Tokyo Gore Police

Tokyo Gore Police
Original Title: Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu
Directed by: Yoshihiro Nishimura
Japan, 2008
Sci-Fi/Horror, 110 min
Distributed by: Njuta Films

Kick-ass over the top supers stylized Japanese gore. I’ll tell you right now, that it doesn’t get any better than this. The wave of neo-cyber/splatter punk directors that are on the scene right now are definitely making sure that everyone interested in alternative cinema is directing their eyes at a hard stare back on Japan.

The movies that have been coming out of Japan these last years since J-horror tripped up in it’s own matted web of wet hair and pale chicks is completely outrageous. They are among the most fascinating stuff that one can watch if your after a quick fix of gore drenched entertainment with outrageous special effects. It’s wonderfully sinister, gory to the max, and is very reminiscent of the great gore wave of the eighties.

There’s something terrifically aesthetic about the way that Japanese directors portray their extremely stylish violence, since the ban on cinematic swordplay was lifted in the 50’s. Yes, in the post WW2 occupation of Japan the U.S. Censors imposed a ban on “nationalistic” movies hence forcing age old genres into obscurity. Well until they came back with a blood spraying vengeance a few years later. Directors and movies like Akira Kurosawa, Hiroshi Inagaki and Kenji Misui’s post war jidai-geki chanbaras, the great kaidan films of Nobou Nakagawa, Kaneto Shindô and Masaki Koboyashi, the gritty sixties and seventies pop crime flicks of Toshiya Fujita, Koji Fukasaku, Seijun Suzuki, Kenji Misumi and Shunya Ito, the new wave of Shinya Tsukamoto, Sogo Ishii, Takashi Kitano the revival of kaidan with the likes of Hideo Nakata, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Shion Sono, and Takashii Miike and even still relatively unknown directors like Sakichi Satô, Gen Sekiguchi and Higuchinsky all have it in common. Their movies are perfected works of stunning visuals and amazing style. One could easily freeze frame at any one point and there is a breath taking image on screen… this is one of the reasons why I constantly find myself being drawn back to Japanese cinema over and over again. They pack a punch, spray the red, and always look fantastic.

Tapping into the likes of Sogo Ishii and Shinya Tsukamoto’s cyber punk of the last decade, and the ferocity of Takashi Miike’s no holds barred action flicks; Tokyo Gore Police is set in a dystopian future world where the law has been privatized. There is no compromising with crime – it’s a disease and the Tokyo Police Corporation show no mercy. Young star cop Ruka [Eihi Shiina – star of Takashi Miike’s Ôdishon (Audition) 1999] is drawn into a nightmare world where strange scientist [Itsuji Itao] has created a killer organism, from concentrated serial killer DNA. He places the genetically engineered keys into people, and once these keys are in place they are transformed into Engineers – deadly killers set on bringing the downfall of mankind.

But taking out the engineer’s is a more complicated task than just sending in the cops, as for each wound an engineer sustains a new lethal weapon from the wound. This is a brilliant idea and brings some really amazing scenes to the movie – the alligator woman is easily amongst one of the most impressive creatures ever to be put on scene.

At the same time Ruka has serious issues stemming from her childhood – she was grimly traumatised when she saw her cop father shot at point blank in the head during a demonstration – this incident has Ruka taking her angst out on her self through self mutilation. But it’s also an angst that she shares with the lead protagonist The Scientist as their pasts are linked in several ways.

When the scientist starts killing victims as well – apart from creating new engineers – the police force lead by Tokyo Police Chief [Yukihide Benny] demands that the engineers be stopped at all costs when they start finding the scientists victims – drained from blood and cut up into parts left in cardboard boxes. Ruka is obviously set on the case and goes after the Scientist, but the closer she get’s the more she learns that they share similar backgrounds. After fighting the Scientist in the subway, and actually being defeated, the Scientist encourages Ruka to “remember it all” and then inserts a key into her… Ruka faces some real issues now when she, the top cop, also is infected and doomed to become an engineer!

