352 Jigoku

[Lino]

Lino (you're a guy now? my mind is blown), are you saying the Greek DVD looks better?

No, you misunderstood me (or I didn't explain myself clearly). What I was saying is that I don't see much of a difference between them. Specifically, colorwise I was expecting it to explode from the screen (the greens are too muted and the reds too) but it might be down to the original film stock used (I guess I'm just too spoiled by Warners gorgeous transfers of their musicals...).

Still, it might look better on a tube. It's not the first time this happens to me in regards to seeing some screencaps on a monitor and then the real thing on my TV. I certainly hope this will be the case.

[Narshty]

Fangoria review

[Gigi M.]

DVDTALK

[colinr0380]

Midnight Eye film review and their round up of some of Nobuo Nakagawa's other films.

Mondo Digital review. That featurette sounds like it could be amazing:

All of them have valuable insights into the film itself (such as its physicalized portrayal of psychological suffering) and the industry as a whole, placing it in context with the studio's works (including tons of valuable visual material) and the Japanese horror tradition (including Nakagawa's previous The Ghost Story of Yotsuya).

I'm looking forward to seeing the 'visual material'!

Here's a quote from the Mondo Macabro book by Pete Tombs (page 170):

By the end of the fifties, ShinToho, one of the largest purveyors of ghost stories, was on its last legs. The company finally went bankrupt in 1960, but not before delivering up two of the best Japanese horror movies since Ugetsu Monogatari. While one was a version of a traditional tale, Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan (The Ghost of Yotsuya at Tokaido), the other, Jigoku (Hell), was something else again.

Nobuo Nakagawa, the veteran writer and director of both films, had worked in all sorts of genres, from musicals to costume dramas. When he began working for ShinToho in the 1950s he inaugurated the series of horror films for which he's best remembered today. These include versions of the story of the Kasane Swamp, Kaidan Kasane Gafuchi (Ghost Story of Kasane Swamp) and cat ghost films like Borei Kaibyo Yashiki (Black Cat Mansion). More innovative were two films dealing with the vampire myth, Kyuketsuga (The Vampire Moth) and Onna Kyuketsuki (The Female Vampire). Of course, these weren't straightforward bloodsuckers. The first was a spooky thriller about a serial killer and the second featured a 300 year old descendent of Shiro Amakusa, a Christian rebel in seventeenth century Japan. This vampire is allergic to moonlight and in one scene turns a woman into a wax doll.

Nakagawa's Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan was one of the three versions of this famous story that appeared in 1959. He makes explicit the theatrical origins of the tale by opening with a stage set, where a black-robed narrator gives a kind of prologue in verse of what is to come: "Why did her husband poison her? Why? Why?... No wonder her ghost wanders and haunts him day and night."

....

Although it's traditionally a story of vengeance, Nakagawa's version of Yotsuya is really about karma, about the flowering of the seeds of destruction that we plant through our evil acts and mistaken ambition. Jigoku, made the following year, takes this idea a stage further and shows us the actual Hell into which our misdeeds can plunge us.

[Narshty]

DVDFile review courtesy of your friend and mine, Mike Restaino. Thanks, Mike, for pointing out that Suzuki and Kurosawa are the only two conceivable points of cultural reference and artistic influence available to Japanese filmmakers.

[colinr0380]

For the sake of completeness,this is the thread from earlier in the forum about Nakagawa's other films.

[Matt]

I'm interested in hearing what Kiyoshi Kurosawa has to say in the documentary on the disc, but I'll be hard pressed to watch this film a second time. It's really a shame that they're releasing this but passed on to HVe two of K.K.'s best films.

[Lino]

I'm interested in hearing what Kiyoshi Kurosawa has to say in the documentary on the disc, but I'll be hard pressed to watch this film a second time.

I guess it's not your cup of tea, huh?

[Gigi M.]

Back cover and spine

[King Crimson]

I can't wait to see this. It sounds great. I might blind buy it.

[Lino]

Well, my DVD arrived today and I have to say I couldn't be more pleased with the overall presentation of the movie. From the packaging down to the extras, you could see that the producers of this DVD really care about this movie and their love really shows. I especially enjoyed reading the Chuck Stephens essay on the booklet.

Another special treat for me was watching the original theatrical trailer as I'm a big buff of them and certainly welcomed its inclusion. God knows it must have been hard to promote this one, I'll say! Big, big props go to the 40 minute documentary that managed to cover not only the production of Jigoku but also some of the facts about Nakagawa the man and the artist. I really wanted to know more about him and I guess I got my wish granted. The funniest thing for me was seeing Kiyoshi Kurosawa actually admit that he is a big fan of Nakagawa's and that the even goes to the extent of not showing the old master's films when he's teaching classes in Japan for fear that his students might notice one too many similarities between both director's styles!

