Chaos (2000) User Reviews (15)

Enjoyable, if inscrutable

[BrandtSponseller · 7/10 · 9 July 2005]

I can easily see my rating for director Hideo Nakata's Chaos (aka Kaosu) going up on subsequent viewings--if I can ever figure out the plot. I doubt anyone has ever accused Japanese genre directors of being overly transparent, but usually Nakata is not quite this inscrutable.

It's not that Chaos makes no sense. With just a little bit of puzzle sorting, most viewers should be able to piece together the basics. And the gist of the plot is quite good, told with a lot of style by Nakata--after Dark Water (aka Honogurai mizu no soko kara, 2002) Chaos may just be his best film visually. But there are many plot details that most viewers will not be able to figure out on a first viewing, and given the somewhat rushed ending and extremely puzzling dénouement, it's difficult for me to award more than a 7, or a "C", after seeing Chaos only once.

At the very least, potential viewers should be forewarned that they're likely to leave the film scratching their heads in wonder. Chaos may be less than satisfactory to you if you do not plan on watching the film multiple times and reading a lot of analysis online.

For those who haven't seen the film yet, it's probably better to not give out too many details --to an extent, the effectiveness depends on figuring out what's going on, mystery style, so I'll try to keep my usual synopsis relatively vague/incomplete. As presented on the surface in the first few scenes, the story involves a bank executive, Komiyama (Ken Mitsuishi), and his wife, Saori (Miki Nakatani). They're having lunch together. Komiyama goes to pay their bill as Saori heads outside. As we learn later, Komiyama didn't see his wife when he went outside, but didn't think it odd enough to be alarmed. While he's at work however, a man whom we shortly learn is named Kuroda (Masato Hagiwara) has kidnapped his wife and is demanding 30 million yen as ransom. There are other odd complications--Kuroda contacts Satomi's sister, for instance--and eventually there are many twists.

"As presented on the surface" above might suggest to some viewers that there is some heavy rubber reality stuff happening here. That's not the case. Rather, Chaos is a Tarantinoesque thriller, complete with the complicated double-crossing and fractured timeline that you'd expect from a heavily Tarantino-influenced film. The principal female character also seems pretty crazy at times, but it's not clear how far we're meant to take that.

The timeline of Chaos is, well, chaotic to say the least. That's one of the aspects that make it so difficult. About 75% of the film seems to be presented backwards. Here, we see sequence E, which is followed by sequence D explaining how we got to sequence E, then sequence C and so on. Except that there are a few sequence F's and G's thrown in to ensure that the plot isn't too easy to figure out--as it might be if we could discern a simple pattern.

Surprisingly, maybe, a lot of this temporal mishmash begins to fall into place about two-thirds of the way into the film. At least if we overlook a few scenes. It may not help that some characters look very similar to one another--in fact, I believe that two are played by the same actress, Vertigo (1958)-style (I can't read the Japanese credits to check)--but this has to be the case, because as in Vertigo, it is one of the hinges of the plot. In any event, the "infinite regression of justifications and motivations" timeline is a very interesting idea, even if this isn't a perfect realization of it.

Vertigo may be a more concrete reference that you'd think. Next to the Tarantino influence, Nakata is more in a Hitchcock mode here than his standard horror/thriller mode. Nakata even manages to produce just about the most creative reference I've seen to the Psycho (1960) shower sequence (right after a character walks up a stairway carrying a red umbrella, for those who have seen the film). I suppose that if Hitchcock were a Japanese genre director working around the turn of the 21st Century, this is something like what he'd produce.

Although the usual Nakata horror material is mostly absent, other elements of his style are here in full force, such as the regular appearance of water in various guises. I'm not sure what water symbolizes to him, but he tends to film it as effectively mysterious, permeating and shaping the world, while his characters often overlook it (Dark Water in contrast marks the instant when Nakata's characters must come face to face with the force). A very intriguing book on Nakata's water symbolism could be written, but we should probably wait until he has a larger body of work behind him.

Another Japanese director who has employed a lot of water symbolism is Shinya Tsukamoto. Like that director's A Snake of June (aka Rokugatsu no hebi, 2002), Chaos has elements of an erotic thriller, and like Tsukamoto, the eroticism tends to be twisted/depraved here, although it is a more minor feature.

The cinematography in Chaos is often subtle and symbolic. The colors are rich and varied. Nakata makes great use of shadows and very careful placement of background elements, both human and inanimate. Equally sublime, although underused, is the score, especially the spacey, percussion-heavy material, which is somewhere between Pink Floyd and the Goblin score for Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977).

