsense.It was still promising though. It was still fun. Then we get to the island. Every bit of wit and good dark horror seemed to have been swapped in favour of pure overkill in the melodrama and overkill in trying to build the characters in particular of the main vampire. It's what I call too much talk not enough action; anyone who has seen some of the modern shounen anime such as Bleach will understand. Big bad guy is insurmountable. Big bad guy has 300 attempts to wipe out our protagonists. Big bad guy spends those 300 spots fitting in his little quips, going on about something to do with why he's so special, and how he's unbeatable. Put that together with the fact that the main vampire is the most androgynous and strangely attired bad guy I've ever seen, and put together all of these overkilled overly melodramatic moments, and its momentum slowly dripped away. Still good mindless fun, but it could, and should have been more.