Is the tree-man just the germ of Godzilla? Interesting... Japan is famous for films that are incomprehensible to many. They are strange, frightening, but there is something catching in them. The Japanese themselves are mysterious people, like their work, often surreal, sometimes even nightmarish.
Jaime Ohata was intrigued by the fact that in “Hen-g” with the main character there are frightening metamorphoses. If at first it seems that the demon possessed this person, then the assumption fails: there is no place for exorcism. While the wife watches her husband turn into a monster, we are content with a genuine interest in what is happening. What kind of attack makes a young Japanese man suffer? Unfortunately, this does not last very long.
Because from the second half of the film, the mystery of the situation disappears somewhere; it is replaced by the contemplation of terribly drawn splashes of computer blood and brutal male tantrums as he changes his appearance. So what does a potentially intriguing lead end to? I won’t spoil it, I’ll just cite the associations: Godzilla, King Kong, Monstro and Jurassic Park. What unites all these paintings? Take a guess and make the appropriate analogies. Sometimes it seems that some writers think: “If I don’t know how to put an end to the story, I’ll put here a grandiose, crushingly destructive, apocalyptic ending!” Let them all be amazed at my ingenuity.
Is it worth bringing the so-called "home" plot to the level of a blockbuster, which you can not adequately present to the audience when everything looked so good in camera? Of course, you can always say, “This is an art house!” But excuses would be unnecessary. With all the attractive strangeness, "Hen-ge" manages to in the course of the case to work in a puddle, in which then have to sink, losing somewhere on the surface all its conceptual meaning.
4 out of 10