If only I could figure out the plot better.

Quite good, though you REALLY have to pay attention....

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 25 September 2013]

The other reviews are quite right--"Chaos" is a very confusing film that might necessitate a second viewing to understand all the plot twists. This confusion is deliberate and the film is OFTEN out of sequence--further muddying the plot. It also has MANY similarities to great suspense films like Cluzot's "Les Diaboliques" and Hitchcock's "Vertigo".

The film begins with a man getting a phone call from a man announcing that he's just kidnapped his wife--and to get her back he must give him 30,000,000 yen (about $300,000 American). The husband goes to the police and you assume that he'll either get the wife back or the kidnapper will kill her. However, NOTHING happens...no word...nothing. Now there is a TON of stuff that follows--but I don't really want to say more as it will spoil the film. Suffice to say, that what you've seen so far isn't exactly what's really happening...and to truly understand, you'll need to keep watching and keep paying close attention.

I like movies that make me think and offer twists. Although the twists are familiar (hence my mentioning the two movies above), the film is done very well. The only reason I don't score the film higher is that the very last scene in the film really made little sense and was not particularly satisfying. Still, it's well worth your time.

Deliciously twisty tale

[anhedonia · 7/10 · 6 October 2004]

Japanese horrormeister Hideo Nakata took a break from his genre of choice to make this twisty, occasionally twisted, and highly effective thriller.

"Chaos" starts off seemingly with a nod to "High and Low" (1963) - an industrialist dealing with a kidnapping - but soon you realize this film worries not about complex moral ambiguities. Instead, "Chaos" has more in common with American film noir from the 1940s and '50s than anything by Kurosawa. Director Nakata and writer Hisashi Saito (adapting a novel by Shogo Utano) also adopt a Hitchcockian feel, borrowing rather generously from "Vertigo" (1958).

"Chaos" owes more to film noir in story than in style. We have the hoodwinked sap, manipulative femme fatale and rich husband, who might harbor his own secret. The performances are uniformly good, especially Miki Nakatani as the object of desire who knows exactly how to play the men in her life and does it to perfection.

This is a well-done, deceptive thriller that relies on a tightly wound plot to keep us guessing. What's gratifying is the characters seem to be on the verge of erupting into violence. There's always that sense of dread; we never know when something or someone will turn deadly. The film is smartly plotted, though there's one glaring plot point - involving the husband's sister - that isn't satisfactorily answered. In fact, I'm not quite sure why it was included.

But "Chaos" remains an intriguing film. To deceive us for as long as possible, because nothing is what it seems in this film, Nakata unravels his mystery in nonlinear fashion, never telling us when flashbacks are about to happen. Although this might confuse some viewers (though it shouldn't), the nonlinear structure isn't merely a gimmick. It works perfectly and, frankly, there's no other way this story could have been told as effectively. "Chaos" trusts its audience to keep up with the twists and turns - and there are many - and how refreshing that is.

Of course, because "Chaos" was a successful Japanese film and remaking newer Asian films is the rage in Hollywood, director Jonathan Glazer is remaking "Chaos," in the footsteps of two other remakes of Nakata films - "Ringu" (1998) and "Dark Water" (2002), which will be at your local multiplex early next year starring Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly and John C. Reilly. Although no official announcement has been made, it's perfectly clear Hollywood studios are now utterly devoid of original ideas and stories. Robert De Niro is to star in the "Chaos" remake, and as brilliant an actor as he is (though he has been phoning it in the last few years), I can't see how Glazer could possibly improve on the original.

Memorable

[smitchell-1 · 7/10 · 26 June 2003]

This is an enjoyable puzzle of a movie by Hideo Nakata, the director of Ringu. What starts out as a simple kidnapping soon becomes a complex story told in a cut-up narrative style that can be hard to follow if you're not paying attention. Through the twists and turns you're given answers, and then more questions until everything is resolved, sort of. If you enjoy well-crafted, sophisticated films in the tradition of Hitchcock or Lynch I think you will enjoy this.

A slow-moving, but innovative thriller.

[BA_Harrison · 7/10 · 2 February 2007]

Hideo Nakata, director of RINGU (1988), followed up his spooky international hit with this complex and compelling thriller in which a beautiful woman hires a handyman to kidnap her, with the hope of winning back her cheating husband's attention. But things soon begin to go awry when the amateur-kidnapper-for-hire returns to his hideout to find the 'captive' woman dead, and then receives a mysterious phone call instructing him to dispose of the body.