After fellow police officer is lured into a set up – which features the outlandish bordello and modified prostitutes, one which becomes the fantastic alligator woman - and turned into a diabolic engineer too, the Police Chief declares war on the engineer’s and Ruka – now with a foot in each camp has some shocking revelations ahead of her.

If you just want a taste of this film, then simply watch the opening sequence. I guarantee that it will shock you, seduce you and draw you right in. It’s packs a punch in the face opening like no other movie has for ages. And after setting up this fabulous tone, the movie starts exploring it’s narrative. There’s a great back-story that unravels throughout the movie and new information is put forth for each step closer to finding the lead engineer –Key man [Itsuji Itao]. Once he’s found, Ruka’s character has to revaluate her life as much of what she has previously thought to be one thing turns out to be a complete different one. There’s a wonderful complexity to the characters that really makes a difference. There are no simply good or bad characters, as they all hold both sides of the spectrum. Bad guys have very reasonable reasons for their actions and in some ways are acting in the name of good, and the same goes for the good guys who also are conducting foul deeds even if it’s in the name of good. It’s interesting and brings a density to the movie above the traditional linear narrative and classic archetypes.

Design wise there’s a lot of great things going on here. Police cars are modified old SAAB’s with shrines attached to the top, the usual mixture of new and old Japanese style is found as the cops all have a kind of neo-samurai clothing, the schoolgirl outfits and geisha outfits are all there too. Clubbers sport some fantastic outfits obviously inspired by LeighBowery and the modified girls will blow your mind. Especially the police chief’s pet Dog Girl [Cay Izumi] who later has razor sharp swords attached to her stumps becoming an almost gazelle like combatant.

Yoshihiro Nishimura has been on the scene for a few years – he’s already directed a bunch of movies of his own, but he’s primarily been working on special effects on some of the most impressive movies to come out of Japan since the J-Horror wave. If you’ve seen any of Shion Sono’s splendid movies this past decade, then you’ve seen the stuff that Nishimura comes up with.

There’s a great Blade Runner (Ridley Scott 1982), RoboCop (Paul Vehoeven 1987), Neo-Chanbara - CyberPunk vibe to the movie and the hilarious TV commercials that blurt onto screen – just like Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven 1997) are great. The Wii like appliance is outstanding and will have you laughing your ass off. These short ironic infomercials where directed by Yūdai Yamaguchi and Noboru Iguchi. Iguchi who also directed the fantastic Kataude mashin gâru (The Machine Girl) 2008 on which Yohshihiro Nishimura provided special effects. It was also on that same production that Nishimura was approached with the request to make another movie. Looking back at his 1995 debut feature Genkai jinkô keisü (Anatomia Extinction) he decided that it would make a perfect source and together with Kengo Kaji (who also worked on Higuchinsky’s amazing live action adaptation of Junji Ito’s Uzumaki 2000) on the screenplay to Tokyo Gore Police. I would love to find out how long they spent on pre-production, as the shoot itself supposedly only took Two weeks!

Nishimura still stays close to working the special effect on many of the movies within the Japanese gore horror genre, and has gone on to direct a few more films in a similar vain as Tokyo Gore Police – Kyûketsu Shôjo tai Shôjo Frankura (Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl) 2009 and Sentô shôjo: hi no tekkamen desetsu (Mutant Girls Squad) currently in post-production. Hopefully he’ll soon get back to the Gore Police with the sequel that is promised at the end of Tokyo Gore Police, as I’ll definitely be up for that one.

Tokyo Gore Police is a great movie, its extremely violent, grotesquely funny, has a great narrative and some outrageous designs that make it a fantastic piece of Japanese cinema. It’s a definitive must see movie that you need to check out as soon as possible if you haven’t seen it already because there’s a valid reason that this movie won the Best Asian Film award at the 2008 FantAsia Film Festival. It simply rocks supreme.

