(1995)
Dir - Shinya Tsukamoto
Overall: GOOD
As was the case with his renowned debut Tetsuo: The Iron Man and its 1992 sequel, filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto once again channels the escape from corporate servitude via extreme body mutilation in Tokyo Fist. A gleefully violent and ridiculous boxing movie of sorts, it is as kinetically surreal as most of the director's work. Tsukamoto appears as one of three leads, (joined by Kahori Fujii and his brother Kōji Tsukamoto), who are caught up in a love triangle where suppressed trauma and sexuality overcomes all of them with the most bloody of results. The film has a elevated aggression to it that is equal parts bizarre and humorous, with explosive gore sequences thrown in where character's faces are spewing the red stuff and rendered unrecognizable under face-pummeling bruises. While the men take out their testosterone-ridden rage against each other, Fujii turns to extreme body piercing, possibly in an attempt to either match her pursuer's overblown masculinity or to claim her own identity through the most extreme form of self-expression available to her. The thematic details can be endlessly debated, but the wacky, cinematic ride is stylistically engrossing.
(1998)
Dir - George Iida
Overall: MEH
An adaptation of Koji Suzuki novel Spiral, (Rasen), the resulting film serves as a direct sequel to Ringu which was released on the very same day in its native Japan. Though a few of the same characters return and each movie had Suzuki's source material as reference, this one is thematically on a different planet than its rightfully more popular companion piece. For one, it introduces convoluted science fiction elements in place of supernatural ones, thus undermining all of the skin-crawling appeal of the first film. Trying to explain the video tape curse as some sort of smallpox-adjacent, tumor-growing virus, (or something), is lame enough, yet the finale here throws in an even more ridiculous twist involving Sadako's restless spirit that is not so much out for unbiased vengeance, but actually has some cockamamie scheme to repopulate the earth with people's loved ones via sexually transmitted DNA, (or something). The whole affair would be head-scratching and silly enough as its own stand-alone genre hybrid, but in this particular franchise, the results are exponentially more awkard. Worse yet, director George Iida goes for a sluggish, low-key pace that particularly falls apart during the second act which will probably make most people check out before they get to the daft conclusion.
(1999)
Dir - Masayuki Ochiai
Overall: GOOD
For his first of many theatrical works in the horror genre, filmmaker Masayuki Ochiai adapted Keisuke Matsuoka's novel Saimin, (Hypnosis, The Hypnotist), which brings the author's source material to life with head-scratching gusto. In this sense, the movie is more bizarre than frightening, yet this easily allows for it to stand out amongst the herd of other vengeful spirit works in J-horror. Though Matsuoka's initial inspiration was taken from the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, the script by Ochiai and Yasushi Fukuda murks up the supernatural details so that the nature of the malevolent entity is left vague, as it is gleefully hellbent on warping people's minds through hypnosis in order to get them to kill themselves in extravagant matters. One woman literally runs herself to death, some guy washes his face with the fire from a gas-lit stove, another chokes himself with his own tie during his wedding ceremony, and yet another slams his head into a coat hanger, to name but a few. Performance wise, everyone indulges in melodramatic mannerisms to a possibly intentional extent, giving the film an unshakably odd tone that is equal parts absurd and freaky. Some dated visual effects, cryptic dialog, and increasingly bonkers scenes that open and close the proceedings only intensify such a challenging watch that if anything, is likely to make viewers think twice about allowing themselves to hear subtle metallic noises. Long story.
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