As the film gradually unfolds, we learn, via the use of various interesting storytelling techniques, that there is much more to his predicament than at first meets the eye.

With a choppy non-linear narrative that requires full attention from the viewer, Chaos is definitely not an easy film to follow (particular if you choose to watch with subtitles), but those who do make the effort to keep track of events will be rewarded with an effective and inventive slow-burner. With more twists and turns than a python doing the samba, this movie constantly surprises, and only a rather abrupt ending stops the film from being a truly 'great' experience.

If you're a not a fan of Nakata's supernatural work, don't let that put you off from seeing this intriguing movie; a different kettle of fish altogether, Chaos is well worth giving a go.

Give me human monsters any day

[jandesimpson · 12 October 2006]

Having tried the two "Ring" films and "Dark Water", I had all but given up on the Japanese horror director, Hideo Nakata. The problem for me is that ("It's a Wonderful Life", "Portrait of Jenny" and the marvellous Japanese "After Life" excepted) I find the paranormal in cinema something of a turn-off. True, these examples are humanist not horror films but even quite respectable ghost stories such as "Blithe Spirit" and "The Ghost and Mrs Muir" don't exactly grab me. I suppose the "Monihara" segment of Satyajit Ray's "Teen Kanya" is the one great piece of supernatural horror cinema I know although one must never forget all those versions of "Hamlet" and Macbeth". If there are monsters out there trying to do unthinkable things to other people then I would prefer them to be human for the simple reason that their very believability makes them ten times more chilling than dreamt up phantoms. Imagine my delight therefore when I discovered an engrossing piece of Grand Guignol by Nakata, his "Chaos" of 1999. From comments and reviews there appear to be several that find the plot complicated to the point of incomprehensibility. I would caution patience as it is a work that needs to be seen several times to be fully understood. When one eventually gets there (for me on a third viewing) the rewards are enormous. Everything fits together in a most diabolically clever way. To give even an inch of the plot away could reduce the pleasure of untangling it. Suffice to say that there are echoes here of "Les Diaboliques" and "Vertigo". By placing "Chaos" on this high level I could not praise it more.

Intriguing but not taxing thriller about kidnapping, deceit and fear...

[joebloggscity · 7/10 · 18 December 2005]

After the huge success in recent years of the Ring movies and Dark Water, i was looking forward to watch this movie as I've become a big fan of those aforementioned films. Chaos though is not a horror, and is instead a taut thriller surrounding a kidnapping of a women by a young man which is not what it seems (which is what the "Chaos" title is referring to).

As expected from the director, as per his other movies, the direction and camera work is excellent, and the female lead is the main gist of the movie, haunting the viewer and being the centre-point of the action. The female lead is excellent but is well complimented by her male colleagues in the film.

The main drawback is though that the script simply is not as intriguing as the filmmakers believe it is, and to be quite honest, it can be very predictable. Twists and turns keep your attention, and you will enjoy it, but i find the movie was a lost opportunity for something stronger. It is not a disappointment, but the director here has produced something below his high standards.

Overall, a fair thriller which most will enjoy, just don't expect something to keep you thinking and talking for days on end like some of his other films.

A convoluted mess

[=G= · 6/10 · 5 October 2003]

"Chaos" begins as story of a handyman and a married woman who conspire to extort money from the woman's husband by faking her kidnapping. But when the woman is murdered, the story begins a series of twists and becomes a cinematic pretzel. What is a stylish shoot with competence on both sides of the lens eventually sinks into a quagmire of convolution full unnecessary complications such as the Memento-like show-the-past-first incremental flow with important bits of information kept from the audience as a cheap ploy to create intrigue and mystery. The result is a movie which is likely to lose those who are busily reading subtitles which has a scant human story as it is too busy trying to untwist itself. Finally, this is not a thriller but a mystery. And the biggest mystery seems to be, why should we care? A B-flick for Japanese movie buffs only. (C+)

Hideo Nakata's twisted murder mystery

[Captain_Couth · 9/10 · 25 January 2005]

Chaos (1999) was an nice follow up to Ringu. This film's a nice change of pace. One day a rich man and his wife are eating lunch. She decides to step out to get some fresh air, hubby goes outside to meet her and she's gone! Befuddled, Hubby tries to call the police but is contacted by the kidnapper. During this time we're introduced to a divorced handy man. He meets a young lady who offers him some money if she does a job for him. He wants him to kidnap her. What seems like easy money gets this guy into a situation that's way over his head.

