EXTE: Hair Extensions Movie Review

Country:
Japan

Director:

Sion Sono (Strange Circus, Suicide Club, Noriko's Dinner Table)

Starring:

Chiaki Kuriyama (Kill Bill Vol. 1, Battle Royale, Ju-On, MAIL, Great Yokai War) as Yuko Mizushima

Ren Osugi (Audition, Uzumaki, Nightmare Detective, Zebraman) as Gunji Yamazaki

Megumi Sato (Death Note: L Change The World) as Yuki Morita

Miku Sato as Mami Mizushima

First off, welcome to my Asian Horror Review blog. Here, I'll be reviewing the best, and the worst, of all the asian horror I own on DVD (or Blu Ray).  To start things off, I'll be reviewing a movie that a few people on my facebook have actually been requesting me to do; so without further a due, let's begin talking about the movie Exte: Hair Extensions.

Exte begins with two customs agents walking on a shipping dock, making idle conversation. When they approach one of their co-workers, he tells them there's a very nasty stench coming from one of the many boxes sitting on the dock. As they open it, they find the box is full of human hair used for Hair Extensions; then, they discover the body of a young, bald girl. Thus, the story begins.

Pictured above: The customs agents find the body.

They take the body to a morgue to have an autopsy done, but they discover all of the young girl's vital organs have been replaced with vast amounts of human hair. Believing her to be the victim of organ trade on the black market, they leave her autopsy at that.

After the officers and the morgue employee leave, we are further introduced to the character of Gunji Yamazaki, a night man at the morgue with an extreme hair fetish (seriously, his fetish is extreme to the EXTREME). As he was observing the autopsy of the young girl, he becomes...'excited' by the amount of hair that came from inside of her body. When he is finally alone, he takes the bag her body is in, and opens it. Becoming extremely fascinated with her body already growing hair on her head, he takes her body home with him.

Pictured above: Yamazaki staring awestruck at the hair the body grows.

We leave the current setting to a brand new one. We now see the story's main character, Yuko Mizushima, an aspiring hair stylist; as well as her roommate, Yuki Morita, a kind of...hip hop-ish dancer. From here, we are introduced to Yuko's life (which she oddly narrates through the whole beginning credits), and learn she works at a local hair salon called Les Gilles de Ris (if I remember correctly). From here, it just seems to be a normal day in her life.

However, after work, Yuko returns home to find that her niece, Mami, has been left at her house by her irresponsible (and slightly...'premiscuous') older sister, Kiyomi. Yuko fights with her sister over the phone about Kiyomi leaving her daughter there, which wakes Mami up. Mami apologizes for her 'being a nuisance' I guess you could say, and sympathetically, Yuko lets Mami stay until Kiyomi can pick her up the next day.

Pictured above: Yuko (Chiaki Kuriyama) and Mami (Miku Sato).

The next morning, however, as Yuko goes to wake up Mami, she discovers bruises all over the young girl's body, and discover her older sister is abusing Mami. Not standing for the thought of Kiyomi abusing such a little child, Yuko confronts her sister about it when she comes to pick Mami up. From here, we see a custody battle ensue between the abusive Kiyomi, and the sympathetic Yuko.

We go from here, back to Yamazaki and the body of the young girl. He becomes ever more excited that the hair is growing; but as it is growing to the point of covering his entire home, he decides to sell some of it to local hair salons for extra money. But, it becomes apparent something evil is at work when the first place he sells extensions to, two people are found dead. Though this excites Yamazaki more, and he begins spreading the extensions around, even selling them to the salon that Yuko works at. Throughout the film, the mysteries become what happened to this young, bald girl? And what part do the extensions play in people's deaths?

Pictured above: The young girl's body spewing its hair.

This film sounds silly, I know. It's like "Killer extensions? Seriously?" But you know what? This movie is actually VERY good. Sion Sono is a pure genius, and I truly respect how he can do SO much with his movies with such little effort (he's also one of my favorite directors so of course I'll say good things.)

The acting in this film is superb. Chiaki Kuriyama does an EXCELLENT job, as always. Ren Osugi really did a good job playing the character of the crazed Yamazaki; upon seeing his performance, I truly believed he himself had the hair fetish. The cast and crew did a wonderful job in showing the extent of Yamazaki's fetish; stuffing his couch full of hair, covering the interior of his car with hair, the strange outfit with hair tassles...It's all quite interesting. And I must say, it was really cool seeing Megumi Sato in a scarier film than L Change The World, and I think she did a wonderful job portraying Yuki.

There are some down sides though. The ending really was...out there (though it IS Sion Sono film after all.) Some people absolutely hate it, some (like me) just kind of laughed it off and dealt with it. So yeah, the ending wasn't the best, but everything else up until that point is very good.

This movie is NOT very gorey. I really only recall about...three? Maybe four scenes with some blood in it. So if you're like me, and respect a movie more for it's plot and mystery, then you'll love it. However you gore hounds will probably be a wee bit disappointed.

As special effects go, most of the scenes are pretty good. There are SOME scenes where it's just kind of "eh", but still pretty decent I guess. If you're one of those "special effects snobs", you may find something to complain about. But if you're anything like I am, who honestly just doesn't care as long as the story is good, you won't think it's too bad.

The DVD release was brought over by TokyoShock. There's a regular version of the movie on DVD, but there's also a special 2 disc collectors edition, which is the one I own. I'm not sure about the regular version (seeing as I don't own it), but on the 2 disc edition, they did a pretty decent job with special features, in my opinion. If you get the 2 disc edition, you get:

-Behind the scenes featurette

-Deleted Scenes

-Music Video

-Theaterical Trailer

-TV spots
There's also an English dub, for those of you who prefer the dubs. I ususally prefer watching the Japanese voice track with English subtitles, seems a lot better that way. But, for those of you who like it, it's there.

All in all, I'd give this film about a 7/10. I mean It's not exactly the BEST Sion Sono film, but it's definitely up there. I'd say if you're first getting into the asian horror genre, start out with the regular stuff (Ju-On, Ringu, Shutter, Dark Water, Whispering Corridors, etc.) first so you get kind of a feel for it. But fans of Sion Sono will definitely love this film, cause I know I did.

Thanks for reading my review of Exte: Hair Extensions. If you have ANY asian horror movie's you'd like reviewed, let me know; I have over 65 films so, chances are I own what you request ^.^;.

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