The Booth (2005)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Scary movies are supposed to be scary. This one is not. A scary movie, or any movie, is supposed to make sense. This one does not. This movie is a confused cluster of almost random images, assorted flashbacks, and a guy staring and staring and staring into the camera. The ending seems to have absolutely nothing to do with any of the rest of the movie. I'm not even sure who was alive and who was dead. Why would anyone make a movie like this? Was it supposed to be artistic? It was just painfully boring and awful.

Viewed on DVD. Subtitles = ten (10) stars; restoration = ten (10) stars. Director Yoshihiro Nakamura delivers a remarkably suspenseful drama which is mostly confined to a single, tiny set (a long abandoned NHK radio studio). (How Director Nakamura crammed actors, equipment, and crew into such a tiny set is logistically mind bogging.) What makes things even more remarkable is that the film is in effect a two character story. Actor Ryuta Sato's masterful performance shows the disintegration of a once cocky late-night, call-in host (of a show for the teenage lovelorn) during what unexpectedly ends up as the final show. An old radio studio (into which the show has just moved temporally) has a reputation for being creepy and, perhaps, is haunted (years ago, a DJ committed suicide during a show which closed down the place); this is, of course, reinforced by the plot devices in this photo play. Actress Maiko Asano provides a scary counterpoint with a performance (especially her facial expressions) that is top-of-the-line Hitchcockian sinister. Cinematography (wide screen, color) and scene lighting are fine. Subtitles are among the best yet provided in support of a "standard Japanese" (Tokyo-Ben) dialect movie! Translations have been given careful consideration unlike the subtitles for many modern/restored Japanese films which often look/read like low-cost after thoughts. Grammatically well edited compared to line readings, they are just the right length to carry the story forward with minimal distraction and appear on screen long enough to be easily read/understood (and compared to line readings). A movie not recommended for viewing alone, especially at night! WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.

Well, God and my friends sure know I had my share of bad Asian horrors, so thank you for delivering this little gem. It looks small but the potential is explored as much as its budget allowed it to.Very few places used in this movie, either they had a lack of finances or maybe they just wanted to keep it small, so it can feel more personal, helping the viewer to connect more with the main character. Did it work? I think it was a direct hit! No point in saying too much about it, cause I fear I may reveal important details in it, thus I will do nothing more than recommend this one. It works as a horror, has some nice humorous lines in it and that good ol' twist at the end! So don't read too much into it, watch it and thank me later.Cheers!

"The Booth" is a riveting character thriller informed by a convincing realism and familiarity It's totally focused on a broadcast booth, a radio talk show star, and female retribution. The Nippon Broadcasting Co.'s studio 6 sets the scene. A veteran late night talk show host receives a call from a woman suicide partner whom in thirty years has never grieved for. The phone and the lines start to sear with disruptions, he gets guilt/ghost stricken by her voice, feels trapped in his booth, and hangs himself. Many years later a popular radio host for Tokyo LoveLine is forced by circumstance to do his show from that same closed down studio. Shoto is all the rave with the late night lonelies, especially with the women listeners. He's totally in control, holds his audience in his hands, and can effectively run the emotional gamut a show like this requires. He's a potent mix of expressive personality, manipulativeness, insensitivity, gratuitous sympathy, and showmanship. Despite his womanizing (on the air, but mostly in flash backs) women adore and trust him. We are in Shoto's shoes, as his image fills the screen for the duration. We ride his highs and squirm with his lows. But the highs are at best very intermittent because Shoto is suddenly faced with a similar predicament to his suicide predecessor in Studio 6. Except this is the extended circuit, the prime feature in full color. The booth quickly becomes claustrophobic as line interruptions and voices start to disrupt his advice conversations with jilted lovers. The voice "you are a liar" begins to distract him to such an extent that he cannot focus on the actual conversation, and his fright state makes hearing impossible. His trusted assistant can only do so much to help him answer his angry callers who accuse him of being a bad listener and out of control.The great communicator is caught naked--he cannot communicate and fakes his way through to music breaks. He grows more and more distraught as the booth seems to be conspiring against him, He feels more and more crampt, and desperate losing all scope, and all fellowship with his technical staff. Is he up against the ghost of a woman he has abused and perhaps left for dead, her actual self, an office staff conspiracy to bring him down, or plain guilt? What we do know is that crimes against women possess these two love experts to the point that these harmed women inhabit them and demand their own justice. By what medium this is done is not important. What does matter is that these betrayers of women can no longer live with their hypocrisy, their crime, their guilt. And that their huge public gets the message. The key strength of "The Booth" is that in never abandons reality for fantasy. The dead indeed may have awakened, but in a way that no viewer can doubt. Thirty years of stoical waiting in a grave, or several hours afloat in the vast sea, that impact can arise out of nothingness is never in question. If the two women have been given the power of lovers, so can they possess the power of judge. The booth itself is proof of that. (grade 7+)