Image:

Widescreen

Audio:

Dolby Digital Stereo, Japanese dialogue, optional Swedish, Norwegian, Danish or Finnish subtitles.

Extras:

The making of Tokyo Gore Police, footage from the Japanese premiere, Interviews with Yoshihiro Nishimura and Eihi Shiina, theatrical trailer and trailers for other Njuta Film releases.

Here's the trailer and a selection of those fantastic infomercials.

Grotesque

Grotesque
Original Title: Gurotesuku
Directed by. Kôji Shiraishi
Japan, 2009
Horror, 73min
Distributed by: Njuta Films.

Don’t you just love that Japanese horror film makers have abandoned the stylish, slow building and highly effective J-Horror traits and made a return to their good old extensive gore fests that where in demand late eighties, early nineties. There’s a whole new force of Japanese genre film makers who obviously have been inspired by these movies and are making sure that the slow moving dead girls down the well stay put. It’s time for the blood and guts to make a triumphant comeback.

Early 2009, the net started buzzing about this new flick out of Japan that had opened on screens at Theatre N in Shibuya. A movie that put all others to shame, a movie that made US torture porn look like Saturday morning cartoons. A movie that went straight for the gut and had even the hardest gore hounds retching and vomiting from disgust.

Cut to mid 2009 and the UK based video company 4Digital Asia announced the movie, Grotesque, as part of their fall line up of coming releases. But that’s about as far as it got. The movie's reputation went through the roof as the British board of censors, The BBFC, pulled every break they could and banned the movie there and then due to the "high level of sexual torture and lack of both narrative and character development"… But whenever did censors start caring about narrative and character development, and do they have a point there at all? It's time to get defensive!

First let’s set you up with a brief quick fix; A man [Shigeo Ôsako – who actually looks like a young Takashi Kitano] sits waiting inside his van, preparing for something and fingering a mallet. Aki Miyashita [J-AV actress Tsugumi Nagasawa, also in Yoshihiro Nishimura’s Tokyo Gore Police 2008] and Kazu Kojima [Hiroaki Kawatsure from Yôhei Fukuda’s Oneechanbara: The Movie 2008, and has a minor role in Shirashi’s previous Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman 2007]. The happy couple walk past the van and the man – from here on referred to as the sadist - sneaks out only to bludgeon them with the mallet. As they regain consciousness they realise that the sadist has taken them to an apparent torture chamber. With the premise set, the show get’s a rolling. Placing them both face to face, the sadist explains that he intends to kill them both, and that there is no escape – unless their survival instincts manages to arouse him He questions them one at a time, setting the rules for the sadistic game to follow, a game that starts with sexual humiliation only to move into torturous surgery. After changing into a surgeon’s outfit the man proceeds to cut off the couples fingers, hands and Aki’s arm before hammering nails into Kazu’s testicles and finally cutting of his knob with a huge knife. At this point in time the Sadist reaches a climax and declares that they have succeeded. They have satisfied his lusts and he has no need to keep the captive for torturous purposes anymore. The Sadist instead starts tending to their wounds and the healing process can begin. Slowly Aki and Kazu start seeing a possibility of making out of the ordeal alive, and rely on the now kind words of he Sadist… But, and there’s always a but, the healing process is merely a further level of his sadism and just as Aki and Kazu think that they are to be released from the sadists grasp, he plunges them back into the dark depth s of the torture chamber where the movie slowly grinds it’s way to the blood drenched climax.

There you go, Grotesque is a dark, seedy and provocative movie that packs some hard punches with disturbing visuals and some harrowing scenes that will affect you in one way or another – in other words it’s a fucking rollercoaster ride that is awesome in every imaginable way! But I still don’t see the reason for banning the movie in both the U.K. and Norway.

Let’s take a look at what BBFC chairman David Cooke actually had to say about the movie and where his main argumentation for refusing the film a rating; "Unlike other recent 'torture' themed horror works, such as the Saw and Hostel series, Grotesque features minimal narrative or character development and presents the audience with little more than an unrelenting and escalating scenario of humiliation, brutality and sadism. In spite of a vestigial attempt to 'explain' the killer's motivations at the very end of the film, the chief pleasure on offer is not related to understanding the motivations of any of the central characters. Rather, the chief pleasure on offer seems to be wallowing in the spectacle of sadism (including sexual sadism) for its own sake"

Sure the movie is obscenely gritty, seductively sleazy and immensely disturbing, but in all honesty Mr. Cooke has obviously missed the mark as he’s making statements that he obviously can’t back. Well first off, do we really still need to have a nice tidy bookend to each movie we watch? Do we really need to see antagonists brought to justice? Well of course we don’t, we are educated people and we know that in the real world there’s a fair percentage of criminals that never get brought to justice (Jack the Ripper being one of the most infamous) We live in a more cynical age and we don’t have to see antagonists brought to justice at all anymore. If we watch a horror film, with the intention of being freaked out, grossed out, scared beyond all comprehension, or moved emotionally in any way then we want some of that effect to rub off on us, and there’s no better way to do this than through the open ended narrative. And this brings me to the second flaw of Mr. Cooke’s stale tasting argument, because Grotesque certainly does have a narrative, it does have character development, and they certainly are not small ones.
The narrative of the movie is found within the kidnapped couples story. They not only have an engaging tale of survival, but they also have a blooming relationship at bay. That’s why there’s a flash back to their first “date” ten minutes in after the sadist asks if Aki would die to save her boyfriend Kazu. Love is one of the most positively loaded values, and for this we will fight anything. It’s one of the most ultimate noble causes and that simple little flashback sets up our narrative driving force of the movie. We want them to get out alive because they love each other, and to keep that love alive they need to beat death bringing together the two strongest values ever put at stake.

These values are taunted, fuelled and used in a great way to manipulate the audience into getting even deeper involved with the characters when the Sadist decides that they have satisfied his sadistic lusts and says that he will release them after healing them back to health. It induces hope into the dark narrative and we once again see a possibility of the movie climaxing on a high note.

Secondly there are definitive character arcs within the movie. One is the couple that at first are distant, but before the movie ends have become closer than they ever did in the “outside” world. The line of dialogue “Look at us, two half people. Together we can perhaps become one whole.” Shows their progress they actually imagine each other together after their ordeal. In the climax just before the lights go out, they stare deeply into each other’s eyes, proving that they still as they face the darkness find a light within each other. So their characters do develop, they go from passive characters to active characters driven by their affections towards each other and their desire to stay alive.

Also there’s a small arc with the Sadist. After Aki has humiliated him in the climax of the movie, he takes to wearing deodorant. It’s a small but humorous arc, which also is quite in line with the movie. Because there is a humorous tone to the movie, even if it is a dark one, and that’s a familiar trait of the director Koji Shiraishi.

Koji Shiraishi is in no way a newcomer to the movie scene, or to the horror genre. He was shooting his own independent movies while in college and eventually he got to work on a real movie, that movie was Sogo Ishii’s surreal sci-fi flick August in the Water (Mizu no Nka no Hachigatsu) 1994. In 1997 he’d moved to Tokyo and dedicated himself to his storytelling skills which end up seeing his movie The Wind will Blow (Kaze wa Kuku Darou) being rewarded with at the Runner-Up Prize at the 1999 PIA Film Festival (A Japanese Film Festival open for all categories of film and has been so since 1977) Already here the cinematic style of Shiraishi was apparent – the faux documentary – a style that he also had use of when making the many of the shinrei videos that he produced to support himself. (Shinrei videos are much like the Haunted House TV shows, where the object is to wander places supposedly haunted with the hopes of picking up spectral occurrences on film.)

