| Sumiko Mikami, Syunsuke Sawada, Shigeru
Bokuda , Toshiyuki Sugihara, Kentaro Ogiso, Tomohiro Zaizen
Kazuyoshi Kumakiri makes his directorial
debut with this surrealist psychological horror flick about revenge
and radical politics. Set during the early '70s, the film centers
on a group of radicals holed up in a dingy Tokyo apartment. With
their leader Aikawa (Yuji Hashimoto) in jail, his girlfriend Masami
(Sumiko Mikami) rules the group with her overt sexuality and her
iron will. While her Mr. Right is in stir, her Mr. Right Now is
a fellow sect member -- the stocky, bearded Yamane (Tomohiro Zaizen).
After two other members return from a bank robbery that Masami ordered,
Yamane launches into her and a heated fight ensues. When he makes
a minor comment about the exalted Aikawa, he is beaten up and spirited
out the door. Yamane is replaced by two more ruthless believers:
the silent, shorn Fujihara (Kentaro Ogiso) who was Aikawa's prison
mate, and Sugihara (Toshiyuki Sugihara), who is the college friend
of longhaired fellow sect member Kumatani (Shigeru Bokuda). Later,
the sect continues to prepare for the eventual confrontation with
the man, particularly by collecting a small arsenal. One day after
nabbing a shotgun, which Masami fondles with freakish intensity,
they throw a party. Masami, ever the center of attention, stages
a Chinese-style lion dance and then takes the guitar-strumming Kumatani
for a lover. When they learn that Aikawa died in prison, the group
unity threatens to come apart at the seams. They need a scapegoat
and fast. When Yamane picks a fight with Kumatani about his former
lover, the pudgy belligerent is stuffed into a car and driven to
an idyllic forest setting. There the horror begins. This film was
screened at the 1997 PIA and Berlin Film Festivals. |