(guess you shouldn’t read if you haven’t seen yet)
i just watched Kairo (us title = Pulse)(2001) and Pulse(2006). i really like the original version, and liked a few parts in the new american version. but it seems that when we “americanized” the japanese movie (as many others), we lost some of the meaning. by trying to explain everything, and adding in more images (ie ghosts, etc.), instead of letting our imagination run with it. although there were a couple of scenes saved from the first – the jumper & the airplane (maybe another). even the ending resolution of the first movie, about the loneliness in life and death, seems overshadowed in the second by the “techiness”. so it seems that we aren’t as concerened with the meaning behind the original, we just add more “scary images”, add more to the “relationship” scenes, and put in a bunch of cool new technology. at the end you’re like, WTH? at the end of the original you have a question (or two) to quander. at least they didn’t make the end of the second one all happy happy, joy joy. i liked the “alternate” ending much better.
