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46%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #10,872
...out of 20,725 movies
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16 year old Rika wants to leave a murderous cult but she is sent to Hell where she meets demons and souls who have committed heinous and outrageous crimes.
--IMDb
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I read so many reviews on this site from so many people who seem to have a far greater love and appreciation of Japanese horror cinema and Japanese action cinema than I could ever dream to have. So, it does puzzle me as to why I have yet to see a review of the 1999 film "Japanese Hell", directed by Teruo Ishii. The problem with Ishii is that he passed away in 2005 and does not have a colossal body of work under his belt, so his material falls by the wayside while more mainstream (and still living) directors do their best work. Ishii was one of the leaders of the low-budget Japanese horror movement in the mid to late-1990's and "Japanese Hell" is his best work.
The premise is simple enough -- A young female member of a cult called AUM is offered the chance to see what Hell is like, as kind of a life lesson, and she accepts. Most of the film is showing, in painful and grotesque imagery, just what a cult member has to look forward to once there. This girl (Mutsumi Fujita) also happened to be part of the same cult that was responsible for the sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway. So, you get wrong doers getting poked and prodded at by demons and all sorts of evil critters. "Japanese Hell" has a message, I suppose, and that message is -- "Don't go to Hell. Hell is painful. So be good".
What separates this film from the other Japanese films of the time was the incredible amount of blood and gore. Though it was released the same year, this film hit theatres in Japan before "Audition" and really set the stage for a lot of what would come the following years. "Japanese Hell" is the equivalent of a "Saw" over here in that it was incredibly low budget and amassed a quick and impressive cult following. For some reason, however, that cult following has not caught on over here in the States. To me, Ishii was a director I enjoyed because he had the elements of a Roger Corman and the elements of a Mario Bava or Dario Argento. He has some of the best use of gore I have seen in a film of this nature. And you get it throughout the entire picture.
So, if you've never heard of "Japanese Hell", I highly suggest you check it out. Most of you love this kind of cinema far more than I do, and I loved it, so I guess you will just wet yourselves with admiration. Who knows? There could be a reason why it hasn't caught on in the States. But, give it a look see, and then do research and find some more of Ishii's work. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
8/10.
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#1:
grain of sand
- added May 31, 2008 at 12:59am
I've seen more than a few Japanese movies with the
word hell in them, but not this one. I'll figure
out a way to get this.
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