Exte: Hair Extensions - Special Edition (2-Disc Set) (US Version) DVD Region 1
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YesAsia Editorial Description
EXTE begins in bloody, unsettling fashion with the discovery of the body of a young girl whose organs have been harvested and head shaven. The corpse ends up in the hands of morgue watchman and hair fetishist Yamazaki (Osugi Ren), who excitedly discovers that the girl's hair is still growing. He uses her long and silky hair to make extensions, which he sells to customers who invariably turn up dead, strangled by their own hair. When Yamazaki meets flighty aspiring hairstylist Yuko (Kuriyama Chiaki), he immediately becomes mesmerized by her beautiful hair, and presents her with a gift of hair extensions.
Technical Information
| Product Title: | Exte: Hair Extensions - Special Edition (2-Disc Set) (US Version) Exte: Hair Extensions - Special Edition (2-Disc Set) (US Version) Exte: Hair Extensions - Special Edition (2-Disc Set) (US Version) Exte: Hair Extensions - Special Edition (2-Disc Set) (US Version) Exte: Hair Extensions - Special Edition (2-Disc Set) (US Version) |
| Artist Name(s): | Kuriyama Chiaki (Actor) | Hideo Yamamoto (Actor) | Hiroshi Yamamoto (Actor) | Natsuo Yuna (Actor) | Yamamoto Mirai (Actor) | Wada Emi (Actor) | Mirai Tsugumi (Actor) 栗山千明 (Actor) | Hideo Yamamoto (Actor) | Hiroshi Yamamoto (Actor) | Natsuo Yuna (Actor) | Yamamoto Mirai (Actor) | 和田惠美 (Actor) | Mirai Tsugumi (Actor) 栗山千明 (Actor) | Hideo Yamamoto (Actor) | Hiroshi Yamamoto (Actor) | Natsuo Yuna (Actor) | Yamamoto Mirai (Actor) | 和田惠美 (Actor) | Mirai Tsugumi (Actor) 栗山千明 (Actor) | Ｈｉｄｅｏ Ｙａｍａｍｏｔｏ (Actor) | Ｈｉｒｏｓｈｉ Ｙａｍａｍｏｔｏ (Actor) | 夏生ゆうな (Actor) | 山本未來 (Actor) | 和田惠美 （ワダ，エミコ） (Actor) | Mirai Tsugumi (Actor) Kuriyama Chiaki (Actor) | Hideo Yamamoto (Actor) | Hiroshi Yamamoto (Actor) | Natsuo Yuna (Actor) | Yamamoto Mirai (Actor) | Wada Emi (Actor) | Mirai Tsugumi (Actor) |
| Director: | Sono Sion 園子溫 Sono Sion 園子温 Sono Sion |
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| Release Date: | 2008-07-29 |
| UPC Code: | 631595082784 |
| Language: | English, Japanese |
| Subtitles: | English |
| Country of Origin: | Japan |
| Picture Format: | NTSC What is it? |
| Color Information: | Color |
| Disc Format(s): | DVD |
| Region Code: | 1 - USA, Canada, U.S. Territories What is it? |
| Rating: | Not Rated |
| Publisher: | Media Blasters |
| Other Information: | 2 DVDs |
| Package Weight: | 180 (g) |
| Shipment Unit: | 1 What is it? |
| YesAsia Catalog No.: | 1011016592 |
Product Information
Region 1
2-Disc Set
Audio:
(unspecified) - English, Japanese
Subtitles - English - Optional
Other Versions of "Exte: Hair Extensions - Special Edition (2-Disc Set) (US Version)"
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Hong Kong Version
- EXTE (DVD) (English Subtitled) (Hong Kong Version) DVD Region 3
- US$14.99
- Usually ships within 1 to 2 days
- EXTE (VCD) (Hong Kong Version) VCD
- US$8.49
- Usually ships within 7 days
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Japan Version
- Ekusute - Hair Extensions (DVD) (Japan Version) DVD Region 2
- US$54.99
- Usually ships within 7 - 14 days
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Taiwan Version
- Exte (DVD) (Taiwan Version) DVD Region 3
- US$11.99
- Usually ships within 7 - 14 days
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Professional Review of "Exte: Hair Extensions - Special Edition (2-Disc Set) (US Version)"
This professional review refers to EXTE (DVD) (English Subtitled) (Hong Kong Version)
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It's a tale of two movies with Sion Sono's EXTE. On the one hand there is the movie that revolves around Ren Osugi's Yamazaki, a police morgue janitor with a fetishistic obsession with hair. He caresses it. He fondles it. He films it. He sings songs to it. He cuts it off corpses to mount displays of it at home. And when he comes across the body of a traumatized young woman whose hair continues to grow at a remarkably pace even in death, he steals her, takes her home, dresses her up and dotes upon her. On the other hand, there is the story of Yuko, a twenty year old aspiring hair dresser who takes in her horribly abused niece Mami to protect the child from her mother, Yuko's half sister. So we have demon hair fostered by crazy man and a realistic story of child abuse nestled up beside each other, both story lines taken quite seriously in their own ways, and while they never quite come together into a whole, both are quite good in their own right. Yes, I said demon hair. After many, many years of long black hair serving as a marker of evil female ghosts - spawning an entire sub genre of horror films referred to as hair ghost films - Sono has gone and made a film where the hair itself is the villain. Yamazaki's new lady friend may be dead and gone but her hair is still quite lively and on the prowl for revenge. When the spirit of the dead woman is angered or troubled by flashbacks to her horrific end - she was kidnapped and her organs forcibly harvested - her hair grows and writhes about. When someone treats her hair poorly, it lashes out in violent ways, invading flesh, cuts, eyes or any other available orifice and possessing the hair of its new host in turn, always to ghastly effect. And the hair has plenty of opportunity to take offense thanks to Yamazaki's unfortunate habit of selling his new lady friend's trimmings to local hair salons for use as hair extensions. It's not that he wants to kill people with it, it's just that he really loves