This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

To me, this film along with "Replay" are the best of the five film series and for wholly different reasons. A high school girl (this is Aoi Miyazuki) lives with her father. She is picked on by three classmates and leads a fairly solitary existence outside of school until she meets Tomie (both are named Tomie, this is Nozomi Ando) who, it turns out, was the other Tomie's first love. Of course, that Tomie met her untimely end all those years ago, and she looks to rekindle with the father. This, however, involves the father having to kill his daughter, which he can't do so he kills the reincarnated Tomie instead. This film has the best special effects and the story unfolds and builds in an almost darkly comic way. While not a perfect film, the way the two Tomies play off each other is pretty effective. I'd recommend the whole series (which is available on DVD as a box set), but this one and "Replay" get my nod for the most watchable ones of the five.

This is the 5th film (4th theatrical, the 2nd film was made for TV) of 7 about Tomie; the beautiful she-demon who drives men to kill her, but will not stay dead. I've never read Junji Ito's manga, so I will review this just as a film within the series.Good horror films are disturbing to us, that's part of their job. Tomie Forbidden Fruit does a good job of that initially, but loses focus and somewhat falls apart a little after the halfway mark. The first half is a good creepy horror film, albeit not a 'scary' one, though none of the series were. It suffers from 'Jeepers Creepers-itis': starts off with a great premise that seems to be going somewhere and then derails itself into silly territory that undermines that which preceded it. Luckily, it pretty much gets back on track at the end which is more than I can say for Jeepers Creepers. The idea is a good one and takes Tomie into the 'destruction of friends and families' territory more than previous entries did (Re-birth would be the 2nd best in that capacity due to its mother-son-girlfriend relations subplot).Kazu Hashimoto was in love with Tomie some 25 years ago, but she died as did the friend who stole her from him. We see him now as a middle-aged widower who named his daughter after his lost 1st love. Tomie Hashimoto is harassed at school by girls who bully her and her life is generally miserable until the day she meets Tomie. They become fast friends and…cue the PG-rated pseudo-lesbian overtones. Actually, Tomie isn't really interested in being friends with her namesake. Tomie actually despises her as a reminder that Kazu married another woman and gave birth to a daughter, Tomie Hashimoto. Tomie plans to regain Kazu and offers her love to him after he removes all remnants of the time that has passed, namely the shrine to his deceased wife (no big deal for a man who has forgotten her in the past 10 years since her death) and one other slight obstacle: the daughter of that union. In order to regain the beautiful lost love of his youth, Kazu must follow Tomie's orders to murder his offspring. Usually even men who'd be tempted by the offer would have enough love of their child and basic morals to refuse such a barbaric demand, but then again Tomie's inhuman spell on men defies rational thought and all bets are off.After Tomie is murdered (no big shock/spoiler if you've been watching the series up to this point), things takes a turn from the creepy disturbing horror mode into strange dark humor territory along the lines of "Basketcase" meets "Eraserhead". This derailment lasts maybe 20 minutes, which is more than enough for it to negatively affect the tone of the film. Tomie Hashimoto inexplicably decides to locate Tomie's remains and now has to take care of the decapitated head of her 'friend' as it slowly regenerates a body. There are comically-intended scenes of her feeding an ungrateful Tomie and taking her around town in a baby stroller (which makes one want to utter that infamous movie phrase "What's in the basket?"). Tomie quickly proves very demanding, beyond her caregiver's financial means or even any remaining desires to provide for her. Acting the role of a doting parent isn't something she's ready to accept from this selfish creature. In this way it somewhat mirrors Jack Nance's situation in "Eraserhead", right down to the monstrous deformities underneath those swaddling blankets. In the meantime, we also see Tomie H's nemesis schoolgirl bullies visit her home and meet up with daddy, whose tendency towards violence is not to be restrained after the psychological effects of his last meeting with Tomie. While amusing, it's fairly standard fare as Takashi Miike already did a better job of addressing the issue of high school bullies in "Visitor Q".Tomie returns and the father-daughter team come up with a clever -- albeit noticeably telegraphed -- way to keep Tomie from coming back into their lives, but the writers aren't ready to let the end credits roll just yet.Even though this was titled as the 'final chapter', 2 more apparently worse films would later follow. The organ music score almost sounds like intentionally lost throwaway tracks from Argento's "Inferno".6/10 (I give a 7/10 to the first half and a 5/10 for the comic relief sidetrack)

Different horrific forms swim before the mind's eye: The Xenomorph of galactic space and the Selenite, the hopping lichocamphs of Canton and Manchuria, and further terrors of Mainland China, not the least of which frightening is the abhorrent big headed infant, with it's flesh of neutral hues -- from the triffid plants, whose purpose it would seem was to make a tomb of Earth, to spectral horrors worldwide, which include the multi-headed cyborg mutant reptiles, born out of some Asian Hell, the flesh-eaters (Italy) and the awful hybrid walrus represented in Harrihausen's SINDBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER (N. America), their dismal legions, that rummage freely through the unsightly stomach of human folly like so many maggots at brunch....Tomie, step forth and take thy place amongst these others. Sadako! Disturbed witch! You are but a ghost seeking retribution like so many before you, but Tomie -- foul monster! You metamorphize into some of the most freakish creatures i have ever seen.---------------------------------------------------------------Our story begins when a licentatious, though not unenticing, girl in a sailor girl uniform is killed by her classmates and teacher, who cut her body into over forty pieces and dispose of her. She comes back, however, to take them to hell. Tomie is a demon, taking on many various forms of guise that she might deride and ensnare her victims, like a Venus flytrap - yet she has her part with the Vegitable Kingdom, and yet seems more Mammalian or having attributes of the higher crustacean strains (were that particular branch of thoropoids lacking in exo-skeletons). She, in fact, would be representative of the over half of the US population that believes in astrology and nearly half that believes in creationism.Watching her films (there are at least twelve) brings to mind a more subtle, though no less interesting, phenomenon; The political dialog of any given World Power being dominated as it is by the successful party's mastery of the cinematic narrative. We just cannot help ourselves; we like to be shown that the world is so.But once you start those machinations going, you inherit ALL the baggage of the cinematic narrative, Jud Nelson comes along uninvited with your John Wayne. This has nothing at all to do with conservative values; it is just a result of adopting the movie world as the basis for your beliefs.I can understand this thread of influence and consequence when it applies to nuclear energy: the US makes and deploys a bomb: many, many movies are made showing the evil side. And we end up with a public that has an unnatural fear of all things radioactive.But this thread is more interesting and profound and has stifled stem cell research in the US.

Hello. I have seen this movie. It was one of the better movies created about Tomie, the girl who'll never die... because she is bakemono.... Tomie, a girl who is picked on, is at a jewelry store looking, but has no money. Horrible Tomie comes in and steals it and they leave. They exchange names, and the Tomie who had no money is like IN LOVE with Horrible Tomie. That is pretty much the movie. Then you have these 3 dumb girls who want to kill Innocent Tomie but just be rude to her instead because they like having somebody to pick on. Anyway, it is a great movie and better than the other 2 that i've seen. GO SEE IT BECAUSE IT IS GREAT!