Danger After Dark II

Noriko’s Dinner Table (2006) by Sion Sono is a companion piece to Suicide Club (2002). However, it’s neither a prequel nor a sequel. Noriko is an awkwardly shy town girl, desperate to break away from her boredom. Her only friends she meets online. In voice-over narrations she tells us how it is she came to Tokyo. When she first meets her online pal (about half an hour into the movie), you just know things are going to get seriously weird. The pal introduces herself as Kumiko. And just so you know we’re talking seriously messed up we flash forward straight away to half a year later when fifty four girls cheerfully jump in front of the 7:30 train at Shinjuku Station. Meanwhile, Noriko’s family has no clue where she is. Her sister Yuka is still in Yokohama, too, happily telling her boyfriend how her sister may have been one of the suicide girls, and that she knows how all the girls arranged to meet at the station. She shows him the screen with the red and white dots: red for female suicides, white for male. Suddenly the screen turns black with the text, “Am I connected with myself, Sis?” She leaves home, too, but leaving her father clues that he manages to put together: the Suicide Club does exist. For her part, Noriko idealized Kumiko’s happy family: they are connected and share their love at all times. She learns to connect with herself – and empathize with others. Kumiko works in “family rental” pretending to be some client’s family member for money. In his own search to find his daughters, Noriko’s father learns that he really is in search of himself. Like its predecessor, this film thus explores computer-age alienation, the loss of connectedness, and emotional isolation in modern urban society. If you were expecting another splatterfest, though, you will be disappointed as the movie is more of a psychological drama. It is also one of the rare occasions where the cinematographic effects (fast editing, dangling cameras, etc.) actually work well to convey the emotional landscape of the characters.

Aragami (2003) by Ryuhei Kitamura is the counterpart of Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s 2LDK (2002). This film, too, features mainly two actors battling, set within a single set, and was produced within one week. But that is where the similarities end. Interestingly, while the cinematography (as well as the continuous electronic pop rock synthesizer soundtrack) is decidedly modern, the story is set in a once-upon-a-time far-faraway, reminiscent of a traditional Japanese tale. A samurai regains consciousness in a remote mountain temple after falling at the entrance with life-threatening wounds. He learns that his companion did not survive, but the inhabitant of the temple invites him to stay and entertains him with a luscious meal, French wine and Russian vodka. He regales the samurai with frightful stories about Tengu (long-nosed mountain goblins) and Aragami, the Raging God of Battle. The samurai soon discovers that his wounds have all healed, but how? His host explains he gave him his friend’s flesh! But who is this host? He was once the legendary Miyamoto Musashi, the greatest warrior ever known, but now has become none other than Aragami himself! They duel, but even when Aragami runs his blade through the samurai’s stomach, it leaves only a scratch. His wounds heal due to the cannibalistic meal, but he is not immortal, as the head or the heart will kill him dead. Aragami has become weary of his existence and hopes this samurai will be the one to kill him honorably. Although the sword-fighting acrobatics are worth the watch alone, it’s the increasing psychological tension that makes this film a satisfying experience. Quite a feat considering the constrained conditions of two actors in a single set!

Before we get to The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai (2003) by Mitsuru Meike, it might be useful to first discuss (however briefly) the pinku eiga genre. Pinku eiga emerged in the 60s as a genre evading Japanese censorship laws by blocking or blurring genitals while maintaining a required minimum quota of sex scenes (some four or five per hour). Terms such as “soft-core” or “sexploitation” are somewhat misleading, as the genre often contains elements of action, thriller, violence, horror, and/or political commentary. In this case, the titular Sachiko Hanai is a role-play call girl specialized in playing home-tutoring. What sets the narrative is that Sachiko next gets hit by a bullet in the forehead while trying to take a picture of a shady business transaction running foul between a North Korean and Middle Eastern in a cafeteria. Miraculously, she survives, but the bullet lodged in her brain spurts her intelligence to ponder the abstract universe and subjective truth in mathematical equations. Plus, she can foresee future events, which involve sex and violence – and she finds she has a much delayed taste sensation. We are bombarded with musings about situationalism, rationalism and the Platonist view on Christianity, objective reality and Japan’s lack of a nuclear military strategy to match that of Russia or the U.S, all combined with sex (not the sensual erotic or even graphic pornographic kind, but of the prosaic, romping, five-minute sort – including six gallon ejaculations). Sachiko also discovers a silver cylinder containing a clone of George W’s finger. He appears to her in a reflection urging her to defend world peace and democracy. I’m sure you can guess where that finger is going. While she is climaxing, we are shown images of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue, and of Bush inspecting his fleet. Meanwhile, the North Korean who shot her in the cafeteria hopes to retrieve Bush’s finger, for it controls nuclear Armageddon. In the end, after abstract infinity, cogito ergo sum, beef stew, dues ex machina, and more sex, Sachiko walks out of a primordial cave straight into nuclear obliteration. A must see!