The shinrei shorts where advantageous to Shiraishi when the J-horror wave took off for real as it made him an obvious choice of Director on movies like Ju-Rei: The Uncanny (Ju-rei: Geijkô-ban – Kuro-ju-rei) the TV series Dark Tales of Japan (the Ônamakubi segment) both 2004 and the terrifying Noroi 2005 which has been compared to, and called the Japanese Blair Witch Project due to the documentary style narrative. But now you know better, as that was a trait Shiraishi had been using since the mid nineties.

Before Grotesque, Shiraishi made an impressive mark on genre fans growing tired of the repetitive J-Horror formula with Carved – The Slit-Mouthed Woman (Kuchisake-onna) 2007, a movie that enjoyed a decent success and sure is an entertaining little piece of contemporary Japanese horror.

Shiraishi has said in interviews that he was commissioned to make a movie so vile hat it couldn’t be shown in the theatres, and needless to say he pulled that one off superbly, if a horror director doesn’t offend people, he’s not doing his job right. Ironically though considering the reputation the movie now has, Shiraishi sees no future in the horror genre, and wants’ to move back into black comedic areas. His latest films Occult (Okaruoto) 2009 is more of a coming of age movie shot in his characteristic fake documentary style and features not only Shiraishi in a role, but also the great Kiyoshi Kurosawa playing himself. The two Teketeke movies he directed in 2009 also follow a pretty straight forward Japanese horror formula, although these movies have given him the possibility to finally direct a movie that is all in his own hands with out studio or producers interfering with the production, and that movie Cursed Violent People (Bachiatari boryoku ningen) will be something to keep your eyes open for.

Technically Grotesque is a wonderful little piece of work. Excellent cinematography by Yôhei Fukuda, who directed Oneechanbara: The Movie 2008 and Tokyo Gore School 2009 who keeps his handheld camera fluid and flowing all through the film, which adds to that nightmarish and documentary mind set. Tsuyoshi Sone’s editing is top notch as he constantly keeps manipulating the audiences into imagining scenes much more vile than those actually seen. Fast edits and cutting away from the carnage is a brilliant trick that you will see perfected in movies like Hitchcock’s Psycho 1960, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1974 and Takashi Miike’s Ichi the Killer 2001- all movies that leave their audiences thinking that they saw stuff they really didn’t see at all.

Even though the new wave of Japanese gore horrors may inspired by the likes of Hideshi Hino’s Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood 1985, Toshiharu Ikead’s Evil Dead Trap 1988, Katsuya Matsumura’s All Night Long 1992 and Hisayasu Sato’s Naked Blood 1995 I feel that they have taken the style of these old school gore classics and set them firmly in a new setting. The movies hold more of a storyline than being more vehicles for showcasing ferocious special effects. And that is one of the things that I find so entertaining with Grotesque, even though there are some brutal scenes and horrific special effects at times in the movie, it never dwells on the scenes of violence, so it never get’s boring or repetitive, instead it adds to the over all atmosphere of the movie, and it’s that dark disturbing atmosphere and the engaging narrative/character development that makes the movie such an entertaining ride.

On the 21st of April 2010 Njuta Films who definitely are releasing some of the most impressive titles onto the Scandinavian market right now, push the boundaries, screw the censors and release Grotesque into the world of home entertainment. And it’s a welcome addition to any fan of extreme Japanese genre cinema; a piece that I’m sure people will still be talking about in the years to come and a movie that will move you emotionally in one way or another. The ending, even though dark and nihilistic adds to the shock value and over all pessimism of the film, and when people bitch about dark ending’s then throw Philip Kaufman’s award winning The Unbearable Lightness of Being 1988 based on Milan Kundera’s book at them. No movie is as fucking depressing and haunting as that bastard movie – even if it is a great one.

Sitting perfectly on the shelf between Hideshi Hino’s Guinea Pig movies and Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs 2008 (which for the record was passed without any cuts made in the UK), Grotesque is destined to become a classic masterpiece, a movie that you need to see and experience before you make unrelated statements about storytelling or sub genre conventions.

Image:
1.85:1 Widescreen

Audio:
Dolby Digital 2.0 or Dolby Digital 5.1 - Japanese Dialogue. Swedish, Danish or Finnish subtitles optional.

