Shinji Aoyama grew up a great fan of cinema and during his time studying at Rikyo University he took his interest in film to the next level, creating a couple of 8mm films that he shared with fellow students. Through these films he caught the attention of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, today one of Japan's rising stars who has directed such highly regarded films as Cure and Doppelganger. After serving as assistant director for Kurosawa on a few projects, Aoyama took the next step and became a director himself, bringing a naturalistic style of filmmaking that appealed to the art crowd. In 1999 he directed EM-Embalming and in a time when Hideo Nakata's Ringu had seemingly revolutionized Japanese horror and had many jumping on the bandwagon, this distinctly non-commercial film that bares none of the conventions put in place by Nakata's opus stood out from the J-Horror crowd. Centred around an interesting subject, embalming and the aspects of Japanese culture that are staunchly against such practices (stemming from nobody outside of family handling the body), this combined with Aoyama's artsy style holds potential that sadly is never realized.

Miyako Murakami (Reiko Takashima - Black Angel) is called to the scene of an apparent suicide by her police detective acquaintance, Hiraoka (Yutaka Matsushige who starred in Spiral, the forgotten Ringu sequel). Yoshiki Shindo hurled himself from the roof of a building, dying on impact with the asphalt below. As she goes to leave the scene, Miyako is passed by Rika Shinohara, a schoolgirl who seems racked with grief, pulling ineffectually at the fence that Yoshiki climbed over before killing himself. Miyako has a greater involvement than it first appears however, as she is an embalmer. Embalming is not a widely used technique in Japan, however Yoshiki's parents wished that he be restored his youthful glory and kept that way forever. Despite her insistence that embalming is only effective for 55 days, she proceeds with the process. During the procedure however she catches herself on something that her assistant Kurume (seasoned director Seijun Suzuki) discovers is a needle that during the introduction of embalming fluid to the body was has been forced to the surface. Before she has time to take in this odd occurrence, she is greeted by two young men clad in pseudo-traditional robes who take her to see Daitokujin Chief Bonze Jion, a cultish religious leader. Evidently he is opposed to her profession and demands that she ceases the evil acts she is committing upon the deceases Yoshiki. Not phased by this, Miyako finishes her work on Yoshiki and that night meets with Hiraoka, telling him about the needle which opens the possibility that this could in fact be a murder case. The plot thickens however when Kurume is left unconscious at the embalming centre and Yoshiki's body is left without a head. While on the scene, Miyako receives a call from Chief Jion who seems to suggest some sort of involvement also, as it turns out, holds a great deal of influence over Yoshiki's powerful politician father. Miyako is also told by her weathered old assistant Kurume about a man who was once a brilliant doctor but some decidedly unorthodox methods and a tour of duty in Vietnam as a medic forced him out of legal medicine and he became a black market embalmer. Capable of preserving a body to the point where it still looks alive, the mysterious Dr. Fuji in fact uses other bodies to preserve the lifelike appearance of the corpses he works on. Miyako remembers the process used on her deceased mother displayed these exact characteristics and had actually inspired her to become an embalmer, however her investigations lead her to discover that her connections to Dr. Fuji lie far deeper than she could have imagined.

Embalming serves up an intriguing plot, some queasily well-realised scenes of embalming and body dismemberment, but ultimately does not achieve a cohesive story nor does the film ever become especially engaging. Shinji Aoyama's direction seems somewhat detached, the viewer seems to be kept at a distance which can both lead to some interesting pieces of cinematography and to also keep the viewer from getting too involved with the characters and storyline. There are scenes where cuts and use of multiple cameras are kept to a minimum and the results are interesting, giving one fluid take that is refreshing in this day and age where cuts to three different cameras every five seconds is increasingly the norm. This distance also causes a serious flaw in the telling of the story as the characters and events are shrouded in ambiguity to the point where it becomes difficult to development any sense of involvement with the story. Ambiguity seems to be a trademark of a lot of J-horror, indeed it was a significant aspect of Hideo Nakata's Ring, made the year before Embalming, where the unknown was a major factor in why the film was so effective. However, the use of this same tool in Embalming masks the intentions of the characters, so much so as to frustrate this scribe, seemingly giving few clues as to why the characters were doing what they were doing. The plot suffers from a lack of cohesiveness, the plot twists are clumsily dropped into the plot and are not delivered with conviction, a plot twist without impact is barely a plot twist at all. A red herring is thrown into the mix which just further hampers things, especially as far too much time is spent on an aspect of the story that ends up being of little importance, further undermining the twists that lead to the lukewarm climax of the film.

While painstaking exposition is not necessary, indeed it can be to the detriment of the story when everything is explained as if the viewers are idiots (see Gore Verbinski's The Ring), without seeing the characters developed and keeping their motivations a mystery, it takes the viewer out of the experience. The main characters end up being disappointingly insipid, Reiko Takashima as Miyako is effortlessly stylish with her understated wardrobe and her confident demeanor, but she seems largely uninterested in what's happening for a good portion of the film and only becomes animated when she is physically threatened. The result of this is it ruins some of the more intriguing aspects of the plot such as her relationship with Dr. Fuji, its hampered because Miyako simply seems to be unable to decide whether she actually cares or not. The police detective Hiroka is an odd chap too and this writer had trouble working out just what his relationship with Miyako is. They don't seem to be friends exactly and they're not romantically involved, in fact in a couple of scenes Hiroka makes hamfisted passes at Miyako that just seem to make her look uncomfortable, a discomfort that he also seems somewhat amused by. Dr. Fuji is an interesting character with a mysterious past, but he's wasted in what is ultimately a pretty uninteresting story. This is the key failure of the film, taking an interesting premise including gore, embalming, split personalities and cult leaders, and making a thoroughly dull experience out of it. Chief Jion could have been an interesting character looking at the influence of a cult leader on modern politics and how much power such a man could wield, but many viewers will probably be disappointed with how he is developed as the film falls apart leading to its conclusion.

For the gore hounds, the embalming sequence early on and some butchering to humans later in the film will please the gore hounds, but the languid pacing and dull plot quickly becomes a test of endurance more than an entertaining experience.