Danger After Dark

Not too long ago, the Movie Cricket borrowed a box set of Japanese movies. The one that I really wanted to see again was Suicide Club (Jisatsu Sākuru, 2002). That film, directed by Sion Sono, opens with one of the most memorable cinematographic scenes you will ever see: young girls come walking down the stairs onto the train platform, in their school uniforms, they step up to the edge, hold hands, and on the count of three all fifty-four jump in front of the train together, blood and body parts gusting all over. With more and more suicides happening, the police are left clueless about their connection. Are they dealing with a cult, or a fad? In that respect, the story is a murder mystery, but one larded with tropes of the horror genre: rainy nights, dark and empty office building, curtains flowing in the breeze, power failure, splatter and gore, strips of human skin. Then there’s the all-girl idol-group Dessert, who sing about e-mails and jigsaw puzzles. Gradually things get more and more weird, to the point of a psychedelic trip into delirious hallucinations and delusions of glam-glitter grandeur. “I want to die as beautifully as Joan of Arc inside a Bresson film,” some psychotic freak sings, “Lesson one: apply the shaving cream – and smile as you then slowly slice away the heart.” In all, this is an exploration of isolation in urban Tokyo, of alienation in modern society; a social commentary of the dehumanization of online interacting and pop culture mass media; and about people finding meaningful relationships in committing mass suicide.

Next up in the box comes 2LDK (2002), directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi, about two roommates (played by the beautiful Eiko Koike and Maho Nonami). (The title is a classified ad abbreviation for a 2-bedroom apartment, with shared living room, dining room and kitchen.) One is a neat, reclusive country girl who only recently arrived in Tokyo; the other is a fabulous hip chick with money to burn on Gucci, Miu Miu, Chanel and Hermès. One is a well-educated lover of theater; the other is an air-head beauty pageant queen who began her acting career in porn. One plays classical piano; the other listens to heavy metal. (Guess who the Cricket was rooting for.) They find out that they are competing for the same lead role; the extrovert Lana taunts the introvert Nozomi about a man she has a crush on; but Lana is also jealous about Nozomi’s bigger breasts. In the close confinement of their apartment (the whole film is set within the titular 2LDK), their petty quarrels soon escalate from insecurities and envy to mutual murderous hatred. Thematically there are some parallels with Suicide Club, in that 2LDK also deals with isolation in urban Tokyo, but rather than turning that social seclusion inwards, this film unleashes the claustrophobic and paranoid violence outwards between the two young women. And that violent rivalry is brutally ugly. For a film shot on one set within a week with only two actresses, it is quite an achievement to keep the viewer engaged, but the performances, the dialog, and the cinematography and offering excellent, though gory, entertainment.

The last movie of the set is Moon Child (2003), directed by Takahisa Zeze, and stars J-pop idols Hideto “Hyde” Takarai and Gakuto “Gackt” Kamui (who also co-wrote the script). This film is a futuristic science-fiction martial-arts gay-glam vampire organized crime action horror thriller comedy drama. It follows the life of orphaned Sho (Gackt) and his friends through the first half century of the 21st millennium, when Japan has suffered a major economic collapse and many people have taken refuge in the multi-ethnic “Asian Special Economic Zone” of Mallepa on mainland China. The Mallepa Orphans make their living through robbery and in so doing run into conflict with the Cantonese mafia. The orphans have one advantage, their guardian Kei (Hyde) who happens to be a vampire. Gradually the group of friends falls apart, while Kei is imprisoned. In essence, then, this is a story of love and friendship, the ties that bind. Kei provides the common trope in vampire stories, that is, the loneliness that comes with immortality as friends become mere drops in the ocean, tears in the rain, that wash away in the sad agelessness of the undead. Unfortunately the movie employs those musical interludes – when the writers have to move the story forward, but can’t write a script for the scene. The film also drags on for two full hours, resorts to the cheap and cheesy ploy of cancer to bring Kei and Sho together one last time, and ends with a dual suicide at sunrise. In all, it’s not an awful movie, but it isn’t one that comes with the Cricket’s chirpiest recommendation.

You may now find a follow up of sorts: Danger After Dark II!

[A special shout out goes to Anthony and Sander!]