Jigoku (1999) [Re-UP]

Posted By: Someonelse
Date: April 3, 2015

Japanese Hell (1999)
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 16:9 | Cover + DVD Scan | 01:40:56 | 5,58 Gb
Audio: Japanese AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subtitles: English
Genre: Horror

Director: Teruo Ishii
Stars: Mutsumi Fujita, Hisayoshi Hirayama, Michiko Maeda

Rika (Miki Sato), a young woman, is taken on a tour of hell, during which she is shown the punishments that are to be inflicted upon a child murderer, the leader of the cult to which she formerly belonged, his high ranking followers, and their lawyers. Before she witnesses the torments of these persons, Rika is, however, shown their deeds, how the murderer hunted and killed little girls and how the cult leader exploited his followers and killed numerous individuals, most of whom died during a poisonous gas attack on a train that he orchestrated.

IMDB | Wikipedia | SaruDama

This film was entertaining on several levels, but has a couple serious drawbacks due to both narrative and budget issues.

Ishii's narrative spends way too much time exploring and delineating the sins of the "Space Cult". This is understandable, however, since Ishii's depiction of the cult is clearly intended to depict the real-life Aum Shin Ri Kyo doomsday cult responsible for the 1994 sarin gas attack on innocent commuters within the Tokyo subway tunnels. The entire infrastructure and crimes of the Aum cult is thoroughly recreated by Ishii, including the (real life) narrow-eyed, unkempt leader Shoko (renamed in Ishii's film as Shyoko).


Ishii is clearly presenting Jigoku as a type of social catharsis whereby some sense of justice and retribution against an otherwise senseless social crime might be perceived. Unfortunately for viewers coming to this film from either another decade or another culture, the prolonged emphasis upon the Cult's crimes comes across as overly prolonged and unjustifiably slow. Ishii's intent, however, in this second and longest section of the film, is to use his directorial inclinations toward gore and torture to enact some form of vicarious judgment upon the Aum cult. (By the way, the Aum cult continues to be prosecuted to this day thanks to amazingly slow and inefficient Japanese judicial procedure.)


Everything presented here would have been easily accomplished in the original 1960 version using the technology available THEN. The only hints of this film's modernity (this is 1999!!) are its reference to the Aum cult and the tall buildings appearing in a few scenes. Apart from these hints, however, audiences will be convinced they are watching a low-budget B-movie from several decades prior. There are even scenes here which rival the infamous special effects of director Ed Wood's 1959 Plan 9 from Outer Space, of which I am a big fan and thus kid you not. (For example, check out the scale model "boats" crossing the Sanzu river!)


Similarly, the gore here, which is indeed emphasized, will likely be shocking only to those with a deep disdain for brutality toward rubbery mannequins. Though indeed graphic in its depiction, there is very little either haunting or life-like. This includes the huge styrofoam mallets wielded by rubber-suited demons, the jello-mud bath apparently symbolizing molten lava, the nude interpretive dances by bare breasted girls intended to convey the convulsions of hell zombies (etc etc etc).


Despite the many flaws, however, this film is indeed entertaining, if not solely for the effort it attempts in providing a moral message. Though indeed primitive, the special effects here are more colorful and creatively graphic than a lot of the mindless, low-budget horror fodder one runs across. Perhaps most interesting for me, as a Western viewer, was the depiction of traditional Japanese notions of Hell.


The surprisingly kind-hearted goddess/demon Enma, ruler of Hell, suggests that Rika should avoid "strange beliefs and keep your prayers true to the Eternal One… the Sun". This is pure Shinto perspective with Ame no Terasu O Mikami (the Shinto Sun Goddess) as the heart of Japanese cosmology. Thus the film concludes with Rika and her fellow cult sisters worshiping the Sun at dawn. Unlike traditional Shinto worship of Ame Terasu, Ishii's version requires these maidens to strip naked and prostrate themselves in various, camera-friendly positions. (!!)


Fans of historical Japanese horror will undoubtedly enjoy seeing Jigoku. But this film's value and appreciation truly exists only in reference to the original 1960 version. Nearly forty years separate this remake from the original. Ishii's commitment to (then) contemporary themes of social sin (i.e., the Aum cult) may indeed have been compelling at the time of his film's debut, but his scenario-centric approach makes the film's value to later (post-Aum) audiences less relevant or compelling, except to those viewers interested in truly era-specific pieces. Nakagawa's 1960 "classic", on the other hand, does not rely upon exclusively era-specific crimes, but rather focuses upon far more general human malaise and their corresponding punishments. This characteristic of generalization is in many ways what makes Nakagawa's version a "classic" and Ishii's version a highly dated film. (There's also the issue of Ishii's near-campy special effects.)


If you had to choose one, it would be better to see Nakagawa's original 1960 film than this. Once seeing the original, however, Ishii's approach will indeed be worth viewing.
SaruDama




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