Gate of Flesh

An exploitation film with a brain. We see nude women tastefully lit, kinky violence - women beating other women and the low life of Tokyo outdoing each other in even more dastardly acts of treachery and heartless thuggery. The intelligence comes with the strong impact of the women dressing in vibrant red, purple, yellow and green to reflect their characters. Having the prostitutes live in a building that is an analogy for post-war Japan is even smarter. The building is bombed out, its occupants desperate, many have lost family in the war and for some the sight of people burned to death has made them individually heartless, desperate and mad. The fact that most of them live in the basement indicates that they have plummeted into the depths of hell. For cinema goers in Japan in 1964, just enjoying the fruits of the boom years for their rebuilt economy and also a new found pride and respectability, this must have been a sobering but also satisfying reminder of where they had been and how far they had come.

Having discovered the Female Prisoner Scorpion series recently, I've been looking out for more Japanese exploitation films and Gates of Flesh is an early example. The film is a bit artier than the other examples I've seen, and despite focuses on a nest of prostitutes; there isn't a lot of sex/nudity in it either. However, director Seijun Suzuki gets round this by giving the film a tremendously dark and unpleasant atmosphere that bodes well with the plot line as well as the time in which the film is set. The film is set shortly after World War II and we focus on a group of prostitutes who have come together to work for themselves. As a result, they have no pimp to answer to and so have to protect themselves also. They get a strict set of rules in place, which are enforced again by the girls themselves and the main rule states that none of them may give out what they sell for free. The group gets a new member in the form of a girl named Maya and shortly afterwards a thief seeks sanctuary with the prostitutes, and causes disruption within the group.

The plot is very ambiguous and it's never made clear exactly what the 'point' of any of the characters is, which on the one hand makes the film interesting as it means we have to work things out for ourselves; but on the other, the characters lack humanity and so the film can be a bit dry as a result. The director is apparently quite respected for making films like this; Gate of Flesh is the first one of his that I've seen so I cant comment on the body of his work, but clearly he is a director that values of the importance of making his films interesting and Gate of Flesh also looks very nice and the director gets the best out of his performers. I think that the director was hoping more to get a point across than anything else, but he also values style and that comes across well in the film also. The plot does flow fairly well, although at times it seems like there's not a lot happening so the film is not constantly entertaining. Overall, I won't name this film as a favourite of mine and I do prefer the more wild Japanese exploitation flicks; but this certainly isn't a bad film and I can recommend it.

Born on May 24, 1923, Seijun Suzuki was a trade school drop-out and a soldier before studying film at Kamakura academy. After graduating in 1948, he was employed at Ofuna Studio as an assistant director. He began his full-fledged directing career at Nikkatsu in 1954, where he subsequently made 40 films. Most of these were quickie crime thrillers which were akin to Hollywood B-movies. Within the constricting confines of the mercenary studio system, Suzuki was nonetheless able to find his own unique creative sensibility.

His earliest films bear a renegade, sensual flair and a vibrant visual style unsurpassed by more recent work in both the West and Asia. Working in Cinemascope, he used the widescreen frame to full effect, composing intricate shots which seem almost three dimensional, due to somewhat elaborate staging and the novel device of using dissolves to show characters and action on the opposite side of the room or space to which the main camera is pointing.

GATE OF FLESH (1964) exemplifies this. One of Suzuki's most atypical films, it tells the tale of a pimp-less group of hellcat prostitutes trying to survive in the chaotic, crime-ridden arena of post-war Tokyo. Living by a strict code, any of their number can be severely physically punished for sleeping with a man for free. Puffy-cheeked Suzuki regular Jo Shishido plays Shintaro Ibuki, a macho renegade former soldier who deals on the black market and comes to lord it over the band of women. Captivating each of them, he causes a rift among them in which the young novice hooker Maya suffers the most, as she is totally enamored of him. The film is intensely visceral, outrageous, and risque, even today. It must have been positively explosive in 1964, with its sweating, erotically-driven characters, fairly explicit depictions of sex, and savage scenes in which naked women are tied up and whipped by other women. The aggressive sensuality is further enhanced by the Fujicolor processing, which accentuates the reds and greens.

Due to his interpid nonconformism, Suzuki was fired from Nikkatsu in 1968. Amid shake-ups and financial problems at the studio, the suits decided to jettison him for making "incomprehensible" films. This prompted a massive movement on his behalf organized by his fans of time, who were mostly college students. With their support, as well as that of the Director's Guild of Japan, Suzuki filed a court case for wrongful dismissal. He won the case, but the resulting furor got him blacklisted out of the studio system, and Suzuki was only able to resume making feature films in 1977, albeit independently.

I was under the impression when I rented this film that it was

directed by Sezuki Seijun, but the credits gave a different name. It

still might be him (it was something else Sezuki), and I am

assuming it was as I write this review.

Having totally fallen in love with Branded to Kill and, to a slightly

lesser extant, but not too much lesser, with Tokyo Drifter, I was

overjoyed to find this at the video store (I remembered having

heard at one point of its being on video). And I was even more

overjoyed to watch it. It's an amazing film which I would place

slightly ahead of Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill, giving it a 9/10.

