Kakashi - B
By Kage Alan

Young twenty-something Kaoru arrives at her brother's flat in search of some clue as to why she hasn't heard from him in a while. It's there where she finds a letter from an old schoolmate, Izumi, who desperately pleads for Tsuyoshi (Kaoru's brother) to join her in the village of Kozukata-mura because she can't stand the horror of it all. The horror of what? This doesn't bode well with Kaoru, so she takes the letter and starts driving towards the village. It's not long before she gets her first look at the odd sort of folks who live around there walking around as if in a trance, building and carrying scarecrows with them, treating their straw companions as if they were living breathing beings and don't seem particularly thrilled to have an outsider among them. There's not a great deal of action in the film, so the director relies heavily on the mood, cinematography and mystery of what is reality and what is fantasy. Is Kaoru dreaming certain events or are they really happening? Is it possible that the restless and evil spirit of Izumi is responsible for the strange behavior in the village? Unfortunately, the end of "Kakashi" lacks the punch of everything leading up to it. Overall, though, this was a decent effort and it's refreshing to see something else done with the scarecrow mythology.