Saimin (Hypnosis )(The Hypnotist) (1999)

Fresh off the international success of such Japanese supernatural flicks as Ring (1996) and Cure (1998) comes this bizarre mystery thriller. The film opens with a trio of inexplicable suicides: a groom strangles himself at his own wedding, an old man hurls himself out a window, and an athlete runs until her legs break. In each case, the victims dying words were "The green monkey is coming." Burned-out cop Sakurai (Ken Utsui), along with psychologist Saga (Goro Inagaki), set out to investigate the deaths. The search leads them to Yuka (Miho Kanno), an enigmatic TV hypnotist. As the bodies continue to pile up, Sakurai and Saga desperately go about looking for the deadly trigger to these otherworldly murders. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi