A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Pornographic, unscary, nothing of any value. I am not by any means offended by gore. I am a fan of Argento, Lucci, and the like. I have no problem with shocking scenes as long as the movie itself is entertaining or worthwhile.I found not a slice of entertainment anywhere in this film. It focuses only on the most base and deplorable aspects of human existence, and it does so for seemingly no reason. No one, not a character, nor a viewer, walks away from this film any better for the experience. The viewer isn't even rewarded with a sensical ending. I have nothing but questions, and frankly I don't care if they are ever answered.

This movie was great. The special effects were great, the plot was great, but the acting was poor. Other than that I rate this movie a 10. This movie was great, and I cringed at a few parts, especially the torture scene. But everyone knows that's what makes a horror movie. I find the synopsis off mastersofhorror.net. Here it follows: Japanese horror master Takashi Miike searches the corpse-strewn riverbanks of 19th-century Japan in this tale of an American journalist (BILLY DRAGO) escaping a dark secret. Hoping to find the love he left behind, the journalist's hunt leads to a dark island where the only refuge is a brothel. Spending the night with a unique woman (YOUKI KUDOH), he earns the danger of dredging up old ghosts. Based on the terrifying Kadokawa Shoten Publishing novel BOKKEE KYOUTEE by Shimako Iwai.If you can't stand a teen movie rated PG-13, don't watch this. There is a five minute torture scene involving putting needles under a girls fingernail and in her mouth which are pretty in-detail and close up. Rated TV-MA for adult content, graphic violence, nudity, adult language, viewer discretion advised. A related series which was going to be Season Three of Masters of Horror, is called Fear Itself. Check that out for more details.

Miike likes to push the borders of censorship as far as they will go because he wants you to feel however you naturally, instinctively feel about the horrors he presents with such reckless diffidence. He may merely seem perversely fun for the simple art of shock value, but I'm starting to think he has a meticulous agenda to his body of work.Could it perhaps be a good thing to watch brutality as disturbing and numbing as this? I will not go into any detail at all about what is in store for those who dare to watch, because what Miike loves to do and unabashedly does here is unfold the first half hour without even the faintest omen of what is to come in the remaining duration. However, I will say that the last Miike film I saw was Visitor Q. I believed that to be the most twisted and warped film I might've ever seen. Before that, I saw Izo, a spectacular though underrated effort, which I believed to possibly be the most violent film I had seen up to that point. After watching this, I feel I have entered a portal through which everything pleasant seems so much more magnified in its loveliness.Imprint makes no narrative sense, really, once it gets going. Generally, it is about a man coming to an island where horror seems to be the mainstay, unlike most normal societies, except maybe Tennessee. Billy Drago, who plays the American visitor, gives one of the very worst performances I've ever seen, not because he doesn't attempt a good one but because Miike seems to have deliberately directed him to go for a terrible one. But to me, this is all what Miike intends. He does not strive to be an "artist," but he does strive to make an impression upon his audience. What do you feel for the few hours after watching a Miike movie? Say you were to watch Bambi or Dumbo next. With what fervor would you find yourself experiencing those films owing to this as the preceding one? A lot. A whole hell of a lot.

I saw a bit of Japanese cult director Miike at the 2004 Venice Film Festival, though I hated his own contribution to it i.e. IZO; for the record, this opinion is true of all that I've checked out so far from his incredibly vast (and mostly sick) body work and this latter venture into Miike's filmography certainly doesn't break the trend. It's easily the most extreme entry in the "Masters Of Horror" series, but also possibly the least; incidentally, the TV-film's planned screening was eventually banned on account of its disturbing imagery (not only graphic depictions of torture but the female protagonist is a "freak") and themes (involving such taboo material as incest and abortion). Even if, typical of Asian films, the attention to period detail and the color scheme are notable, what really stands out here (and this is not meant as a compliment) is leading man Billy Drago's rampant histrionics and, even more so, the presence of the heroine's unforgettably (indeed amusingly) vile, misshapen evil twin. At the end of the day, the episode strives too much for significance by dealing with too many issues and ends up going on too long for its own good.