Japanese director Hideo Nakata adapts another story by RING novelist Koji Suzuki for a supremely creepy tale of atmospheric horror. Yoshimi (Hitomi Kuroki) is a soon-to-be single mother going through a rather nasty divorce and struggling for custody of her adorable five-year-old daughter, Ikuko (Rio Kanno). Forced to find a new job and home, Yoshimi settles for a drab concrete highrise with long, unpopulated corridors and damp, shadowy interiors that include a patch of murky water dripping through the ceiling from the apartment above. As the building's mildewy recesses take their psychological toll on Yoshimi, Ikuko keeps stumbling upon a small, red, child's handbag that belonged to a little girl named Mitsuko (Mirei Oguchi), who lived in the upstairs apartment and disappeared under mysterious circumstances--and who seems to be exerting her ghastly influence over the mother-daughter pair in increasingly menacing ways. Sustaining an aura of dread that would make Roman Polanski proud, DARK WATER mines metaphor-rich water images of gurgling bathtubs and ominous rooftop water towers for a thrilling horror odyssey that also works as a social commentary on the dynamics of motherhood, madness, and the modern nuclear family (ala THE SHINING or ROSEMARY'S BABY). Like THE RING, Nakata's superlative slice of J-horror was given the Hollywood treatment with a 2005 remake starring Jennifer Connelly.

DVD Features:

Region 1
NTSC
Keep Case
Anamorphic Widescreen - 1.78
Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1 - Japanese, English
Additional Release Material:
Trailers:
1. ADV Previews
2. Original Japanese Trailer
Additional Products:
Inserts - DARK WATER Manga Advertisment, Track Listings
Tracks:
1. Opening Credits
2. Left Behind
3. Mediation Hearing
4. Apartment 305
5. Moving In
6. First Day of School
7. No Answers
8. Job Interview
9. Friends & Family
10. Hide & Seek
11. Mediation Hearing II
12. Ikuko Disappears
13. The Apartment Upstairs
14. Words of Advice
15. Mistuko Kawai
16. 10 Years Later
17. Closing Credits

Hitomi Kuroki: 
Rio Kanno: Japanese actor: DARK WATER (2005)
Mirei Oguchi: Japanese actress, DARK WATER (2002)
Asami Mizukawa: Japanese actress, DARK WATER (2002)
Fumiyo Kohinata: Actor, THE MARS CANON (2002)
Yu Tokui: Actor

Hideo Nakata: Japanese Director, RING (1998)

Takashige Ichise: Director, TOKYO: THE LAST MEGALOPOLIS

Kenji Kawai: Japanese Composer/Animation

Nobuyuki Takahashi: Japanese editor, DARK WATER (2002)