Apartment 1303 (2007) User Reviews

Lukewarm thrills

[paul_haakonsen · 4/10 · 7 February 2010]

This movie is not really all that scary. Sure it had a couple of moments where have you at the edge of the seat, but if just fails to bring you all the way over the edge.

Being a traditional Asian horror movie in every way, this movie offers very little that haven't been seen in other movies in the same genre. Sure it provides adequate entertainment the first time you watch it, but this movie is not the kind you pick up to watch again a second time. The problem might be that there are numerous horror movies being pumped out of Asia, so they all struggle to stand out in the genre. Apartment 1303 certainly failed to stand out.

The acting and cast in the movie is alright, though some of the dialogue is a bit weak. The setting? Well not overly scary, could have used some extra touches, but not a bottomscraper in any way though.

If you want to be scared and have good thrills, you might want to pick up another title, as this one is just a lukewarm experience. You might want to go for titles like "Ringu", "Phone", "The Eye" and such titles. If you are a native Asian, you might just find the movie scary, but for westerners there is very little to scare us in this movie.

I would recommend this movie for an early evening appetizer leading up for a better and scarier horror movie following after. Let this be a lead up to something more scare in its wake, no need to bring out the pillows while watching this one though.

Another Good Japanese Ghost Story

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 10 March 2009]

While celebrating with her friends her new apartment with balcony and view of the sea on the thirteenth floor of a building and rented in a very low price, the young Sayaka unexpectedly jumps off the balcony committing suicide. Her mother gets insane and her older sister, Mariko, decides to investigate the mysterious death of her sister and finds that there are many histories of suicide of young women in the apartment 1303. Further, she reads a book telling the tragic story of the Yukiyo and her mother, the first tenants of the apartment, and discovers that the evil spirit of Yukiyo is forcing the women to kill themselves.

"Apartment 1303" is another good, but never outstanding, Japanese ghost story. The story is not totally original, but there is a poor and confused development of some characters and situations. For example, what happened to Mariko's mother? Who are the little girl and her mother? Are they Yukiyo and her mother when she was a young girl? Why Yukiyo's mother changed her relationship with her daughter from a cheerful mother when she was young to an alcoholic bitch when she was a teenager? Anyway, the movie is not bad and is entertaining for the fans like me of this genre. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Apartmento 1303" ("Apartment 1303")

Nothing new.

[dark76 · 4/10 · 26 August 2007]

This is another ghost story from Japan. Mariko investigates about the suicide of her sister who lived in this Apartment 1303... and do you want to know all the rest? Everything in this movie is obvious and after 5 minutes from the begin, we easily know what it will happen in the rest of the movie. It doesn't scare too much, maybe because i begin to be tired of these ghost Japanese children... Innovation is finished some years ago and there is nothing much to save about this plot: maybe just the last minutes of the movie give some "scare" . At least, the actors are decent. My vote is 4 and as you can guess, I don't recommend it.

A Cut Price Version Of "The Grudge"

[Mr_Saxon · 3/10 · 26 September 2007]

When her sister apparently kills herself, Mariko refuses to believe that it was suicide and decides to investigate further. Her search for answers begins and ends at her sister's new apartment - number 1303 situated on the 13th floor of the building. It is here that Mariko discovers a dark history in which every female who moves into the apartment ends up throwing themselves from the balcony...

The problem with "Apartment 1303" is that it's all so painfully derivative.

The writer has obviously seen Shimizu's "The Grudge" movies and has attempted to pen his own version, but the resulting movie is nowhere near as good. Some of the scenes in "Apartment 1303" even fully replicate (or perhaps I should say 'steal from') "The Grudge" but are less effective in every way (for example, the scene in "The Grudge 2" where victims are attacked by the ghost's hair also appears here in much the same way). I'm actually amazed that the makers of "Apartment 1303" weren't sued when this film came out!

Quite early in the movie, a character is telling a ghost story about a demonic woman with no eyes. As she tells it, you see flashes of the monster and I found myself hoping that this would be the evil spirit plaguing the apartment. Alas, once the telling of the story concluded we did not see this monster anymore. The reason I'm mentioning this is because the monster we saw for two or so minutes in this scene was far more interesting than the real ghosts of the movie (and, it seems that the people who packaged the DVD realised it too, because the monster appears on the back cover)!

The tension of this movie is further decreased by the fact that every death follows the same pattern. The victim sees something horrible off-screen and then the next scene shows them falling off the balcony. At least with "The Grudge" you never quite knew how the next victim would perish.

