A journey into the depths of hell from master of the macabre, Teruo Ishii. Rika (Miki Sato) is a young woman who is brought to hell by its supreme ruler Enma (Michiko Maeda). Rika is shown the eternal punishments that await sinners there, excruciating tortures meted out to the most vile and reprehensible, so that she may return to mankind to warn them from wrongdoing. Through a magic looking glass she is able to witness the crimes of a child murderer, who is later brought down to hell to be dismembered, before being reconstituted in an endless horrifying cycle. The reason Rika has been chosen is then made apparent as we are shown her past as a member of the real-life Aum Shinrikyo cult, who were responsible for the Sarin gas attacks in Tokyo.
Teruo Ishii’s ouvre is characterised by the violent and the grotesque, so it is perhaps unsurprising to see him tackle the ultimate depravity and horror of hell itself. Essentially a modern day parable, warning people from straying from the path of righteousness, it is littered with his trademark brand of extreme gore and often blackly comic undertones. The sequences of hell are theatrical, with stark colourful lighting, masked characters, demons and creatures of the underworld. The special effects of the tortures, as with his previous films, tend to the extreme, with arterial spray, scorching, disfigurement, often too over-the-top to be taken entirely seriously. It is certainly a visually stunning portrayal of hell, particularly in the more abstract scenes of writhing bodies in agony. The overworld portion of the film is largely concerned with a reconstruction of the Aum Shinrikyo cult’s activities, and the machinations of its leader. We see the cult leader abusing his position to rape the women in the group and the paranoia of the members. As with much of Ishii’s work, there is violence, torture, sex and nudity, in abundance, whether it is warranted or not.
“Japanese Hell” is a film with a very specific target: the Aum Shinrikyo Cult that caused so much suffering and a reconsideration of religiosity and group think. The early sequence of a child murderer, and a later scene involving an enigmatic samurai figure who has ‘broken every man-made law’, seem like odd bookends which have little to do with the central plot. The concept of hell as a real place is something that has been used throughout history to keep people obedient to laws, and to keep people safe from harm, or safe from harming others. This film is an attempt to modernise that notion and portray a truly horrific vision of the infernal underworld to warn people from committing acts of violence against other humans. At the end of the film, Ishii does give us a hopeful alternative, in the suggestion that people should pray to the life-giving, eternal things, such as the sun. Overall, “Japanese Hell” is an entertaining, perhaps indulgent attack on Shinrikyo and criminality in general, a vicarious revenge for that atrocity and a plea for humankind to consider their actions.
