best movie i've ever seen.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

In Tokyo, Detective Sekiya (Ren Ôsugi) investigates the death of two suicides with Detective Wakamiya (Masanobu Ando) and the rookie Detective Keiko Kirishima (Hitomi). Both victims were stabbed while sleeping and the skeptical and experienced Sekiya concludes that they have committed suicide. However, Wakamiya discovers that both victims had dialed "0" on their cell-phones before their death and they recorded a weird message. The police officers believe that someone is inducing potential suicidal persons to kill themselves, but the chief of police decides to split the team and assigns Keiko to find a medium to help the police in the investigation. She meets Kyoichi Kagenuma (Ryuhei Matsuda), who is also a suicidal man with the ability to enter in the dreams, and tries to force the reluctant man to help her."Akumu Tantei", a.k.a. "Nightmare Detective", is a stylish thriller with a character that recalls Freddy Krueger since he attacks his victims in their dreams. The sexy Hitomi performs a detective that in a certain moment fights to stay awake, recalling for example, Kristen Parker in the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise. Despite having a wonderful cinematography, the unoriginal screenplay is very confused and I expected much more from a movie directed by Shinya Tsukamoto. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Caçador de Pesadelos" ("Nightmare Hunter")

~Spoiler~Well, Asia had a good run. But the time has come to be more selective in viewing their output too. Gone are the days when you couldn't wait to see the next great Asian horror. The majority of what we are seeing from them is just as stale and conventional as any other country. Nightmare Detective is a movie I should not have wasted my time on. It commits the ultimate movie sin: it fails to entertain. It put me to sleep...twice. It does not generate any suspense, fear, or emotional connection to any of the characters. It plays like a really cheesy melding of Suicide Club and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Let me take a deep breath here and explain the plot. People who dial 0 on their telephone are stalked by a killer in their nightmares who makes them commit suicide while the cops track down a "nightmare detective" who can enter the dreams of others to stop the psycho. It's as silly as it sounds. Unfortunately it's not as much fun. It's really quite boring. Or maybe it was all that "shaky-cam" that hypnotized me into going to sleep?

..because, honestly, what passes for horror in Japan just isn't very scary.The plot line here is that someone is inducing people to kill themselves in brutal ways, and a police officer named Keiko is trying to get to the bottom of it with the help of a psychic dude.Three things the Japanese can't seem to do. 1) Anything really scary 2) Anything really sensual (I guess there is supposed to be sexual tension between the psychic dude and Keiko, but darned if I can see it.) 3) anything really coherent in terms of plot.This movie is a trudge to work through, and not just because of the language. The focus should have been on the psychic character (Japanese seem to have more of a belief in psychics than Americans do.) Instead, it was on this rather shallow detective character.There are the visual dream sequences, but to be honest, we've seen better stuff in Freddy Krueger movies from 20 years ago.

Tsukamoto Shinya is one of a small group of influential Japanese directors who formed the vanguard of Japan's "New Wave" cinema during the late 80s (along with animation director Otomo Katsuhiro and splatter horror director Ikeda Toshiharu). His dark and creepy "Tetsuro: The Iron Man" paved the way for such future unconventional directors like Miike Takashi (Koroshi No Ichi), Fukui Shozin (964 Pinocchio), Shu Lea Cheang (I.K.U.) and Nakata Hideo (Ring).Like his American contemporaries David Lynch and David Cronenberg, Tsukamoto's movies delved into the realm of bizarre nightmare fantasies often involving human metamorphosis, the melding of man and machine, abnormal human anatomy/psychology and degenerative disease.While in recent years, Tsukamoto has been more involved in front of the camera as an actor, his latest film "Akumu Tantei AKA Nightmare Detective" is an attempt to return to the type of film making that made him a cult favorite."Akumei Tantei" revolves around the exploits of a mysterious dark cloaked stranger, Kagenuma Kyoichi portrayed with gloomy indifference by Matsuda Ryuhei (Renai Shashin, Nana) who somehow has the supernatural ability to enter into other people's dreams (more often nightmares) in order to help the individual make sense of the dream. While not a true "detective" per se, he often reluctantly offers out his unique investigative skills to others. An unfortunate side effect of his abilities is that he is able to hear the subconscious voices of those in his immediate vicinity and also sometimes brings his own nightmares into the real world (which at points drives him suicidal). His services soon come to the attention of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's homicide division who are investigating a bizarre series of murder/suicides and recruit Kagenuma in the hopes that he may be able to use his abilities to uncover clues to the identity of the killer.Unfortunately, Kagenuma and beautiful detective Kirishima Keiko (played by sensual J-Pop idol singer "hitomi") soon discover that the killer shares Kagenuma's ability to enter people's dreams and uses this ability to manipulate his victims into killing themselves. Can Kagenuma and Kirishima stop this killer before he strikes again?As others have mentioned, "Akumei Tantei" is one part "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Dreamscape" and one part "Ghost Whisperer" with elements of the recent "Paprika" thrown in for good measure.Surprisingly, "Akumu Tantei" isn't as bloody as I was expecting. While there is plenty of gore and blood to be sure, it is nowhere near as bad as some of the recent Hollywood "torture porn" films that have come out. The movie was rather conventional and did not really have any moments where I was shocked or scared. Whether this is a sign of Tsukamoto "mellowing out" I can't say but I did find myself questioning if this movie was from the same man who gave us such unforgettable films such as "Tokyo Fist" and "Tetsuro".While "hitomi" (real name Furuya Hitomi) is certainly easy on the eyes and makes for a sexy heroine, she seems hopelessly miscast as the stoic and straight laced police detective, Kirishima. Her radiant beauty actually works against her as viewers will be hard pressed to believe her to be the character she portrays.The same could also be said of Matsuda Ryuhei who is a bit too much of a "pretty boy" to be the reclusive and brooding "Nightmare Detective". Matsuda's portrayal seems to follow the Japanese film trend of having "Emo" protagonists be one note characters who are all brooding, self-absorbed, loners, social outcasts and misfits. It is hard to identify with these heroes as they don't project any type of likability and instead expect audiences to "feel their pain". In addition to directing the movie, Tsukamoto also stars in the film as the central villain character. He doesn't say much but his flamboyant and intense acting is both scary and humorous.Compared to his groundbreaking "Tetsuro" and "Tokyo Fist", "Akumu Tantei" is a bit of a disappointment, sharing none of the visual flair, unconventional style or edgy story of those films. While an enjoyable film with beautiful leads, the story won't win any new admirers. I kind of felt underwhelmed by the movie and kind of hoped Tsukamoto would give us something new to talk about rather than long for the inventiveness of his past works.