All in all, this is a mediocre movie. If you've never seen an Asian horror movie then you might find it interesting but most people will watch it whilst thinking "Haven't I already seen this before somewhere?"

Same old song and dance

[massaster760 · 3/10 · 4 December 2007]

Sayaka is the new tenant of the fated Apartment 1303. After moving into her new apartment-which she got at a discounted price (sound familiar?), Sayaka kicks things off with a party. After visiting the "Tatami room," she entertains her guests by eating dog food off the floor and donning a motorcycle helmet(?), she then leaps off the thirteen floor, plunging to her death.

Sayaka's sister Mariko (Noriko Nakagoshi), is puzzled by her sisters sudden suicide. After some extremely long grieving scenes, Mariko decides to do some detective work. She quickly finds out that Sayaka was the fifth woman to die in the apartment, all of who died under similar circumstances. Her journey leads her to the apartment as well as a detective (Arata Furuta) who-for once-believes Mariko's story. Independently, the two set out to unravel the mystery of Apartment 1303 while trying not to become it's next victims.

After watching the first few opening scenes in this movie, I thought this might be good. It seemed as if the director was doing kind of a parody of J-Horror. The death of Sayaka seemed to be ringed with campy overtones. From the goofy faces the characters made to the way things were overacted just a bit, to the weird death scene. Alas, it was not to be, besides the opening and a few scenes toward the end (which kind of reminded of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2... in style only) 1303 then degenerates into the typical J-horror flick, riddled with genre cliché's.

Yes, this film has them all; scary dreams, phone calls from dead girls, a grudge type curse, a long haired vengeful ghost, and of course, the obligatory creepy little girl. Everything in this film is a mix of previous Asian horror films as Director Ataru Oikawa brings nothing new to the genre. I wish he would have followed the goofy beginning to it's logical next step (A spoof movie of Asian horror would be great if done right) but Oikawa instead elects to follow paths already forged out in J-Horror.

Bottom Line- For genre fans only. Same old song and dance.

Personally I was disappointed.

[nitzanhavoc · 5/10 · 24 February 2013]

I'm not too sure what to say about Apartment 1303... being nothing more than a Horror freak (and not a film critic or even a cinema student) I often find myself in lack of words to describe films I didn't enjoy yet didn't really dislike.

I must be honest and say I was pretty disappointed, as I'm a huge fan of Asian Horror and in particular their ghost stories, The Grudge and The Ring are masterpieces of the Ghost Story sub-genre and I always find myself comparing other films to them... as for this one - I could overlook the non-original story/screenplay and focus on the good acting and fitting cinematography, had it not been for the ordinary and non frightening ghost... I mean, Asian Horror is famous for its terrifying ghosts, what happened here??

What can I say... all in all I didn't really enjoy this film, and kept looking forward to something that would happen and make it worthwhile... it didn't. I can't say it was plain bad or anything, but I can't say it was good. As this is only my humble opinion, you might disagree with me and enjoy it, so I'd recommend it to fans of Ghost Stories and Asian Horror films, but only out of an attempt to maintain objectivity. Had a friend asked, I'd say they could easily bypass this film for other, better ones.

Scary enough to pass your time in your boring night

[champueng-1 · 6/10 · 4 June 2008]

I rent this movie from the store next door without high expectation and even so, I turned it off after 1 hour and fast forward it to the end. The movie wasn't too bad but ,on the other's hand, not the not-to-be-missed one either.

Some scenes, especially in the first 45 minutes, are quite scary but in the second half, its pace slowed down a bit. It's the universal rule that a ghost story will not be scary anymore if you see a ghost clearly. Even me know that, why didn't the director?

Over all, you'll find this movie good enough for a boring night with nothing else to do. My vote is 6.

And one other thing, why people have to run away from ghost? Why don't they fight? If a ghost can hurt us, why can't we hurt them back.

bad hair day

[chelano · 5/10 · 9 October 2011]

The only reason I liked this film was because it had some pretty interesting ghost parts. Also because it did have a nice scare factor at some scenes. The story line was decent but pretty confusing. By the end you realize that the whole thing really wasn't as eventful as you thought. The whole time I was wondering what was going on; what is the mystery? But at the end, it wasn't much. The cast was OK. Basically you had eye candy jumping off a balcony and hitting the ground. There was a couple older cast members who acted kind of bad, but the focus really wasn't on them. My favorite character was played by Eriko Hatsune though. She was pretty creepy. This film could of done so much more, but it didn't. It is worth seeing once though for a couple cool scenes.