Extras:
The original Trailer, a slideshow and five trailers for other Njuta Film releases.

Horrors of Malformed Men

Horrors of Malformed Men

Original Title: Kyôfu ikei ningen: Edogawa Rampo zenshû

Directed by: Teruo Ishii

Euo guro (Erotic/Grotesque), 99 min

Japan, 1969

Distributed by: Synapse Films

There’s a popular misconception that Japanese horror movies are a recent novelty that starts with the success of Hideo Nakata’s Ringu 1998. Yes, it’s true, several people recently looked completely puzzled when I noted that J-Horror is in no way a new entry into the horror genre, although the name may be new as we have an anal need to categorize themes and topics into one definable slot, the Japanese horror scene has always been an item. J-Horror and Ringu as we know it, based on Koji Suzuki’s splendid book Ringu, was already shot in two different versions before the international success had genre fans looking to Japan and Asia for the next big thing. In 1995, director Chisu Takigawa directed a TV movie based on Suzuki’s book. The TV movie opted to focus on the sexual relations of the kids instead of the profound terror found in the source material and it comes off more like an episode of O.C., The Hills or even Beverly Hills with a supernatural element thrown in. Following this there was even a sequel produced Rasen, directed by Jôji Iida in 1998, the same year that Nakata revisited the original text only to end up with an international hit on his hands which opened the floodgates for Japanese and Asian horror in the same way directors like Ringo Lam and John Woo shot their way to fame with their ballistic ballets during the late eighties.

J-Horror isn’t new in any way and the tales told within the J-Horror sphere are really folktales modernized for a new audience. The origins of the J-horror iconography, themes and style have their foundation in the Kabuki and Noh theatre of feudal Japan. During the sixties, directors like Nobuo Nakagawa, Kaneto Shindô and Masaki Kobayashi where shooting movies that relied heavily on their ancestors folktales, and just like the J–Horror wave, the antagonist was more than often a bloated woman with long hair hanging over her face out to claim revenge from her frequent male wrongdoers.

It would be a far stretch to say Teuro Ishii’s once banned for decades, Horror of Malformed Men is a horror movie, as it in all honesty won’t scare anyone these days. It is more of a thriller, whodunit movie with elements of horror aesthetics interwoven in the narrative. But that can’t really be discussed without first talking about Edogawa Rampo first. Rampo was the pseudonym of Japanese writer Tarô Hira, who mainly wrote "pulpy" detective stories in the fashion of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Maurice Leblanc. Many of these detective stories incorporated themes and elements of the fantastic, the erotic and on many occasion saw lead character super detective Kogorô Akechi go up against a varied assortment of mastermind criminals set out to succeed with the perfect crime, such as the antagonist in Kenji Fukasaku’s campy pop-art masterpiece Black Lizard 1968. But Rampo also frequented the fantastic and horror scenes, where the influences of the gothic and Edgar Allen Poe are obvious, his pen name; Edogawa Rampo is a Japanese rendering of Poe’s name. (Painfully obvious when you see it isn’t it) These stories often saw disfigured or seriously wounded characters in key roles; the monsters taking command. It is from his original text Panorama-tô kitan (The Strange Tale of Paranormal Island) that the main source to Ishii’s Horror’s of Malformed Men can be found, but Ishii knew his Rampo and used several other stories of Rampo’s to bump the script up several notches. Among them The Twins that later was shot as Gemini 1999 by Shinya Tsukamoto.

Teuro Ishii was no stranger to the genre either, and just like Takashi Miike in later years, Ishii could direct up to ten movies a year! After a few years of working for the Shintoho studio, Ishii moved to Toei Studios, and with declining cinema vsitors due to the novelty of TV, he quickly became the right man in the right spot as the Pinky Violence movies hit the silver screens. With a couple of successful Pinku flicks to his name (The Joy of Torture 1968 and Orgies of Edo 1969 to name two) he finally got to make the movie that all those Edogawa Rampo stories had influenced, Horrors of Malformed Men. But instead of becoming the success that he expected, it soon vanished from the screens banned from being shown and plummeted into oblivion.

