Tsukiko is a regular girl with amnesia. She doesn’t worry much about the loss of her memories, but she’s none-to-happy about her bouts of insomnia, so she’s started visiting a laconic hypnotherapist who’s office looks suspiciously like a quickly built and non-dressed set. In a trance, Tsukiko repeats the name “Tomie,” which is the summoning call for Detective Exposition. He’s been obsessing about a closed case and questions the doctor by giving out far more information than he gets. For no particular reason, he explains that Tsukiko wasn’t in a car wreck, but really conspired with classmates and her teacher to kill a girl named “Tomie” who’d swiped her boyfriend. Even though no body was found, everyone turned themselves in and were promptly sent to an asylum. Tsukiko was released to wallow in her repressed memories and the wacky teacher has recently escaped. With his job of stating everything the movie wasn’t showing done, the detective takes off, never suspecting that the teacher has taken the apartment below Tsukiko and carries a living severed head that’s growing itself a new body. But wait, there’s more. After nothing happens for a while, Detective Exposition reappears to giveaway the rest of the story. He believes that Tomie has been killed many times (because hey, if two victims have the same name, they must be the same person) and is really a demon that drives all men insane with desire and jealousy. Eventually, they either kill for her or kill her. If the second, she just regenerates and repeats. Again, with his job of telling way too much completed, he’s off to do nothing more of consequence.
Have I given away too much of the plot? You’d think so, but Tomie tosses all this out early just to make sure there’s not a speck of mystery or suspense.
Tomie is the first film in a series that numbers eight and growing. They all were inspired by a manga, which makes some sense because this first film couldn’t inspire a poorly focused Polaroid. Paced to match a wounded snail, Tomie isn’t surprising, shocking, exciting, frightening, or interesting. It isn’t even shot well. It’s hardly a movie. It’s people talking about a movie.
The concept is intriguing: A beautiful girl drives all men crazy until one murders her. This amuses her and she comes back to do it again. Think what a good movie could do with that. A confused girl could try to uncover the mystery while her friends begin to kill each other. Great stuff, but none of that’s here. There’s no mystery. Nada. Nor does any character ever discover anything. It’s all just dropped in our laps. Instead of action or plot and character development, we get to see Tsukiko riding her bike and taking a few pictures. Then she smokes a cigarette with her doctor. Then there’s some more bike riding. Oh, did I skip that she ate dinner after taking some more pictures? Yes, that kind of riotous entertainment just keeps coming. Tsukiko and company also chat. They don’t discuss things relevant to murders and an undying succubus. Nope, they just chat. That is except for the detective, one of the worse characters in recent Asian cinema. I kept expecting him to do something important to progress the story. But he has no part in the tale. He shows up to tell us what the film should have shown us, and that’s it. He doesn’t catch Tomie or deal with Tsukiko. He never even sees them.
For Occidental viewers, the pathetic subtitles add another layer of incompetence. I doubt the people involved had a thorough understanding of English. At least this creates one way to have fun with the movie: guessing what the proper words should have been.
Tomie has an above average, horror-movie concept, but nothing else.