Varied Celluloid

The Plot: Patrick is a wealthy businessman on the verge of marrying his young fiance. He invites all of his friends and his young wife to visit a large castle-like theater he owns but has been closed down. Along for the trip is Russell, Patrick’s fiances old flame. Rebecca and Doris, a lesbian couple indebted to Patrick. Albert, a doctor who owes Patrick money from opening his clinic for him, who is now married to Vivyan. Vivyan is a sweet woman who Patrick was once close to marrying, but was betrayed. Lastly there is Lynn, Patrick’s redheaded daughter who has brought along her boyfriend and may actually have some unhealthy hidden feelings for her father. They are all joined by a mysterious man that they met at a party nearby and recommended that they head here. However, this theater has a history and this mystery man seems to know the story. When bodies start to pile up, will this group of posh aristocrats manage to stay the entire night? If they do, who will survive?

	The Review

Although I have spent the better half of this previous decade splurging on Italian horror cinema from the seventies, it wasn’t until almost a year ago that I made an honest effort to really tackle the Giallo with all of my ability. For those who don’t keep up with this sort of thing, the Giallo is a genre of thriller made in the sixties and seventies that focused on lurid subject matter such as hidden killers who often struck out and murdered innocent women while wearing black gloves. These movies were based off of very pulp novels that usually adorned yellow jackets, which is where they get the title “Giallo” from which is Italian for “yellow”. These movies more often than not featured a artist or writer who is thrown violently in the path of the killer and must search out the true identity of this madman before it is all too late. The Killer Reserved Nine Seats is an interesting addition to the genre, not because of anything overly different that it does but when it comes to hitting those conventional notes that we expect, it does a really good job at keeping the suspense up despite those of us in the audience who may feel that we have seen it all before.

I’m partial to the Giallo because even when a movie is relatively bad for what it is, the entertainment level is still there. I have a similar relationship with old school Kung Fu cinema. No matter what is going on in my day, I can pop in a Giallo or some old piece of Shaw Bros. history and I will be entertained for the next hour and half with little to no complaints. The Killer Reserved Nine Seats was a title that I knew very little about before hand, but just being a part of this genre was enough to grasp me by the collar. I am really glad that I’ve watched it as well because it may be one of the most unheralded, but completely solid, films that the genre has ever produced. Directed by the relatively unknown Giuseppe Bennati, the film holds true to many conventions and staples that helped mold the genre but the commitment to atmosphere and genuinely spooky concepts may just place this one ahead of many of the more popular titles that I have seen.

The soundtrack and main theme for the film is very classy and it helps establish this posh world that the rest of the movie is to take place in. Carlo Savina, who did the score, really brings out the Ennio Morricone vibe as this booming jazz-influenced soundtrack hums along. At every turn I was impressed with the music and I think had the film maybe featured some form of lesser musical accompaniment, it may not have had the impact that it does. Although much of the suspense and intrigue is derived from this fantastic score, the real meat and potatoes of the film is the surprising amount of time devoted to melodrama. The drama is taken to high levels as we see this group bicker back and forth with one another, but the surprising thing is that we actually see these characters become fleshed out. Although we as an audience have reasons to dislike every single one, the characters ultimately come off as human and three dimensional. When we see a duo who are planning on ripping Patrick off for his money, these characters SHOULD be the enemy, correct? Well it isn’t so simple and when these characters die, I actually felt sympathy for their plight. For this type of film there was no need for such character development, but by doing so it separates itself from the flock.

Atmosphere. That is what The Killer… does to perfection. From the outside looking in, I would have guessed that this was a Giallo made in the early part of the sixties and not a product of the mid-seventies. At this point in the stage of the Giallo, the conventions were really becoming prominent and the supernatural had all but been ruled out of the element. It seems that these films so often start off by hinting at the supernatural but as the film would progress, you would learn that this killer is simply a sinister human being. The Killer… however remains ambiguous until the final minutes as this ancient history of this theater comes to light. Are these characters going mad or is there a legitimate spirit moving within these events? While doing this, I couldn’t help but be reminded of older Hollywood horror films such as The House on Haunted Hill, which used a lot of the same tension and a similar “Ten Little Indians” style plot device. There is a legitimate air of fear by including this supernatural element, something that is often lost within most slashers and Giallo titles.

