A Film Directed by Takashi Miike (aka Chakushin ari)

Takashi Miike’s One Missed Call (2003) is a popular and defining entry in the J-horror boom of e early 2000s, arriving on the heels of landmark films like Hideo Nakata’s Ringu and Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-on series. At its core, the film builds on the era’s fascination, and fear, of technology as a conduit for the supernatural, functioning as a pointed commentary on the youth culture of the time and its obsession with trendy flip phones and instant voice messaging. While that premise may feel antiquated today, Japanese horror has long excelled at using fleeting technological fads as fertile ground for stories of dread – It has not been too long since there was a film in the Ring Series about social media, for example. In this case, this film revolves around a curse that spreads through cell phones: victims receive chilling voicemails dated in the near future, appearing to be recordings of their own final moments before death. At first dismissed as pranks or harassment, the calls soon prove devastatingly real as the body count rises and it’s obvious it’s not a mere urban legend

“Yumi (Kou Shibasaki) tries to assuage the fears of a friend, Yoko (Anna Nagata), who has received a disturbing voice mail from herself. In the message, Yoko screams while chatting with Yumi. Three days later, the exact call plays out, and Yoko dies. As the bodies of Yumi’s friends start piling up after they receive voice mails and videos of themselves, she discovers that a vengeful spirit is the source of the disturbing messages and murders — and all the messages are strangely connected to her.”

The film stars Kou Shibasaki as Yumi, a young woman drawn into the curse as her friends begin dying one by one, and Shinichi Tsutsumi as Yamashita, a detective grieving the death of his sister to the very same phenomenon. Both leads anchor the story with a seriousness that grounds Miike’s more flamboyant tendencies, and Shibasaki in particular brings a vulnerability that makes her character’s growing dread, and the audience’s shared anticipation of it, the emotional centerpiece of the film. Their work ensures that beneath the jump scares and supernatural conceits, the story carries a tragic weight that lingers.

Miike, often described as one of Japan’s most prolific and transgressive filmmakers, was already known for his extreme and often shocking works, including Audition (1999), Ichi the Killer (2001), and the Dead or Alive trilogy. Compared to those, One Missed Call is relatively restrained, operating more in the tradition of psychological dread than outright gore. Still, Miike’s hand is unmistakable – several sequences, including the infamous televised death scene, are staged with theatrical precision, teetering between absurdity and terror in a way only Miike could pull off. His willingness to blur horror with dark satire sets the film apart from more straightforward ghost stories of the time.

Beyond its scares, One Missed Call resonates because of its themes. At one level, it’s a cautionary tale about technology, portraying cell phones, then becoming widespread in Japan, as sinister portals of disconnection rather than tools of communication. At another, it digs into cycles of trauma and abuse, suggesting that the curse is not just technological but rooted in human pain passed from one generation to the next. The inevitability of the calls reflects the inescapability of personal history, and Miike laces the story with a sense of fatalism: it is not just the curse that kills, but the silence and neglect that started it.

Though One Missed Call was often criticized for being derivative of Ringu, it went on to spawn a franchise of its own, consisting of three sequels (One Missed Call 2 in 2005, One Missed Call: Final in 2006, and the 2008 American remake). While none reached the acclaim of the original, their existence speaks to the cultural resonance of Miike’s concept: the anxiety of technology as both connective and alienating, and perhaps a new way for the dead to reach out once again to the living. To me, One Missed Call seemed like it was missing something, as the eventual reveal of the perpetrator of the curse, while interesting, did not really fit the cellphone theme very well, and the film lacks a truly satisfying ending. I’m not saying the ghost should have been for example, killed by cell phones or something, but having more of a hook into the film’s gimmick would have led the audience to unravel a mystery a lot more, something films like Ringu, Ju-On, and even Dark Water excelled at.

Ultimately, One Missed Call occupies an interesting space in Miike’s career. It is one of his most commercially accessible works, designed to fit into the J-horror trend while still bearing his idiosyncratic fingerprints. The film may not achieve the minimalist terror of Ringu or the relentless unease of Ju-on, but it remains a fascinating blend of popular horror storytelling and auteur eccentricity. The film fails to be an instant classic, but one can definitely see its importance and staying power. For fans of Miike, it shows his adaptability to genre conventions; for fans of J-horror, it’s an essential piece of the movement, both a reflection of its peak and a signal of its eventual decline.