The film opens right after the end of WWII with a young woman

starving in the street (not something I would expect from the two

previous yakuza films I've seen of Seijun's). She meets up with a

group of four prostitutes who allow her to work with them. They are

self-sufficient and need no pimp. They keep themselves in line

with the threat of torture if any one of them ever sleeps with a man

without accepting money. Of course, you can see the possibility for

exploitation, and there is exploitation, believe me. After a while, a

robust thug (Jo Shishido of Branded to Kill, cheekbones and all)

shows up in their crumbling household. They respect him

because he resists the GIs who try to keep the law in their city

(never specified) and those Japanese people who cooperate with

them. They're also all attracted to him. After this is developed, there

isn't much more plot - only a couple of events happen afterwards.

More or less, it is a character study and also a sociological study.

The anti-Americanism is very interesting to see. Seijun was a

soldier in the Japanese army himself and, although I could easily

point out that, hey, you started it, it's easy to understand what he

must have felt after he and his comrades lost a war, what it would

have done to the male psyche as well as the female (this film was

made about twenty years afterwards).

Some people would naturally hate this film because it mixes its

styles, often very harshly. It's really nothing that Godard wouldn't

have done - in fact, it's actually something that Godard, despite my

great affection for him and his films, could never have achieved; he

was far too interested in subverting filmic conventions and too

unconcerned with making interesting films at times. It is filmed in

color, and its art design/cinematography/costuming, everything

technical, is color coordinated in a way akin to something like a

1950s musical. Four of the five prostitutes are color-coated and

there is, for instance, an amazing scene where these four color- specific hookers muse over Shishido alone against a set

designed only in their colors. Often the film is quite melodramatic,

almost like a Douglas Sirk film. At other times, it is something like

sado-masochistic porno, especially during the torture scenes.

There are scenes akin to the brutality in Tokyo Drifter and Branded

to Kill; there is some major brutality to women (sometimes

inflicted by women), so if you're particularly sensitive to that, you

might want to avoid this. Also, if that's a problem with you, take

special measures to avoid Branded to Kill. You might want to skip

over this next description tot he next paragraph if you very easily get

sick or if you're a militant animal rights activist, but there is a

stunning scene where Jo Shishido slaughters a live cow. I'm pretty

sure it's a real scene of slaughter. If not, then it's a damned good

facsimile. If you were horrified at the real scenes of sacrifice in

Apocalypse Now, you might just want to avoid this film altogether.

The bottom line for me is that this film is a masterpiece. An insane

one, to be sure, but this film, as well as Tokyo Drifter and Branded

to Kill, demonstrate just how gorgeous insanity can be

sometimes. Janus Films, whose logo you see on the videotapes

before just about 90% of all foreign films that were made before

1970, and Home Vision Cinema, who distributes about everything

made after 1970, collaborated on the videotape that I watched,

which recently went out of print. Those two companies should be

ringing tons of bells for anyone who collects videos. Yup, those are

the two companies who produce DVDs' (and Laserdiscs') Criterion Collection, the only DVDs, in the long run, which are really

worth owning. This company has already released both Branded

to Kill and Tokyo Drifter. I pray to God - I'd even sell my soul to the

devil - so that Criterion will release Gate of Flesh and - please,

please God! (or Satan!) - other Seijun films, or even other films

which generally resemble his, if such other artists do exist, that I

have not seen or even heard of. Think about it Criterion. I know that

Branded to Kill and Tokyo Drifter aren't your most popular DVDs,

but, having talked to so many people who are discovering them

and having never resisted an opportunity to spread his name and

reputation to any other film buff I have met (and others who are

familiar with him do the same), I know that he is becoming a huge

cult item. In my mind, judging only by the three films of his that I've

seen, I prefer him even to Akira Kurosawa (I cannot comment on

Ozu or Mizoguchi; unfortunately, I have only ever seen one Ozu and

no Mizoguchis, merely based on availability), whom I generally

prefer to nearly every filmmaker with whom I am very familiar.

After WW II, a gang of prostitutes has their home base in the slums of Tokyo. They live in a world where the old generation of 'big shots still talk big.' For them, 'democracy means (having sexual intercourse with) foreigners.' These foreigners are GIs, members of the occupying forces in Japan. The main principle of the gang is 'no sex for free'. If a member of the gang transgresses this rule, she will be harshly punished. The movie contains some very sadistic lashing scenes.

Vision on mankind Seijun Suzuki unveils in an interview published on this DVD his view on mankind: 'physiology is the strongest force and only acts through human will. We can depend on nothing but the physicality of the flesh.' The gate to the world is the gate of flesh, where you have to 'rely on your own instincts'. Morality and religion, here represented by a black catholic priest, are hopeless pipe dreams.

Highly recommended, like other films by Seijun Suzuki's: his 'manga' movie 'Pistol Opera', his 'ghost' movie 'Princess Raccoon' (with Ziyi Zhang) and his gangster movie 'Underworld Beauty'.