Finally, The Killer Reserved Nine Seats is also interesting for its breaking of various taboos throughout. It is odd to see in a film this old, a lesbian couple actually being treated relatively fare within the plot. Although they can be snakes, as everyone in the story is shown to be throughout, you also get the idea that there is a legitimate “relationship” that these two share. Rather than their simply being scornful fornicators. Even if there are hints that one of the two may not be the most faithful, the two do seem to share a true relationship of sorts. The violence for the most part is generally tame, with only one murder breaking through the borders of bad taste. Similar to What Have You Done to Solange?, vagina mutilation is once again on tap. This one murder actually stands out, while the rest are pretty bland throat slashings or stabbings that never go much further than your average stage death. That one death does almost make up for the lack of blood however, as the ferocity is something to be seen. The killer, who looks rather silly to be honest, seems like a barbarian as he repeatedly stabs this poor woman. As is customary, the killer wears his black gloves but he also sports a very strange looking “old man” mask that features a giant uni-brow that covers his forehead. Weird? Sure. Entertaining? Oh my yes!

	The Conclusion

The Killer Reserved Nine Seats is pretty far from being perfect, there is no question. It follows genre formula without introducing enough of its own inventions, but I can’t help but REALLY like this movie! Although others may sit through it and wonder what all of the fuss was about, while watching I had the best time I have had with a Giallo in a very long period. The story is engaging, the characters were very well developed for this type of project, the red herrings were obvious but threw you off in a very fair manner and the pacing was brilliantly fast. This may be a rating I’ll feel different about later on, but I’m giving the project a four star rating. If I did halves, to be honest it would be a three and a half, but as it is I feel the need to round upward for this one! Definitely check it out if you can find a copy!

Written for Varied Celluloid by Neil Mitchell and he can be contacted: Here

The Plot: In the garden of a country cottage young Tony is playing with his father and their pet dog when day suddenly turns to night and bright lights fill the sky. In the confusion Tony’s father Sam disappears, apparently abducted by aliens. Three years later Tony is still plagued by bad dreams about his father’s disappearance and is living with his mother, her new lover and their French nanny in London. His mother believes Tony imagined the incident and that Sam simply deserted the family. The spacecraft returns and an alien creature rapes and impregnates a hapless victim who then immediately gives birth to a fully grown Sam. Sam returns to the family home claiming to have no memory of the past three years. He soon starts to exhibit strange behaviour and abnormal powers, which he passes on to Tony. When father and son unleash their deadly forces a far greater threat emerges from the chaos that could destroy all of their lives.

	The Review

Harry Bromley Davenport’s cheap and sleazy shocker from the early 80′s is one of the strangest cult oddities in the history of British cinema. With it’s tag-line ‘not all extra-terrestrial’s are friendly‘ Xtro cashed in on the wave of sci-fi hits of the era such as Alien, E.T. And The Thing, but occupied the lower end of the budgetary market and audience demographic that included the likes of Inseminoid and Lifeforce. The film did pretty robust business at the UK box office despite being ridiculed and despised by film critics on it’s release. Xtro? was subjected to much disdain largely due to the now infamous alien rape and adult birth scene (which is pretty graphic and provocative) but also due to it’s kamikaze approach to narrative cohesion and an overall sleazy exploitative feel rarely seen in British horror movies outside of the films of Pete Walker and Norman J Warren.
There is no escaping the fact that the movie’s ‘special’ effects are anything but, the acting veers from over the top to amateurishly wooden and the plot is a mish mash of sci-fi and horror that barely hangs together, but it’s the combination of truly bizarre scenes and outlandish ideas that make Xtro such a head trip of an experience.