it and wants to see more people in the world blessed with good hair. Can he help it if the recipients end up dead in bloody fashion? At least they make attractive corpses... Running in parallel to Yamazaki's story we have the story of Yuko, as played by Kill Bill and Battle Royale's Chiaki Kuriyama. A pretty, energetic twenty year old with a habit of giving constant narration to her own thoughts and actions and who dreams of one day becoming a top level hair stylist, Yuko has a simple carefree life until one day her elder half sister abandons her young daughter, Mami, on Yuko's doorstep. Initially infuriated at her sister's irresponsibility, Yuko's mood quickly turns to concern when she notices Mami's reaction to her initial outburst of anger, her concern turning to a righteous anger when she realizes the young girl is covered with bruises and scars inflicted upon her by her mother. You should see here the basic flaw of the film - the two story lines conjure up entirely different tones and while the plot lines eventually merge - Yamazaki eventually arriving at the salon where Yuko works, where he is smitten by her superior locks - the film itself never quite unifies. Child abuse just isn't a topic to play about with lightly, particularly not when portrayed so well by the film's child star and the movements from goofy cult film to serious drama are a little bit jarring in places. That said, Sono's entire cast is excellent and both lines of the film are handled exceptionally well. The relationship between Yuko and Mami rings true while Ren Osugi gives an absolute mad-genius performance as Yamazaki. The hair effects are plentiful, inventive and remarkably effective, at least a pair of the kill scenes going down as instant classics. While I've never been a particular fan of Sono, EXTE has gone a very long way towards winning me over. Flawed though it may be, it is remarkably well put together and proves that Sono can handle both serious drama and outright absurdist spectacle with equal ease. The new Hong Kong DVD is decent though not spectacular. English subtitles are solid and easy to read, the transfer anamorphic in the proper ratio and the sound quality good. The down side is that the transfer is a bit soft with poor contrast, which is a problem when so many of the effects shots revolve around masses of all black hair - the visuals tend to degenerate into indistinguishable black masses from time to time. by Todd Brown - Twitchfilm.net |
Feature articles that mention "Exte: Hair Extensions - Special Edition (2-Disc Set) (US Version)"
Customer Review of "Exte: Hair Extensions - Special Edition (2-Disc Set) (US Version)"
See all my reviews
April 2, 2008
This customer review refers to EXTE (DVD) (English Subtitled) (Hong Kong Version)
Angry Hair Ex-Tensions
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After watching this addition to the long haired ghost of yore clan of horrors, I can safely say that this is a pretty good film. On an obvious front, and if you have caught a number of similar Asian horror movies of late, the 'scary hair' aspect could all seem like a 'seen it all before' premise. Long Black Scary Hair was after all, given the treatment in "The Grudge 2" and had an whole film dedicated to its shenanigans in the S Korean film "The Wig". But its certainly freaky hair stuff you have here, I can assure. For one, the vengeful nature of the hair in this film, as a far more cutting and hair raising effect (literally) than of previous scary hair outings, and features some quite grim episodes of nastiness, too. The sudden and swift camera switching and lightening fast grainy film video techniques, when the hair attacks is quite interesting, which reflects the awareness of the terror of the hair attacking from under the skin on the inside, than terror of it dangling around waiting to attack on the outside. Creepy stuff! As for the plot. Well, the cold ringu curse motif does get re-introduced into play here again, but certainly in a more original way - as two import shipping guards discover a spooky freight cargo of black dead hair. This being shipped for the notorious hair extension fashion market, and not only is the large cargo jam packed to the rafters with female dead hair, but after a bit of shining torch light and closer observation within the cargo - the two guards discover that a girl, whose shaven head provided part of this mass of black threads, is also literally packed amongst the black mass of hair. Well, not merely a girl (and not just a head), but the cursed and wronged damsel of this hair revenge story, who has not only lost the grace of her long black locks, but most of her internal physical organs as well. This is for the illegal organ harvesting, and apparently (when the film moves on), this girl isn't too happy about this theft of her maiden hood or body parts. Aside to this grim discovery, and after the girl's body is sent over for a police autopsy study, a male morgue janitor named Yamazaki, who being extremely eccentric and also having a fetish for women's hair, falls in love with the dead girl, when he fascinatingly discovers that the girl's shaven head, begins to grow hair very rapidly. He becomes elated! So due to his left field 'hobby', steals the dead girl's body and takes it back to his home, where he places her on a hammock. The girl's hair continues to grow faster than Rapunzel's, and at an alarming rate (especially when she isn't too happy), as she lies in stasis, tears running down her cheek, as she lies helpless on Yamazaki's hammock. This mass of hair growth