J-Horror with an American Remake to follow

[RockPortReview · 6/10 · 3 December 2012]

Starting about ten years ago an explosion of Asian horror movies made their way to the United States and many have been remade. "The Ring" and "The Grudge" being the most popular of the dozen or so remakes. The Japanese movie "Apartment 1303" was released in 2007 and is now being remade with Mischa Barton starring. The remake has yet to be released and like most movies these day is in 3D.

The original "Apartment 1303" is quite similar in theme to "The Grudge" in that it revolves around the spirits of a mother and daughter that years back were involved in a murder suicide. The apartment is now cursed and infects all of the future female tenants. Asian horror films almost always involves some sort of ghost story or restless spirit that wreaks havoc on the living from beyond the grave Sayaka is a young woman who gets a deal on her first apartment. So she throws a party to celebrate. She then unexpectedly jumps off the balcony to her death in front of everybody. Her sister Mariko is convinced that it wasn't a suicide and starts her own investigation. The girls' mother is so grief stricken that her favorite daughter has died she spirals into madness. Like a lot of J-Horror films, "Apartment 1303" relies a lot on atmosphere, suspense and creepiness. Mariko finds out that her sister is the fifth young woman to have jumped of the balcony and starts to see the ghosts of the mother and daughter who haunt the place.

The back story and origins of the curse are revealed and all of the horrible things that have happened there. The story is heavily structured and planned out, but is quite an enjoyable watch for the causal horror fan. This movie is apart of the Tartan Asian Extreme DVD series. Add it to your Netflix queue today.

Watch the quality slip away

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 3 July 2015]

As a film, APARTMENT 1303 suffers from being far too similar in scope and tone to classic, better Japanese horror films that have come before: I'm thinking JU ON: THE GRUDGE and ONE MISSED CALL to name but two. It's yet another story of a haunted apartment block (DARK WATER anyone?) inhabited by the same type of long-haired female ghost that's been popularising Asian horror films ever since RING was a success in 1998. The story is derivative and reminiscent of earlier films but this one always comes off worse in the comparisons as truth be told it's not a patch on those aforementioned classics. I did kind of like it, though.

It's a slow burning chiller, depicting a series of violent suicides in which young females jump to their death from an apartment balcony. The sister of the latest victim begins to investigate and discovers a macabre back story involving a young girl and her alcoholic mother that's somehow linked to the present day tragedies. It covers very familiar ground but I didn't mind as I enjoy these Japanese horrors with all their atmosphere-building and regular shivers and shudders.

Unfortunately the film falls apart towards the end as events start to get increasingly ludicrous, thus blowing any realism that the filmmakers have strived so hard to build beforehand. The appearance of a ghostly girl whose hair extensions are dragging victims to their death is frankly laughable and it doesn't help that some horrid blue-screen effects of people hanging off balconies are even poorer than the one that marked Alan Rickman's fall in DIE HARD – and that was twenty years ago. In an effort to throw in lots of last-reel twists, we're left wondering what the hell is going on, and one of the biggest mysteries lies with the young girl and her mother living next door – if they're ghosts, how does a living male interact with them at the beginning of the film? Maybe a better question is why a family owns dog food when they clearly don't have a dog.

The acting is fairly mediocre and there aren't any shining performances here, but that doesn't matter as the characterisation never goes beyond the basics anyway. The over-the-top ending leaves you wondering what the hell they were thinking of rather than sitting back with a satisfied 'wow' as in some genuinely good twist-movies such as THE USUAL SUSPECTS. The first hour's a fun exercise in suspense building but the hijinks at the climax ruin a lot of this film's credibility.

Nothing's new

[wok2006 · 29 July 2007]

I think this is a direct to video. The fact that I saw this only in DVD in my neighborhood rental. I have always been a fan of the so-called Jhorror genre so I grab this. Well, unsurprisingly nothing is new in this tale of a ghost who grab lives for unexplainable hatred and grudges as we've seen enough in The Ring,The Grudge etc. The actors and actresses are not familiar faces and they gave passable if not too boring performances. The use of the number 13 in movies and fiction had been tiresome. It is not even stated how connected it is with the plot itself. All in all for me, see this one if you are planning a fright night with friends over pop corns in weekend.

Mama-san Dearest...

[poe-48833 · 9/10 · 20 September 2015]

Yukio finds herself caught up in one of those mother-daughter relationships that just never seems to work out well in the end and ends up sending Mama-san to The Other Side. While she may've found living with her mother nigh intolerable, living with her CORPSE doesn't seem to bother her overmuch- in the beginning; but, when Mother starts once again to haunt her every waking moment, Yukio begins to crack under the pressure and finally does a nosedive off of her 13th-floor balcony. Sayaka moves in; jumps; sister Mariko moves in, is haunted by the malevolent Mama-san, and finds and reads a book about Yukio and her mother. The measured pacing is never a problem (at least, not for those of us whose attention span hasn't been hardwired by a lifetime spent watching start-and-stop Commercial Television) and the twist that Mariko is spared because she still lives with her mom is vintage Asain Horror plotting.

