The Complex

is a 2013 Japanese horror film directed by Hideo Nakata. The film premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival on January 1, 2013, and was released in Japan on May 18 that same year. A 12 episode drama, titled Kuroyuri Danchi ~Josho~ follows events leading up to those that take place in the film. It began airing in Japan on April 9, 2013. In May 2018, the series was released in the United States on Toku. Plot Nursing student Asuka Ninomiya (Atsuko Maeda) moves to a dilapidated apartment complex with her father Isao, mother Sachiko (Naomi Nishida), and younger brother Satoshi. She tries to greet her elderly next-door neighbor Shinozaki with little success and befriends his ward, Minoru Kinoshita. Asuka begins experiencing strange occurrences, including scratching noises and the sound of an alarm clock, both coming from Shinozaki's flat. She is also wary of her own family, who seem to be repeating the same actions and conversations every day. She later discovers Shinozaki died while scratching the wall, which she heard. A detective tells her that he has been dead for three days without anyone knowing. Since then, Asuka feels that Shinozaki resents her for not finding him sooner. When a cleanup team arrives to clean Shinozaki's flat, Asuka becomes acquainted with Shinobu Sasahara (Hiroki Narimiya), a cleaner with experiences in the supernatural who tells her that the living and the dead experience time differently: the living moves forward, while the dead is stuck at the time they died. Asking about Shinozaki's haunting, she is told that he can contact a psychic friend of his. Returning home, Asuka is greeted by a completely empty home and no family and becomes hysterical. Shinobu learns from Asuka's foster parents that her entire family had died years ago; since then, Asuka has been blaming herself. Shinobu invites his psychic friend, Sanae Nonomura, who learns that Shinozaki's spirit is not hostile - he only wants to thank her for discovering him and warn her that she is in danger. She is actually haunted by Minoru, a boy from the apartment complex who died 13 years ago when he hid inside a garbage incinerator during a hide-and-seek game and was burned to death.