Still there's the question why was Teuro Ishii’s Horrors of Malformed Men banned in Japan? It isn’t more sexually explicit than other movies of the time, neither is it more visually violent than contemporary movies… But still it was banned never the less, hence becoming one of Japanese cinemas’ most notorious oddities.

Sure by today’s standards it is quite a gentle movie, but the ban was not due to a public outcry, there where no fainting and vomiting in the aisles, there was no audience fleeing from the theatres disgusted with what they saw on screen… They left the cinemas confused and dazed. Where the title, Horrors of Malformed Men may have led the paying blue-collar audience to believe that they where going to be in for a damned good freak show with loads of smut, gore and violence, they got a suggestive, mystic movie with performer Tatsumi Hijakata’s Butoh dance spastically strutting around on screen. Instead the ban came from the studio itself as Toei, worked up about the movie and the lacking results at the box-office, in their panic that the movie would offend someone put it on the shelf and banned it.

Being a land of stern rules, ethics and strictness, the cultural elite turned their backs on Tatsumi Hijakata’s Butoh during the fifties considering it ridiculous, embarrassing, scandalous an definitely not Japanese dancing. Luckily the western world embraced Butoh and today it is definitely a dance that is strongly associated with Japan. There’s a sweet irony in the fact that western worlds took to too Hijakata’s Butoh, as he initially invented the dance as a protest to the way western dance had evolved.

Tapping into the collective fear of nuclear holocaust that traumatized Japan after the war, showing disfigured characters would in one way or another be provocative then, but with today’s standards it probably wouldn’t create the same reaction… but there are other topics in this grand movie that still today will provoke an audience. Try grave robbing, two gender Siamese twins, incest and necrophillic relations for a starter!

Starting off with a superb collage of some awesome spiders to get your flesh creeping during the opening sequence, Ishii next slings us into pitch black as we hear Hirosuke Hitomi [Teruo Yoshida, the leading man from Hajime Sato’s excellent GOKE – The Bodysnatcher from Hell 1968] tell us that this tale starts in a gray room, an unusual room… The camera pans down from the eyes of a woman, eyes that will get those Asian horror references going trough your mind, it continues down revealing the woman’s naked breasts before finally landing on the protruding blade of a knife aimed at us the audience. A great mix of emotional signals evoked, curiosity, lust and fear.

The knife is a fake and this somewhat summarizes the movie, as the theatrics of the prop knife metaphorically refer to things not being as real as they may seem, something that will be revealed in great magnitude at the end of the movie. Hitomi is in prison for reasons untold, and in his cell he keeps having visions of a strange island, an island he also has drawn perfectly from his confusing memories of the place.

This is where Rampo’s Detective plot comes into action with the horror/grotesque. Hitomi goes about his task to solve the questions concerning the strange island, and at the same time is drawn into a murder mystery after fleeing the prison and meeting Hatsuyo [Teruko Yumi in her only acting part]. Hatsuyo is a trapeze artist at the travelling circus, and she also knows of the strange island Hitomi is trying to find for she has memories of the location too

A knife that is thrown from out of nowhere strikes down Hatsuyo and Hitomi takes to the run. During this escape he reads in the paper about the death of Genzaburô Komoda, a wealthy businessman who looks to be Hitomi’s doppelganger. This is later confirmed twice as the blind masseuse identifies the swastika scar Hitomi has on his sole as identical to one Komoda had, and shortly thereafter as Hitomi plunders Komoda’s grave to check the scar and switch identities with the deceased mirror image.