This film would have made Hitchcock pleased. It's filled with a lot of plot twists, betrayals and confusion. The direction by Nakata is excellent, he creates a sense of chaos that's extremely effective. If you like movies that spoon feed you information then this is not for you. However if you're a fan of mystery thrillers, you'll eat this one up.

Highly recommended.

We're 'way ahead of you (spoiler)

[galensaysyes · 6/10 · 2 October 2003]

Okay but routine, and a disappointment after the "Ring" films. The one good thing in it, I thought, and the only element that the director is able to imbue with the subtly, slowly unnerving quality in which he specializes, is the character of the woman, who is very well played by the same actress who appeared in the "Ring films and whose character in them was so innocuous, he may have given her this one by way of compensation. The character is much like the equivalent character in "Audition," in taking the traditional picture of the sweet and submissive Japanese woman and showing something perverse and scary behind it. In this film there's even a hint at the end she might be supernatural. But in "Audition" the story is constructed straightforwardly, so that you see the man drawn in one stage at a time and getting more than he bargained for. Here the story is built around a series of supposed surprises, which prevents the story of the man--two men, really--from being developed according to its own logic. You're tipped off almost at once that there's something not right about the woman, and the development is convoluted, with flashbacks you aren't tipped off to until you're already into them, so you have to keep working out some of the dramatic points yourself. With all the convolutions and reversals, however, the story is not very suspenseful. I think there are at least two reasons. One is that the director can't give most of it the eerie quality he gives his ghost stories because that would be at odds with what's going on; the events that dismay the men are supposed to come out of nowhere. But the other and principal reason is that if you've seen many movies of this kind you can more or less predict what's coming, in outline if not in specifics. When after fifteen minutes you see the victim bound and gagged, with suggestions of perversity, though you haven't seen the kidnapping...when after a half hour you see the hero (for want of a better term) burying the body in great detail, then returning to his affairs, and then see him taking a drive about town for no special reason...do you need a road map? Then, inevitably, this is one of those diabolical-plot mysteries in which the plot turns out to be harder to swallow than if the explanation had been supernatural, e.g. if it's vital that your activities not be seen or heard, you don't conduct them in a third-floor apartment. Good director, wrong material.

Chaos Theory.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 10/10 · 1 September 2019]

Going to Manchester recently to catch up with a friend, I visited the local CEX whilst they were stuck in traffic. Looking down the rows of DVD's/Blu's filled with the typical titles, this one stood completely out. On the train back home later that night, I started looking forward to seeing chaos unleashed.

View on the film:

Controlling the chaos with rain bookending the film, (a recurring motif across his credits) directing auteur Hideo Nakata brings the stilted silent dread of Horror into this twist towards psychological Thriller/Neo-Noir, stringing the long black hair chills out with cinematographer Tokusho Kikumura, down winding tracking shots and unsettlingly long takes wide-shots held on the palpable fear of another twist bending in the kidnapping plan.

Backed by the primal rage of tribal drums from his regular composer Kenji Kawai, Nakata weaves a measured atmosphere to tightening the knots, patting the blues and yellows during the murky dealings down to dust, blemished with smacks of red when the kidnapping goes off the rails, sealed in startling close-ups aimed at when a new element to the tale is revealed.

Leaving the dining table with Saori in the opening,Hisashi Saito's adaptation of Shogo Utano's novel Sarawaretai Onna/The Woman Who Wants to Be Kidnapped pays immaculate attention to the layering of the dialogue brewing psychological anxiety over Saori's kidnapping being not what it appears, thanks to Saito bringing an importance to the dialogue in turning the screws on the image Saori,her husband, kidnapper Kuroda and model Satomi makes people believe is their true selves.

Placing paths coming together between Kuroda/ Saori's husband Komiyama and model Satomi on a high level of pure chance, Saito impressively makes this work with a thrilling dovetail deconstruction, via first playing out Saori's kidnapping straight, then folding each corner to the power-playing being twisted under the skin.

Reuniting with Nakata after Ringu, Miki Nakatani gives a utterly mesmerising dual performance as Saori/ Satomi, burning with a refined, Femme Fatale seductiveness as Saori, paired up to a seeping into knife-edge madness Satomi, who holds Komiyama and Kuroda's gaze as a almost mirage presence to their desires. Finding himself thrown into the middle of mind-games, Masato Hagiwara gives a great turn as kidnapper Kuroda,who Hagiwara has firmly attempt to do everything by the book, but becomes increasingly tied to the chaos.