On to the movie's transfer. Well, I guess when I mentioned earlier that I was a bit disappointed about the new captures that Gary posted at the Beaver, I was being a bit harsh. In fact, I was hoping that it would look as good as MoC's new edition of Kwaidan, which I admit is a lot to ask considering that the film stock used at Shintoho was obviously inferior to the one used at Toho! Nevertheless, it's miles away from the scratchy and bumpy transfer presented on both the greek and japanese editions. And the colors look better too.

So, all in all, thumbs up! And here's to more Nakagawa in the Collection!

[putney]

re: Nakagawa's influence on Kiyoshi Kurosawa, if anybody is going to go see "Loft", keep Nakagawa, and the mid third of "jigoku", in mind... like Nakagawa's films, Kurosawa has a very sly sense of humor that is quite often, especially by many western critics, misinterpreted as "unintentional."
you can esp. see nakagawa's influence in his later "suit yourself or shoot yourelf" films, "liscense to live" and "doppelganger." (i don;t mean this as a criticism, it makes me like him even more...)

[Matt]

Kurosawa has a very sly sense of humor that is quite often, especially by many western critics, misinterpreted as "unintentional."

That's odd. I don't understand how anyone could see Doppelganger as anything other than a very dark slapstick comedy.

[putney]

That's odd. I don't understand how anyone could see Doppelganger as anything other than a very dark slapstick comedy.

i know, it's crazy, but they do... "consistency of tone" is a real stumbling block for many people, and many critics, i feel. i've always felt there is a few basic misunderstandings in crtique... the idea that 2 hours of watching a film can somehow absorb all of the elements and resonances in a film that was probably 2 to 3 years of someone's creative thought is beyond me. just today i read, sorry i forget his name, the guy who does roger ebert's site, he was complaining about "black dahlia" (which is, haha, fine by me) but he used the common crtical gambit where (indirect quote) "the director seems to have lost interest by the last half hour". this way of thinking is ridiculous...it shows a shocking lapse of reason in re: how films are made. (i don;t want to say lack of knowledge, because they DO know how films are made...)
in re: kurosawa, this idea of film as 2 hours as a completely linear experience is a stumbling block for a lot of critics, i feel. it's the experience of getting a foothold, and the illusion of understanding "fully" over the course of the film that leads many to think it's the film that has lost it's way, and not that they, the viewer, didn;t know the roadmap in the firstplace, but there is that expectation there.

i could talk for hours on this subject (but , hahaha, not like the above, cause i'm just typing freely) as it is a major concern/pet peeve of mine, but hey, it's not for everyone.

you're right about doppelganger of course...

(as per the above, john boorman's "point blank" is a big influence on Kurosawa too, you can see it everywhere, even sometimes literally (especially in "eyes of the spider") but i honestly think kurosawa knows a LOT more about film and film language than most film critics do.)

[Michael Kerpan]

Kurosawa has a very sly sense of humor that is quite often, especially by many western critics, misinterpreted as "unintentional."

That's odd. I don't understand how anyone could see Doppelganger as anything other than a very dark slapstick comedy.

KK say that this is (in essence) a romantic comedy -- in the interview included on the Doppelganger DVD. I was relieved to hear him say this -- as that was what I had concluded (about halfway through the film) -- and yet no review I had seen even hinted at this.

[putney]

well, i think is another reason i like k.kurosawa so much...
doppelganger is a romantic comedy in the same way "little murders" or "the heartbreak kid" is... to an extent...

nakagawa made bunch of great comedy's earlier in his career, really great..

[Michael Kerpan]

nakagawa made bunch of great comedy's earlier in his career, really great..

How did you see these?

[putney]

nakagawa made bunch of great comedy's earlier in his career, really great..

How did you see these?

they're on video in japan...i've been going there a lot for work the last 16 years, and now live here, so...there are dvds too, i believe, but they are not at the rental stores. dvds are just too expensive here to buy every film i want to see, so have to rely on rentals or friends...it'd be a $150 a day habit!

depending on where you live, there always seems to be a small hardly known japanese rental shop. when i used to go aroudnt he states for work a lot, i was surprised how many there were and how much old stuff they had (although it's mostly tv stuff) europe's scene for renting i don't know so well... sorry...

[Rich Malloy]

I Netflixed "Jigoku", and glad I did. Definitely worth seeing; not so sure it's worth seeing twice (at least for myself). I'd sorta expected something along the lines of Dante or Faust, and while those elements were certainly present, they served only as window-dressing. The film struck me as pure genre fare, with barely even a pretension to something more. Stunningly literal, not to mention bogus and small-minded in terms of morality and religion, while at the same time infused with distastefully heavy-handed moralism, which itself served only as pretence to usher in the exploitation elements.

The documentary was very well done, and seemed to do a good job of contextualizing the film and Nakagawa within the overall Japanese film industry. K. Kurosawa's input was welcome, but I couldn't help but wish that Criterion had released one of his films... say, "Pulse" or "Cure" or "Doppelganger" ...instead of (or in addition to) "Jigoku".

