Mag Mag review – giant female ghost loves people to death in Japanese comedy-horror
Sara Minami gives a wonderfully crazed performance in a twisted, fresh take on the genre as Yuriyan Retriever’s debut feature examines infatuation, bullying and beauty norms Back in the 90s and 00s, Japanese horror (or “J-horror” if you want to save on syllables) was much admired, reasonably widely distributed and sometimes remade in other languages. They never actually stopped making them in Japan, but the results…
Key points
- Yuriyan Retriever, a comedian who appeared on America's Got Talent twice, makes her directorial debut with the Japanese comedy-horror film Mag Mag.
- The film centers on a two-metre-tall female ghost named Mag Mag who pursues and kills the men she falls in love with.
- Sara Minami plays Sanae, a young woman whose crazed comic performance shows women can be as toxic as men.
Mag Mag is a low-budget Japanese comedy-horror film that marks the directorial debut of comedian Yuriyan Retriever, according to a Guardian Culture review. The film is described as a twisted, fresh take on the genre that examines infatuation, bullying and beauty norms.
The story is told through a series of interrelated chapters about encounters with Mag Mag, a female ghost notable for her height of two metres, her wild mane of hair and proportions that go against Japan's petite female beauty standards.
The ghost and her victims
When Mag Mag falls in love with a cute guy, the review says he is doomed, because she pursues him to the death. Her passion ends in fatal throttling and the sucking out of his eyes, which the review calls a step beyond boiling the family bunny in Fatal Attraction.
Mag Mag's backstory is only fully explained in the film's last section. The review says Yuriyan implies she was a fat high school girl bullied into suicide by classmates, though a twist later upends assumptions about bullying victims.
J-horror if you want to save on syllables
— The Guardian Culture
Sanae and the film's backers
Sara Minami plays Sanae, a young woman also in love with one of Mag Mag's victims, and the review praises her truly crazed comic performance. It notes that Sanae's obsessions show women are just as capable of toxicity as men.
The review describes a sequence in which Sanae covers her body in lubricant and forces her way through a sphincter-like opening in a giant portrait of the man she obsesses over, comparing it to cult director Takashi Miike at his most deranged. It adds that Miike is one of the backers of Mag Mag, a sign that older Japanese horror directors are passing on the torch.