Obvious western influences bring this movie down, thanks to the western producers

[sofianXmXh · 7/10 · 20 December 2017]

What a shame, this could have been a very solid entry in the horror genre.

The story revolves around a woman whose younger sister commits suicide after having left her maternal household to live on her own with her boyfriend and their friends in her newly acquired high rise apartment.

Seemingly unaffected by the whole ordeal and coming across as cold, she decides to delve deeper into this mystery, after having spent the night at her deceased sister's former apartment to clear out her stuff, and supernatural things started happening, such as seeing her dead sister behind the cheap nylon curtains of the now-vacant apartment.

Now, the story in itself is not bad at all. It's actually a quite solid ghost story, but unfortunately this movie had to suffer the consequences of being influenced by western minds, as 4 out of 5 producers happen to be westerners.

You can clearly tell how this movie is influenced by them, as all producers push their will onto the director: the opening credits and end credits reminded me of a typical Goosebumps episode; the type of music used during the scarier scenes being the same music used in western horror movies, and jump scares to name a few of these western influences.

If the Japanese director was left his own devices, making his own personal choices, this movie would have improved greatly. Alas, westerners, learn a lesson from this: do not meddle with Asian horror stories, and let the native people to do the telling.

A little sidenote, there was a ghost during early on in the movie that they unfortunately didn't use as the movie's main antagonist, and served only as the backbone of a made up urban legend regarding the apartment building. The reason why that is unfortunate is because the ghost was actually original and pretty freaky. Final rating: 6.5/10 - rounded up to a 7. Had the potential to be an 8/10.

5 of 10

[deadhera · 5/10 · 7 December 2010]

The movie was not the same as 1408, it did not even have anything to do with 13th floor being the scariest of all hotels. It was just about a sick mother who failed to care for her child and abuse her. They did not even explain why she became that way when she was a teen or how it had anything to do with the 1302 mother and child when it looked nothing like them when they were being shown, maybe its because its how the book described ? and where did mariko's mother go it would have been a better ending if they got the mother to save her falling off the building and the curse of the sick mother and daughter be uplifted and the mother would learn to see the other daughter but, it just never made sense where she went or is this even related to a Japanese folkore because it certainly did not make sense. The lead should not have been killed. I give it a 5, but do not recommend it rather watch Rattle Rattle. The actress was hot though.

the score is really bad

[trashgang · 5/10 · 5 September 2013]

Released nowadays just because a 3D remake is made by Hollywood. So I had to watch the original before I go watching the 3D version. But wait, this has to be good to move over to the remake.

I just found it not interesting because I was never scared and I even had to laugh a few times. The reason for my laughter was simple, the score and sound effects used. When the creepiness moves in with the, sigh, girl with long black hair, the music moves on towards some Disney happiness and distracts you away from what you see on the screen. Not only that, once the ghost speaks it's done so cheaply that it becomes ridiculous. And where is the gore or let us even say the red stuff?

No, there are much better flicks out there to see with girls having long black hair. If you dig Japanese ghost stories then you must see this but don't expect the creepiness or suspense of The Grudge (Ju-on 2002) or Ringu (1998).

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

grudge+ring+spider man?

[penguin-come-to-tea · 1/10 · 4 February 2010]

it sucks. I suppose this movie is a good knee-slapper for a late night with nothing to do but honestly, what was the director thinking? Two people are dead within the first 10 minutes of the movie, one, this Yuka character never has any significance ever again in the film. The sister keeps coming back for no reason and the Mariko(?) never showed any reaction to all the crazy things that were happening. Detective Sakurai despite being a famous actor did absolutely nothing! Who were the little girl and her mom? What was everything? What happened to all the people? Why is the big question I'm left with. Also, what's up with Sayaka appearing in the end just in time to do NOTHING??? Yet another pointless, I don't even know what to call it. Oh yeah, and the spider man thing is because the daughter for no good reason had spider hair.

Apartment 1303

[azarot · 4/10 · 5 July 2021]

I recently watched this movie and was very impressed. Being a horror purist and historian, I was dubious about the plot and storyline but was impressed with the cinematography and undertones of the film.

The bleakness and symbolism that pervades this film was new and refreshing from the American junk horror films of the 2000s.

