A drama depicting a girl’s suffering from prenatal radiation damage caused by the atomic bombings. Wakamatsu thematizes all his anger towards war and the atomic bomb, but despite aiming to address societal issues, the film was bashed by the PTA due to a scene of high school girls bathing.Read More »
A bus full of cult members gets stuck in snow. The cult has to stay in a mountain hotel. Strange things start to happen… This film was only released on VHS in Japan.
The music was composed by J. A. Seazer. And the screenplay was done by Izuru Deguchi and Ei Takatori (1952-2018). And some of the members from Gessyokukageki (月蝕歌劇団) founded by Ei Takatori also performed in this film.Read More »
Synopsis
Shinjuku Mad is about a desperate father’s search for the killer of his son. The father has rushed from the countryside to comb the seamy, filthy gutters and alleys of Tokyo. He meets some no-good, pot-smoking, guitar-playing, orgy-having hippies who knew his son but just won’t cooperate. Eventually, he discovers that “Shinjuku Mad” killed his son for the sake of some social revolution. The father tracks down the man and his group — if he can’t get a satisfactory answer as to why his son was killed, he wants to at least understand the “revolution” that claimed his son’s life.Read More »
Quote:
A brother and sister live as outcasts from their hamlet due to a belief that madness and disease runs in their blood. A group of villagers plot to steal their property, beating and hanging the brother and gang-raping the sister. The villagers believe the brother is dead, and come up with a scheme to kill the sister as well and make both deaths look like accidents. Unbeknownst to them, the brother survives, acquires a sword, and proceeds on a mission to slaughter each and every person in the hamlet.Read More »
While Mishima has just committed suicide in public, two couples accidentally meet in an inn in
the countryside: the man and the woman, now with different companions, had known each
other years ago…Read More »
A very rare ATG distributed Wakamatsu, starring Ken Yoshizawa and Rie Yokoyama as two pieces of a destructive love-triangle. Has all the usual Wakamatsu themes of politics, suicide and twisted love, as well as stylish Hideo Ito cinematography and great use of the more or less single set (a beach with an abandoned boat on it).Read More »
Quote:
It’s supposed to be a political critique of the japanese patriarchal family structure. The father wearing his military uniform is dominating his family sexually and violently. And while his daughter keeps saying that everything is normal, nothing is normal in this family.Read More »
Quote: Part of Wakamatsu’s ongoing fascination with sexual predators. It’s an incel film avant la lettre, executed in true Wakamatsu style. Certainly not his most prominent or polished work, though fans of Wakamatsu won’t be disappointed. Others should probably seek out his more famed work first. The film follows a frustrated young man. He yearns to be in the company of a woman, but seems unable to make any kind of meaningful connection with them. When a friend of his offers to share his girlfriend, he accepts reluctantly, but his first sexual experience awakens dark feelings that will drive him to commit violent crimes. Wakamatsu offers another glimpse into the mind of a very troubled soul. It’s certainly not a pleasant film, let alone a titillating one, so if that’s what you’re after you can better skip this one altogether. If on the other hand you like a stylized and frank descent into the rotten mind of a violent pervert, Wakamatsu has you covered.Read More »
letterboxd:
Japanese directors rarely fare well when they venture outside their home turf, the 80s and 90s weren’t really Wakamatsu’s best eras either. Just to say that expectations were pretty low when I started Singapore Sling. I wasn’t really prepared for a film this bad though, it is by far the worst thing I’ve seen from Wakamatsu up until this point.
Tatsuya is on a honeymoon in Australia. A couple of unfortunate encounters land him in jail, where he’s imprisoned without a chance of ever getting out again. His wife tries her best to launch an appeal, but it’s Tatsuya’s inmates who are his best chance of escaping his current predicament.Read More »