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67%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #7,335
...out of 20,725 movies
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An unknown future. A boy confesses to the murder of another in an all-boy juvenile detention facility. More an exercise in style than storytelling, the story follows two detectives trying to uncover the case. Homosexual tension and explosive violence drives the story which delivers some weird and fascinating visuals.
--IMDb
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Ariyoshi, a young adult that no one takes seriously and is constantly pushed around. While working at his local bar one night, a customer gets a little too drunk and tries to attack him sexually. Ariyoshi lets out all of his pent-up frustration on the attacker. Not only killing him, but mutilating his entire body even after he dies. Even though it was self defense, the bludgeoning that came after the attackers death put the young man in jail. Kazuki is the same age as Ariyoshi, except this one is no push over. He grew up in a rough home. Getting beat as an adolescent by his parents, stealing from the local markets, fighting and even raping women. He finally crosses the line when he kills a man by beating him to death for no good reason. When Ariyoshi and Kazuki are put in jail at the same time, they instantly grow to like one another.
Most people that have heard of this film are aware it's supposed to strictly be about homosexuals. I didn't get that feel from it at all. To me it was a flat out prison film. There was talk about relations between the prisoners, but most of them were about how Ariyoshi was Kazuki's bitch. Once Ariyoshi put his hand on top of Kazuki's but it wasn't done with bedroom eyes or anything. Ariyoshi also hugged the guy when he was on his knees crying about his past and he threw Ariyoshi off of him. Unless they were throwing each other signals that only the gay community is aware of, I can't see how anyone can consider this movie gay. The film was an adaptation of a novel by Ato Masaki. I have not got the chance read it, so I'm thinking that the book may have been a little more sexually explicit.
A lot of the prison scenes were filmed in a very unique way. There was an overhead shot of all the prisoners sitting in their cells. Except it was a completely empty room that had painted squares that two or three people would be sitting in. Each cell had their number written in it. The warden's office had his desk slightly slanted downward with a barred prison door behind slanted upward. You never saw the warden get up or leave his office and a background on what kind of person he was wasn't told at all. So his office being set-up the way it was gave the impression he was just a little bit off. Not your average prison cell was used. Built out of wood in an octagon shape with a very complex floor that came to large points in the very center.
Everyday the prisoners would go out to wash clothes. They would be outside in a small area that was filled with the clothes and some water. Not one thing was around them except a door and pitch black. I'm not sure what they were going for, but like the others, it was pretty interesting. The same layout was used for the dining room. Plenty of tables and chairs in a completely darkened room. It almost felt like watching a play in a theater. No one was actually ever shown being served or even waiting in line like most prison films seem to have to include. There was even an animation scene with a prisoner trying to escape. When he jumped on to the barbed wire fence, he had no idea with was electric. It literally shocked him into pieces. In any other movie I think it would have been very misplaced. But somehow it fit right in with this one.
Periodically there are flashbacks to scenes that already happened. They are there to help the audience remember something that people said. But some of the flashbacks happen less than ten minutes from one another and more than just a few times. It gets real old real fast. If you can't remember something that happened ten minutes ago, you don't need to be watching movies. It's as simple as that. In the same department, they'll show someone doing something and then cut scene before anything happens. Then they'll go back to it later on, starting with what we already saw but just show a little more before they cut away. This also happens several times and though it's suppose to build up suspense. It just got really tiring. I would say well more than twenty percent of the movie went to flashbacks and replays.
No complaints about the cast. Ariyoshi played a shy and scared teenager flawlessly. Kazuki played a confident tough guy with no problems. The few prisoners that were shown pretty much acted like prisoners. A couple times the guards would ask them questions and the prisoners would always be really helpful. I'm use to seeing prisoners beat the bejesus out of cops when they start sticking their noses in places it doesn't belong. Not give them more info than they asked, especially not with a smile on their face. That didn't have anything to do with their acting skills though. That was just how the script was written. Thanks to the unique filming style and interesting setting the prison was filmed in, it kept me watching with open eyes. I'll never be able to see all of Takashi Miike's films, but ones like this are going to make me keep trying.
Final Conclusion: 7/10.
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#1:
Ginose
- added October 13, 2009 at 11:05am
This film was absolutely beautiful. It felt like
Miike dumoing a thousand and one thoughts into one
script and then molding it into an absolutely
perfect work of art. I know, it may seem more like
the fanboy is talking, but I really couldn't see
anything wrong with it. At first it tended to be
more confusing than anything, until about the
30-minute mark, after that it went straight up and
ended at it's peak. Sure, I thought some of the
memory flashes were a bit akward, but I can
understand why you'd need them in a story like
this.
Fantastic. A work of genius.
9.1/10
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