The beauty of the Asian directors making these original films is the psychological and cinematic landscapes reminiscent of Bava and his use of light, mood and phantasmagoric imagery that makes me give this a two thumbs up. For those who criticize and meander with same old song and story, need to look beyond the expected gore or shock/slasher/ghost story genre and realize this is a very well done, creepy movie with psychological and emotional paragons.

Should've been the mother and daughter insteaad of the lady by the elevator.

[dummyperception · 6/10 · 11 November 2012]

I kind of knew that there was something going on upon seeing the title. What really made me want to watch it was Eriko Hatsune (I first saw her in Uzumaki,another movie that's not quite convincing either). There are a lot of dead ends in the story. I saw a lot of irrelevant elements exposed to the plot, wasting the time that should have been used to make the story a lot clearer. They all had the same cause of deaths. But showed different symptoms before they died (eating dog food, etc., then getting pulled by hair that made me go "WTF?!"). I mean what's the hair got to do with everything? And why, if I may ask, was the sister the only one the ghost was chasing after when there were more people that's gone into the room? I dunno, they're kinda going after some story and then inserting another that's of no relevance (Ex: "Mom pushed me!") And I didn't get the bipolarity of Yukiyo (Melodramatic to psychotic; I mean c'mon!). It's not that I think that it had to have a good ending (I kinda expected that Mariko gets pushed off anyway, maybe by the mother), but the mom-daughter background story was not developed enough to support the ghost's "grudge". Let's just say that the film could've used more development for the story of the mother and daughter's relationship, and should have not used the time to film some legend that had nothing to do with the plot, so it's only 6/10 from me.

A Ghost Story in Serious Need of Suspense

[Uriah43 · 4/10 · 3 May 2023]

This film essentially begins with a young woman by the name of "Yukiyo Sugiuchi" (Eriko Hatsune) having just moved into a new apartment and unpacking her household items. It's during this time that she happens to smell an awful odor and upon checking it out is thrown from the 13th floor onto the ground below. The scene then shifts to a few months later with a small group of people gathering in that same apartment building to celebrate the fact that their good friend "Sayaki Midorikawa" (Aki Fukada) is moving into a new apartment building. Naturally, being a young woman who has never lived on her own before, Sayaki is thrilled to have found such an inexpensive place to rent. However, it's during this time that she also smells a strong odor coming from one of the rooms within the apartment. So, being somewhat concerned about where the odor is coming from, she promptly goes to check it out. Minutes later she returns to her friends and--to their great shock and dismay--she then proceeds to throw herself off of the balcony to her death. A few days later, Sayaki's older sister "Mariko Midorikawa" (Noriko Nakagoshi) goes to pick up her belongings and begins to see hallucinations of her sister in that same apartment. Little does she realize that, the longer she continues to investigate Sayaki's death, the closer she gets to the real horror behind it. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this could have been a pretty good horror film but it lacked the suspense necessary for a movie of this sort. Admittedly, Noriko Nakagoshi, was quite attractive and performed her role rather well. But even so, it wasn't enough to overcome the rather uninspired plot and I have rated this film accordingly. Slightly below average.

disappointing

[atinder · 3/10 · 21 June 2013]

I actually forgot that, I saw this, I noticed I did mark it 3 out of 10 after I saw, I was actually forgot to review.

I am trying to remember, any good scenes from movie but I am drawing blank.

This movie is very forgettable and only saw it 2 weeks ago and the movie didn't not have any creepy moment.

And they try to scace us , with One second Jump scenes, that don't seem to work.

I not sure what happened at the end of the movie, I know hour into the movie and I nodded off and woke up again with credits were on.

If you looking forward for Nap , Give this movie a watch as it help you sleep!

3 out of 10 , I won't be seeing the remake, any time soon

Too Little Too Late For The J-Horror Train!

[Movie-Misfit · 4/10 · 2 April 2020]

Apartment 1303 had the misfortune of being remade by Hollywood a few years after this initial release, directed by one of its many Western producers and failing to impress upon release. While this film only just entertains a little more, due to its Japanese setting and traditions, the film ultimately is like an independent flick inspired by many J-horror classics, yet failing to deliver what so many before it had already done!

While not completely terrible, Apartment 1303 passes the time with decent performances from the most of its cast, and a few (and I mean a few), creepy moments - although hardly anything to give you a chill such as The Grudge and The Ring did on many occasions.

While nicely shot, I also found the film equally failing on scares as well as its attempt at humour. It didn't really do it for me unfortunately, but there is worse out there...

Overall: May work on the easily scared, but as a horror film director, it didn't have anything new that gripped me!