Horrors of Malformed Men (18.)
Directed by Teruo Ishii. 1969.
Starring Teruo Yoshida, Yukie Kagawa, Teruko Yumi, Mitsuko Aoi, Michiko Kobata, Yumiko Katayama, Kei Kiyama. 99 mins. Japanese with subtitles. Released on Blu-ray by Arrow Video
Horror. Malformed men. Bound to happen, I suppose. The Malformed are always playing up in one way or another. Speaking as a man mildly malformed by 21st-century indulgences, I'd have to admit to being a tad horrified by the wildly, almost deliberately nonsensical plot of this classic example of ero guru nansensu (or at least that's what Wikiedia calls it) that mixes bits of soft porn with a Hitchcock-style framed man plot before becoming a Japanese Dr Moreau.
The film begins with a man Hirosuke Hitomi (Teruo Yoshida), a student doctor he says, in an asylum cell filled with writhing naked and semi-naked women, one of whom has a knife and is trying to stab him. He claims to be sane and has visions of an island off the Japanese coast that holds the secret to his past and his sanity. He escapes from the asylum, bumps into a circus girl who just happens to be singing the song he has stuck in his head.
I think the moment when you really throw your arms up in despair and give up on any notions of trying to follow the plot is when Hirosuke discovers that a man who looks just like him, and has the same birthmark as him (a swastika on the foot, the Buddhist symbol that the Nazis ripped off) has recently died. He then comes up with the cunning plan of removing the lookalike's corpse from the grave, replacing it with himself and persuading everybody that he had just been misdiagnosed.
For about half its length the film is this nonsensical mystery plot, with occasional intervals of nudity, but in the second half, we are transported to a mysterious island where the dead man's father has been living for two decades working on his big secret project. And it's at this point that the film suddenly goes off on to a whole other level, a truly bizarre mix of body horror, Butoh dancing and freak show circus, shot in the style of the arrival at Kurtz's camp in Apocalypse Now. It's very strange, moderately distressing but undeniably compelling. (There's a little bit of sexual sadism that I could've lived without.) Possibly most bizarre of all is the moment right at the end when a character who has been hovering around in the background, like in an inattentive shop assistant, suddenly steps forward with an explanation for the previous hour and a half.
It's a wholly mad endeavour, not entirely enjoyable but gobsmacking enough to be worth watching. There's nothing else quite like it, and why the hell would there be.
Extras.
Two audio commentaries by Japanese cinema experts Tom Mes and Mark Schilling
• Malformed Movies: a new video interview with Toei exploitation movie screenwriter Masahiro Kakefuda
• Malformed Memories: Filmmakers Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo the Iron Man) and Minoru Kawasaki (The Calamari Wrestler) on the career of director Teruo Ishii
• Ishii in Italia: Ishii and Mark Schilling visit the Far East Film Festival
• Poster Gallery
• Theatrical trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Dan Mumford
Directed by Teruo Ishii. 1969.
Starring Teruo Yoshida, Yukie Kagawa, Teruko Yumi, Mitsuko Aoi, Michiko Kobata, Yumiko Katayama, Kei Kiyama. 99 mins. Japanese with subtitles. Released on Blu-ray by Arrow Video
Horror. Malformed men. Bound to happen, I suppose. The Malformed are always playing up in one way or another. Speaking as a man mildly malformed by 21st-century indulgences, I'd have to admit to being a tad horrified by the wildly, almost deliberately nonsensical plot of this classic example of ero guru nansensu (or at least that's what Wikiedia calls it) that mixes bits of soft porn with a Hitchcock-style framed man plot before becoming a Japanese Dr Moreau.
The film begins with a man Hirosuke Hitomi (Teruo Yoshida), a student doctor he says, in an asylum cell filled with writhing naked and semi-naked women, one of whom has a knife and is trying to stab him. He claims to be sane and has visions of an island off the Japanese coast that holds the secret to his past and his sanity. He escapes from the asylum, bumps into a circus girl who just happens to be singing the song he has stuck in his head.
I think the moment when you really throw your arms up in despair and give up on any notions of trying to follow the plot is when Hirosuke discovers that a man who looks just like him, and has the same birthmark as him (a swastika on the foot, the Buddhist symbol that the Nazis ripped off) has recently died. He then comes up with the cunning plan of removing the lookalike's corpse from the grave, replacing it with himself and persuading everybody that he had just been misdiagnosed.
For about half its length the film is this nonsensical mystery plot, with occasional intervals of nudity, but in the second half, we are transported to a mysterious island where the dead man's father has been living for two decades working on his big secret project. And it's at this point that the film suddenly goes off on to a whole other level, a truly bizarre mix of body horror, Butoh dancing and freak show circus, shot in the style of the arrival at Kurtz's camp in Apocalypse Now. It's very strange, moderately distressing but undeniably compelling. (There's a little bit of sexual sadism that I could've lived without.) Possibly most bizarre of all is the moment right at the end when a character who has been hovering around in the background, like in an inattentive shop assistant, suddenly steps forward with an explanation for the previous hour and a half.
It's a wholly mad endeavour, not entirely enjoyable but gobsmacking enough to be worth watching. There's nothing else quite like it, and why the hell would there be.
Extras.
Two audio commentaries by Japanese cinema experts Tom Mes and Mark Schilling
• Malformed Movies: a new video interview with Toei exploitation movie screenwriter Masahiro Kakefuda
• Malformed Memories: Filmmakers Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo the Iron Man) and Minoru Kawasaki (The Calamari Wrestler) on the career of director Teruo Ishii
• Ishii in Italia: Ishii and Mark Schilling visit the Far East Film Festival
• Poster Gallery
• Theatrical trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Dan Mumford
