ASIAN HORROR

Short, snappy and accessible, Asian Horror provides a useful overview of the genre as well as some interesting insights into the cultural values and traditions that underpin it.

Aimed at the horror buff and casual moviegoer rather than academia, film writer and producer Richards' book is intended as an introduction to the subject - 'encouraging readers to embark on their own explorations of some of the intriguing byways of Asian horror' - rather than an encyclopaedia, and in this its succeeds admirably.

Given the nature of the work, Asian Horror can only cover so much ground - Korean, Hong Kong and Thai movies get short shrift compared to their Japanese counterparts, for example - but the author makes good use of the limited space available. As well as landmark modern titles such as Miike's Audition, Shimizu's Ju-On: The Grudge and Nakata's The Ring, the book discusses the classic Japanese horrors of the 1950s and '60s as well as more outré gorefests like Sato's notorious Splatter: Naked Blood.

Richards is also fairly catholic in his selection, with movies as diverse as Godzilla, Battle Royale and Mr Vampire all making the cut; a sensible decision considering that 'Asian horror frequently revels in its own pick-and-mix approach to genre'.

Discussion of the films themselves is tripartite in structure - story, background and verdict - and provides a slew of interesting observations. However, Asian Horror also takes time out to provide overviews of influential directors such as Hideo Nakata, Shinya Tsukamoto and Chan-Wook Park, as well as brief excurses into important themes and sub-genres that feed into the more focused evaluations of individual titles.

These include placing J-Horror in the context of Japanese folklore as dispensed by more traditional media such as Kaidan (ghost stories), Noh drama and Kabuki theatre - for example, Richards notes that Audition's anti-heroine Asami is 'part of a long tradition of wronged and avenging females in Japanese storytelling traditions' while The Ring's Sadako 'is merely the modern apotheosis of a long line of theatrical and cinematic yurei', that is, unquiet and vengeful spirits.

Asian Horror also devotes some time to Japanese horror's tendency to dwell allegorically on the social dangers posed by the country's rapid adoption of western technology and cultural mores - as Richards says, 'Much Japanese horror since World War Two has been fuelled by fears of what the forces of modernisation and westernisation were doing to a culture founded on conservative traditional values'.

Another theme developed is the interplay between the horror cinemas of east and west; not only the high profile (and frequently disappointing) Hollywood remakes, but also Asian borrowing of classic western formulae. For instance, Richards cites Ikeda's Evil Dead Trap as a 'great example of the ways in which eastern and western horror films have always fed off and renewed each other in a mutually beneficial cycle'.

It is also pleasing that Asian Horror acknowledges the influence of manga and videogames (Roger Ebert take note) on Asian horror - while the book's short format and introductory nature forestalls in-depth discussion, it's good to see that Richards is willing to take seriously two media still sniffed at by certain critics.

Overall, Asian Horror is an excellent read - entertaining, attractively designed and engagingly written. One caveat is that it is avowedly a gateway to the genre aimed at newcomers to Asian horror cinema and, like the reviewer, casual fans; readers searching for an in-depth sociological study should look elsewhere. That understood, Asian Horror is well worth a look, even if the £12.99 price point seems a touch steep.

In this look at the history and influence of Asian horror cinema, Richards begins by tracing the genre's origins back to the end of the nineteenth century and explaining how the modern Asian horror film began after the end of WWII-showing, for example, how the Japanese monster movie cycle of the 1950s, which began with Godzilla, reflected and reenacted the destruction of the war, the mutant monsters being reminders of the "horrors of radiation damage and environmental pollution."

With the scene set, Richards discusses various examples in a simple, orderly format: a brief description of the story followed by background on the film´s production and a "verdict"assessing the movie´s influence and importance. Some of the movies will be familiar to Western readers-Godzilla, The Ring, The Grudge - but others probably won´t. The book isn´t for casual readers, however, but rather for serious horror-film fans. That crowd will have a ball reliving some of the genre´s greatest havoc-wreakers.