being the angered element of the cursed girl's spirit, and of her reaching out for revenge to those who made her suffer. With Yamazaki's discovery, he then decides to exploit (and assist the girl's revenge), by cutting and making hair extensions with little bells on the ends, from the mass of black hair, and then selling it on to a local hair salon. This story then moves on to super gal Kuriyama Chiaki, who plays the part of Yuko, a young girl who works at a local hair dressing studio and dreams of being a top hair stylist. Yuko introduces herself as a narrative to the camera, as she rides her bike through town to her local salon job. This funnily enough, reminded me of Jamie McGregor's narrative (played by Barry Evans) in the 1960s movie "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush", and of his similar bike ride introduction. Yuko works and loves to beatify the hair of her clients, and along with her charismatic co-workers, seems to have a good life. Well, until you are introduced to Yuko's scary sister, who has an ill temperament and not only beats and abuses her cute little daughter and almost prostitutes herself to her uncouth boyfriend, but also takes privileges and does what she likes with Yuko's flat and belongings. She even leaves her daughter at Yuko's flat, after bullying and berating her. With this part of the story, it gets more like a soap drama aspect, with these central characters dealing with child abuse and Yuko's anger at the way her sister treats the little girl. The horror elements emerge again, though, when Yamazaki appears at Yuko's hair salon, dressed in eccentric clothing, and sells the bell hair extensions to the staff, including giving a gift of the hair to Yuko. This brings into play the crazy and mad cap aspects of the effect this angry hair as on its victims, which some of the salon staff soon discover. Cue - lots of screams, women running around like head less chickens having a bad hair day and lots of nasty 'go get 'em tiger' killer hair. As a J-horror film, this does have some original and very good visual effects with the cursed hair, as it sprouts from victims heads like crazy only to zoom back in, and also this demonic hair shooting out of finger nails, red skin welts, growing off tongues, down and over eye balls and getting everywhere under the skin as possible, with spectacular effects. Never has movie hair been so fluid, motional, dramatic and dangerous! At one point there is a "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" motif, where the little girl sees a toy police car suddenly move towards a closet full of the dread angry hair. As you can imagine - all hair breaks loose after that. "EXTE" is certainly a satirical and mad cap affair (especially with the character Yamazaki), and although I haven't seen director Sono Sion's other movies, "EXTE" is also at times a bit like Takashi Miike's, by its projection of madness here. The 'hair' in this certainly doesn't mess around getting to the point. Angry girl indeed. Certainly there are the more serious aspects though, by the physical abuse parts of Yuko's sister, treating her daughter as she does. But also relating to some poor women in areas of the world, who submit their long hair for money to the cosmetic industry and even kidneys etc,, for organ farming, which is this film's more serious mien within the satire. The dead girl's character is also parallel, in a negative reversal sense, of female religious miracle healers, where some have lain in similar coma type stasis, and have healed those around - but as here, the dead (but alive and vengeful spirit), uses her hair to blight all those around. And like the Ringu curse, she attacks anyone who disturbs and upsets her. In fact, the Ringu and The Grudge film 'monsters' are dark mirror versions of such healers. The final to all of this, though, is hilarious dark humor, and impossible not to laugh out loud at Yamazaki's final lunatic off the wall moments. Still, it can be a difficult blend of social comment and black humor here. Although a so-so plot, its a good J-horror and also by featuring Kuriyama Chiaki, are two good definite reasons to get this DVD. "EXTE" is certainly to be approached with your tongue firmly in your cheek, by reflective expectations (and not having any hair on it hopefully), and not to expect any sort of serious J-horror. The acting is good, too, and Kuriyama Chiaki is certainly an actress to hopefully see more of (all the time!). She's got the best looking hair for being in this, too! KC doesn't seem to have been in a lot since "Kill Bill", though, considering her acting clout - and I only hope that she also gets more interesting roles in the future. I'd love to see her with Ji Hyun Jeon (or Gianna Jun now) in something cool, urber fantastic and charismatic. Yeah! The little girl actress here was also brilliant and Osugi Ren was expert as the mad cap hair fancier. If you want a creepy J-horror with a bit of black humor to add to your collection, and feel that something extra as been added to the genre here - get this. But if you are thinking of an hair extension - eh, well make sure a funny looking man with glasses in a comic strip costume, doesn't provide your regular visited hair salon with some lovely looking hair extensions, but with additional bells on the end. As they might just be alive and kicking. Just like this movie! Extras - sadly , not too much. Trailer, actor info and some scene photos. But a great film and loads of hair to see! |
United States - English
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