The switch of identities gives place for some really out of place slapstick tomfoolery that comes across as ridiculous in the context. If I wanted screwball monks reacting to ”ghosts” I’d have chosen a Ricky Lau or Samo Hung Kam-Bo Kung Fu horror comedy instead. But it’s only there for a few moments and then the story straightens out again, as Chiyoko [Michiko Kobata, also in her only movie role], the wife of Komodo tends to her seriously misdiagnosed, now inexplicably resurrected husband. But pulling off his plan isn’t easy as Hitomi thought, as he is constantly near to being exposed as he tries to get away with the masquerade. The traits of Komodo’s everyday life, Chiyodo the wife, Shizuko the lover, [Yukie Kagawa from Nobuo Nakagawa’s Ghost Story of the Snake Woman 1968, and Shunya Ito’s Female Convict Scorpion Jailhouse 41, the sequel to his Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion both 1972 with the magnificent Kaji Meiko] all become obstacles on his way.

Settling into his new persona he continues his investigations, but very now and then weird things happen, snakes attack the maids, disfigured beings sneak around the house, and Chiyodo dies under strange circumstances once again leaving Hitomi with a mysterious murder on his trail.

He has to make a move fast and at midpoint, Hitomi makes the decision that they have to make a trip to the island… On the beach he realizes that his visions have not been dreams, he has been there before. And this is where the movie if possible gets even more cryptic and bizarre, as the enigmatic Jôgorô [here's the splendid Tatsumi Hijikata] greets him on the shore. Hitomi is treated to a grand tour that shows him the strange beings living there, beings that Jôgorô has created. During this first night on the island Hitomi comes upon a strange house where he finds Hideko, a woman that looks just like the dead Hatsuyo! As his lust for her draws him closer he realises that she is intact a Siamese twin, joined at the hip with a hideously disfigured monster.

Eventually the terrifying secret of Hitomi’s background is exposed creating a spiral of emotions, as his world is shook to the foundations. Let me just say that the twist is family oriented! Hitomi’s bond to the horrific island and it’s inhabitants force him to take actions he never thought possible, and to put a terrific spin on the final act, guess who has come along for the ride in a sudden subplot about the investigations into where all the missing girls of Tokyo have gone? Yes, you may have guessed it, Rampo’s infamous detective Kogorô Akechi! The Komodo family manservant Shinhichi [Minoru Ohki who also starred as Akechi in Fukasaku’s Black Lizard] and through as series of flashbacks he renders the mystery, reveals the plot, exposes the culprits and brings light to the story. It’s cunning, unexpected and wonderful twist, as Rampo and Ishii don’t even give the lead protagonist Hiromi the satisfaction of explaining or solving his quest. But he does go out with a bang; I’ll give him that. (There’s even a nod at Akechi’s nemesis Back Lizard in the flashbacks) Now how’s that for a surprising use of sub plot in the last fifteen minutes!

So there you go, a bizarre, disturbing, trippy, stunningly visual, and very enigmatic movie that comes highly recommended. Obviously you should take the banned labelling with a pinch of salt now that you know the origins of that story, but at the same time you will for sure find that the movie is a magnificent piece of film to be finally enjoyed once again in the leisure of your own home. Every now and again you will find yourself thinking of the imagery of Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain 1973 or Hyeon-il Kang’s Mago 2002 to name a few, tantalising and haunting images that you will struggle to make sense of, but that’s part of the reason we watch these trippy movies isn’t it! For those crazy plots, shocking revelations and mind-expanding imagery.

Image:

2.35: Anamorphic Widescreen

Audio:

Dolby Digital Mono2.0, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles, or a commentary track by film critic Mark Schilling

Extras:

A fascinating half-hour documentary on Teuro Ishii featuring Shinya Tsukamoto (who starred in Ishii’s Blind Beast vs. Dwarf 2001 as Kogorô Akechi, based on a story by Rampo) and Minoru Kawasaki, the director of The Calamari Wrestler 2004. Ishii at the 2003 Far East Film Festival, the Original Theatrical Trailer, a poster gallery of Ishii movies and biographies on Ishii and Rampo.

For more on the iconography of J-Horror check out my article on the ConstructingHorror.com website.