Extremely complex, but highly rewarding thriller.

[Pedro-37 · 8/10 · 2 March 2002]

Hideo Nakatas "Kaosu" reminded me of "Memento". I've seen "Memento" way before American audiences saw it and have found zero reviews on the net (which sometimes is the best thing that can happen). I was stunned by "Memento" the second I found out that the whole thing runs backwards. "Kaosu" had a similar moment. After ca. 3 sequences, I realized that this movie is not built chronologically. It's not backwards but its scenes are arranged in a complex way - sort of like "Pulp Fiction" but without any marks that a new chapter/time frame starts or ends.

This construction is sometimes a little bit too confusing and I found myself rewinding the DVD two times to refresh a previous sequence. But after a while, you start figuring out what's going on. Only to find your whole idea thrown over again and again. In the end, it all makes sense. I went back to the first sequence and remembered the problem Komiyama had with his hand. Yes it all makes sense and is a very rewarding challenge of your mind.

However, there's a problem with the ending. Again. Many recent Asian movies had bad endings - I particularly hate the endings of "Tell Me Something" and "Cure" (both movies are fantastic until the terrible ending). Fans of Asian cinema always try to defend these bad endings by saying it's un-Hollywood, it's mind-bending, it's unconventional. Yes, but it also doesn't make zero sense and even though you find yourself reflecting the ending, it finally only leaves you frustrated. It's not that bad with "Kaosu". However, the ending is anticlimactic. It's not that it doesn't make sense like in the movies I've just mentioned, it just isn't satisfactory.

Still, it's a worthy movie experience and I recommend it to fans of thrillers and Asian movies in general. Another success for the director of the brilliant "Ringu".

Rating: 8/10 (being a bit generous)

delicious

[eileenmchenry · 8/10 · 29 March 2004]

If you liked "The Lion In Winter," "Blood Simple" and "Memento," I can recommend this one highly. It's an incredibly contorted mystery story full of doubles-crosses and stabbings-in-the-back -- the kind of movie that leaves you so bollixed up that until almost the final frame, you are asking what's happened to whom and why, and if any of it is even real. The kidnapping and killing may or may not have happened, and the reasons gets less and less clear as time goes on. At the very end they pull it all together so you finally get what really happened -- WITHOUT resorting to having a character sit down and explain it to you. It may well be that the viewer understands more of what's going on than any of the characters in the story. My only complaint is that the pace is just a leetle slow for my taste -- it gave me a few hair-tearing moments of "Dear Cod, are they ever going to finally explain what's going on here?" I found it very satisfying, and was not sorry I stayed up late to see the end.

Daylit Thriller

[frankgaipa · 6 October 2002]

A daylit thriller, thankfully free of the director's supernatural hobbyhorse. Time distortions wrought by Rashomon-like new-perspective replays. A pair of women so alike I'm still not sure(and neither the Korean DVD box nor IMDb's listings help much)whether both are played by the same actress. Each woman sometime masquerading as the other or maybe. A credibly working class(the slightly squinty face a doppelganger for that of a coworker I played chess against a dozen or two times)sometime protagonist used by and using higher-class opponents. The woman, or women, changing class with hair tie and wardrobe.

Touchpoints? "High and Low." "That Obscure Object of Desire."

A brilliant, complex, twisted mystery-thriller.

[Achyut_Prashast_Singh · 10/10 · 25 November 2023]

This film is aptly titled "Chaos". Because after a certain point of time, you will find yourself in a chaotic, confused state of mind, all because this film doesn't spoon-feed at all. You will need to think a lot in order to understand it. I wrote the same in the review of its brilliant Indian remake Woodstock Villa (2008), which is not better than the original but has a better ending for sure.

Chaos progresses at a good pace, and I was in fact shocked how short it felt. The first half was easy to understand, but the second one began to make think because of the nonlinear storytelling and twists. Even for a film which is obviously not made on a huge budget, Chaos makes sure you focus on the plot instead. I wasn't able to move till the end.

Chaos boasts of some great performances, especially from the leading lady. This is a very thrilling film with the kind of intrigue and tension you expect from a good thriller. There are almost no unnecessary scenes to slow down the pacing, and the film delivers one great twist after another before arriving at a complex ending.

Not many will appreciate the way it ends, but I saw it as a symbol for the human mind's complexity. You don't need to understand everything. Keep that in mind, and Chaos will turn out to be a clever watch.