In her first screen role Maryam d’Abo, latterly a Bond girl in The Living Daylights, seems to be cast purely in order to shed her clothes, have sex and eventually end up as the host mother to a wave of alien creatures. Future soap star Anna Wing, who went on to play uber battleaxe Lou Beale in the BBC’s Eastenders, turns up as a busybody German neighbour who meets her demise at the hands of a life size action man that along with a murderous clown and a tank that shoots real missiles form Tony’s army of killer toys. The rest of the cast, (pretty much unknowns or bit part players) perform adequately enough, as acting standards are never integral to exploitation movies there’s no real surprise in the moments of woodenness on display . There are some uncomfortable allusions in the plot to child abuse in the relationship between the post abduction Sam and Tony, as father passes on his new found strange powers to his son via a very hands on approach, and intentional or not it adds another layer of weirdness and sleaze to the movie.

If you fancy seeing extra terrestrial impregnation, life size killer toys, full frontal nudity, outlandish and gruesome deaths and a black Panther prowling around inside a flat for no apparent reason then this is the place you’ll find it. If that all sounds completely barking, that’s because it is, Davenport throws as many curve-balls into proceedings as he can and embraces a ‘to hell with logic’ mantra. Whether or not such instances as the black panther appearing seemingly out of nowhere are due to lapses in continuity and editing or just another random slice of strangeness from the mind of Davenport it’s certainly in keeping with everything else around it. Xtro‘s ‘shock’ ending is predictable in it’s inclusion but unexpectedly surreal in it’s presentation. I won’t spoil it for those yet to see Xtro but it tops off the film like the icing on a very twisted cake.

Davenport comes across as a low rent British John Carpenter, taking on as he does not only part of the writing duties but also directing and penning the film’s electronic score. The problem being that Davenport’s attempt at an eerie disconcerting soundtrack in the Carpenter mould sounds like it was recorded on a Bontempi, weedy and shrill instead of ominous and edgy. The production values as a whole scream cheap and nasty, not that that’s a problem, but Xtro could have been and wants to be so much more. Spawning two Davenport helmed sequels with part four on the cards Xtro is a lovably baffling watch rather than getting near to being a genre classic or a must see movie, but for those who like to delve into the past for some cult viewing, a few gross out moments and some unintentional laughs then this fits the bill on all levels.

	The Trivia

	The Conclusion

Xtro may be schlocky and have the production values of a 70′s television show but it still warrants a mention when talking about both exploitation and British horror cinema. I was drawn back to Xtro after realizing that two fine books I had recently been using for research – Andy Boot’s Fragments of Fear: An Illustrated History of British Horror Cinema and Daniel O’Brien’s SF:UK – How British Science Fiction Changed The World both failed to include the film in any way. As it’s both science fiction and horror and has a cult following this omission from either sci-fi or horror history seems churlish and unwarranted.
Sure it’s trash but it’s trash made on a shoestring budget by an independent director and I’ve seen plenty of other movies by ‘respectable’ genre directors that contain far less ideas and genuinely sleazy atmosphere than Davenport’s movie.

The Plot: Kitty (Chingmy Yau) is a rough and tumble young woman who is the adoration of every young man she comes in contact with, but she also has a strict code of ethics and isn’t afraid to stab an unfaithful man between his legs. Tinam (Simon Yam) is a cop who is suffering from shellshock as he is unable to deal with his job as a police officer due to his accidentally shooting his own partner. Now whenever he even sees a gun, much less holds one, he vomits profusely. When these two eventually cross paths, a slow love affair begins to blossom. Tinam who had been impotent since the loss of his partner has found the ability to love again once in the arms of Kitty. However, things are about to end suddenly for this duo as Kitty’s father is killed in a struggle with a man that was shacking up with Kitty’s mother in-law. Kitty traces this man back to an office building where she attempts to assassinate the man and his network of goons. Things do not go exceedingly well as she barely escapes with her life and has to be aided by Sister Cindy (Wai Yiu) who just so happened to be there. Cindy is a professional assassin and she sees great promise with Kitty so she takes her under her wing. As Kitty soon finds, the world of assassins is one that is full of political maneuvering and quickly made enemies. As she and Tinam are soon drawn back to one another, this new life is going to prove to be exceedingly difficult to keep up with.