Also, I loved the poster art for the exploitation films Shintoho was producing at this time. I wish I could remember some of the more hilarious titles - a great extra!

[Lino]

I Netflixed "Jigoku", and glad I did. Definitely worth seeing; not so sure it's worth seeing twice (at least for myself). I'd sorta expected something along the lines of Dante or Faust, and while those elements were certainly present, they served only as window-dressing. The film struck me as pure genre fare, with barely even a pretension to something more. Stunningly literal, not to mention bogus and small-minded in terms of morality and religion, while at the same time infused with distastefully heavy-handed moralism, which itself served only as pretence to usher in the exploitation elements.

I'm kind of sad that anyone would look at Jigoku and perceive it as pure genre fare. It may have been made at Shintoho studios which became famous for their exploitation films, but Nakagawa's contribution was far from cheap.

The first time I watched it, it never for one second struck me that I was seeing anything other than a great unspoken master at work. The camera work and the angles used, the experimental nature of the soundtrack, the editing, the story and the audacity of its visual presentation, all combine to make it for me anything less than an avant-garde masterpiece for its time.

And I also have to disagree with the literary comparisons to Faust and others. To me, Jigoku is more Kafka than Goethe. The lead character plays much more like someone out of a truly Kafka nightmare in the sense that there's no escape whatsoever in sight. Whichever way he turns, more and more tragedies seem to happen and the claustrophobia inherent to the worst nightmares is clearly palpable as the film rolls by. It is a tour-de-force of manipulative powers at work from which you cannot run away, no matter how hard you try. But I'm just scratching the surface here as I find that the more I watch this movie and the more I read about its influences, the more there is to grasp. It's that rich and multi-layered. Definitely not literal.

And that stunning final third only comes to prove just how daring Nakagawa was for its time. Many movies suggest Hell or hellish situations but seldom use the power of the cinematic medium to actually go there and show us in moving pictures what Dante and others were all about! I will be forever grateful to him for taking me there in the comfort of my living room sofa!

[Rich Malloy]

Lino, I wish I could see it as something more than pure genre fare. If anything, it struck me as something less.

To me, the 'scope cinematography is only occasionally interesting, with several visually appealing tableaux, but hardly a revelation and nothing comparable to many of the great Japanese films from that time (Ichikawa especially comes to mind). In terms of intellectual weight or poetic impact, there's nothing here like the multivalent brilliance of Mizoguchi, Shinodo or Kobayashi's ventures into the surreal and horrific. This film struck me as pure B-movie schlock with few of the schlocky payoffs that make such fare occasionally worth seeing.

For myself, an "Avant Garde masterpiece" should in some way serve as a reproach (if not outright condemnation) of the prevailing social order of its time. This film, rather, is a reactionary, small-minded, and moralistic vision of cosmic justice akin to that of the most conservative religious elements. Perhaps it could be said that the exploitation elements subvert the more reactionary elements, but I think that's a helluva stretch. In fact, I think the exploitational elements are in service to the reactionary elements, not unlike those highly graphic comics popular among certain of the fundie sects in the US that promise hellfire to the heretics, and depict the torment of the unbelievers with undisguised relish. The so-called "morality" proffered by this film is utterly bogus, a view of the universe that should be consigned to the dark ages... a view not subverted by the film.

In the end, this lame parable gives up only a few (a very few) memorable images among a slew of forgettable, even laughable ones. At the finale, when the protagonist hoists himself up on the (rickety, wobbly) "wheel of life" to save baby Harumi, I could only smirk. Not even bad enough to be laugh-out-loud funny. Just bad. And with the rancid undertaste of reactionary moralism.

[peerpee]

Rich, you should have written the Criterion booklet essay!

[Rich Malloy]

In the end, I think this film is all about the cosmic retribution that will be visited upon you should you (gasp!) engage in premarital sex!

In fact, it is such a powerful reproach to any who dare succomb to the pleasures of the flesh, that George W. Bush should fund it's presentation in high schools, middle schools, and womens' health clinics throughout this land. Following the presentation of the film, a designated evangelical should preach upon "the Concepts of Hell", basically an expanded version of Professor Yajima's lecture in the film but with other, timely admonitions thrown in (say, exhortations against race-mixing and the dangers posed to this great country by the judiciary branch). Such a faith-based initiative would surely bring home the dangers of sexually illicit behavior to our nation's wayward youth.

[Napier]

Preach it Brother, AMEN!

[Ishmael]

In the end, I think this film is all about the cosmic retribution that will be visited upon you should you (gasp!) engage in premarital sex!

No, no, no, the film is a caustic jeremiad against a sin as heinous as it has become commonplace, a sin that fully deserves all the torments of hell: sideswiping drunk gangsters and fleeing the scene of the crime!