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?"

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")

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.