X-CROSS is a weird little Japanese action flick, clearly shot on a low budget. It makes up for the deficiency of the budget by injecting a whole lot of wacky craziness and enthusiasm for the subject matter, in much the same way as a film like VERSUS, although it's a far cry from that sort of material.The problem with X-CROSS is the story, which feels dragged-out and long-winded. There's not a great deal of plot once the initial premise is out of the way: a couple of girls travel to a remote village to partake in the hot springs there as a means of spiritual refreshment and relaxation. Unfortunately, the village just so happens to be home to a murderous cult. Who can they trust and will they escape?Basically, this is one long chase movie, shot in the dark and with typical Japanese weirdness. Some of the plot elements are a lot of fun, like the crazy girl with the giant pair of scissors who seems intent on slaughtering our heroines, but other elements, like all of the mobile phone mystery sub-plots, are overdone and drag out a bit. The execution is also only so-so - on the strength of this and BATTLE ROYALE 2, director Kenta Fukasaku is no match for the talents of his superior father.

"X-Cross" sort of surprised me, as I had assumed it would be another one of those countless gory splatter movies that have made it out of Japan in the recent years. However, "X-Cross" was far from it. It was actually a really great suspense/horror movie.The story is about Shiyori (played by Nao Matsushita) and Aiko (played by Ami Suzuki) who travel to hot springs located at a very remote village. But things are not all as they seem; not in the village, not with the people, not with the friendship. Shiyori and Aiko find themselves stranded in a remote village with no one but themselves to trust, or can they?I found the story to be really great because it builds up the suspense so nicely, letting the story brood and seep in, then flash back and show you other sides of occurring events. Now that was a thing I thoroughly enjoyed about the movie, it was so nicely done, and it really unravelled my theories by shedding new light on situations that I just saw in the movie. And the plot kept shifting, so it was not possible to predict what was happening or what was going to happen. The ending of the movie, well that was really bad, in my opinion. I didn't care for that ending at all. Actually the entire movie was great, but the last 20 to 30 minutes was sort of fighting an uphill battle, the movie started slipping during that time and becoming anti-climatic and just downright stupid.The people they had cast for the various roles in "X-Cross" were actually doing good jobs with their given roles, and the characters were really fleshed out as believable and realistic. Well, what happened to Reiko was just a bit too much, it was so over the top that it stopped being realistic."X-Cross" has a really good mood to it, the environment was well used, and you sit with a sensation of being trapped and isolated out in the woods, so they managed to capture the right setting for the movie.So looking away from the last 20 to 30 minutes of the movie, then I found "X-Cross" to be a really nice movie, and it was nicely build up leaving you guessing as to whom did what and who can be trusted, then only to completely unravel your theories as you are given new bits and pieces of information.The IMDb genres labeled to this movie are action, adventure and comedy. That kind of makes me wonder, because I didn't find the movie to be that at all.

This movie is more of a action-comedy than horror. In fact, it's only scary for the first 10 minutes, then it turns into this action-packed survival game so outrageous that it made me laugh through the movie.The plot is simple, a girl takes a female friend to a hot-spring resort to cheer her up from a breakup. It turns out to be the village of a cult-like tribe with a ritual that involves chopping off young women's legs. They also encounter a psycho Lolita woman seeking revenge for losing her boyfriend.This movie is not meant to be taken seriously. The setting of this film is ridiculously unrealistic, but the sequence of events is uncovered and explained very well. If you look past the unlikeliness of the original setting, this movie's plot makes sense and there were no major plot holes other than Suzuki Ami's character being abnormally strong and villagers abnormally weak (but I guess that's intentionally done for comedy).Suzuki Ami's action sequence against "the scissors girl" Reika was really exciting and cool. It really hit the spot for a huge Suzuki Ami fan like me. Matsushita Nao's acting has been extremely corny in every movie and TV dramas I've seen until now, but she seemed surprisingly natural and fit the role very well. She may have a hidden talent as a horror actress.As a action-comedy film, this movie is really well made. Action/CG/SFX were all quite nice, and it was a really exciting suspense movie. Sit back, don't think, and enjoy the ride.

I watched this movie as a part of the "Focus Asia Nights" Film festival weekend in Stuttgart in autumn 2007. And although you kinda can tell that this will be over the top (Horror/comedy), I never felt that it hit the right notes. Not that it was completely bad (turkey), but it just missed out on a few things ... not to mention the craziest plot changes and "surprises" up til the end.On the other side, it had some great (funny) ideas, that worked. Sometimes as a running gag, sometimes just one good laugh or action scene. But while the movie couldn't decide which direction it'll take (action, Horror, Comedy), you might get bored a little (especially if you get to see things that happened twice)! The plot is so crazy that it really wouldn't be a spoiler to say anything about it (it's not about the plot anyway), but I'll leave you with a word of advice: Don't watch the movie, if you're not prepared for something completely "different"