	The Review

Wong Jing is one of those filmmakers whose reputation far exceeds his precedence or even importance within the industry. The number of titles he has produced that have had international acclaim, I can probably count on two hands. That doesn’t mean a whole lot when you are responsible for nearly two hundred films. With that said, I am not entirely down on Mr. Jing. Many of my contemporary critics have nothing but hatred for the man, but as far as I am concerned he is just a filmmaker who “gets” the entertainment side of the industry. His “everything plus the kitchen sink” style of cinema has kept him a financial success, if not a critically acclaimed master auteur. Naked Killer is a title that he produced and wrote the script for, but his influence can be felt throughout the entire feature. Director Clarence Fok, best known for the Yuen Biao time travel classic The Iceman Cometh, continues in the vein of other Jing films and buries his audience underneath a barrage of exploitation and insanity. While doing so, he crafts one of the best Cat III titles I have ever seen.

For those who don’t know, Cat III (or Category III) is a very harsh rating within the Hong Kong film industry that essentially became a genre within itself during the late eighties and early nineties. These films, more often than not, were similar to Japanese pinku films or American softcore erotica. These were features with low budgets and the only rules being that there are a select number of erotic sequences throughout the movies. Naked Killer is one of the few Cat III titles that actually relies less on its sexuality and more on its violent spectacle. To be honest I only have a mild interest in erotic cinema, just enough of an interest to search out the basics of various cultures, so to this day I still put off a great deal of the Cat III genre. So many of these films seem dedicated to generic sex comedy formulas with only a tad bit of leniency towards the world of cinematic “oddities”. Naked Killer however is the polar opposite in the fact that its obsessions with violence and bodily fluids far outweigh any fascination with the female form!

Naked Killer is a hodgepodge of ideas thrown at the canvas in an attempt to see what sticks. The surprising thing is that it works so well! From Simon Yam’s numerous vomit sequences to the very well choreographed gunplay, it is hard to pin down just what the filmmakers are going for when watching Naked Killer. A slightly comedic look at genre cinema, Naked Killer is never short on jokes or sleaze. The sleaze is of a higher quality production than what you might expect however. This movie looks good, real good! The set design is utterly amazing. From black and white textured tiles and over the top broad, slightly garish, colors that line every wall. There’s a certain Tim Burton-esque feel to some of these sets and the general atmosphere. It is so over the top that it becomes a fantasy world, which doesn’t lead to the most gritty or urbane areas one could find to make their “assassin” movie but it works in a very odd way. Odd is generally the most apt description one could use for this piece of action cinema, as I doubt there will ever be another title quite like Naked Killer.

Going back to my roots with the film, it is a movie that I have actually been looking forward to for quite some time. When Fortune Star began releasing many celebrated Hong Kong classics on DVD a few years back, I found myself avidly collecting their titles but unfortunately Naked Killer didn’t cross my path. The trailer that they had promoting the film on their other DVDs however made it out to be something that I just could not miss. As it turns out, those trailers were not wrong. Although I am going to try and avoid hyping up this title to the heavens and back, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the exploitation madness that Clarence Fok dishes out. There are things in Naked Killer that defy logic, reason or meaning but manage to entertain at all times. While I may run the risk of simply rambling on about random moments from the film, I can’t help but mention a few really bizarre things that this movie has to offer you. For one, the copious amount of vomiting that Simon Yam’s character does in the film sticks out. He vomits directly on the camera at one point in a notoriously disgusting moment. Another great, but strange, sequence involves Chingmy Yau as she attempts to have her vengeance on the man responsible for her father’s death. During a massive battle, featuring some great choreography, one of the bad guys manages to split her legs while she sits on a couch and he then axe kicks her directly in the crotch five or six times. I would be bereft if I didn’t mention the notorious penis eating sequence as well! That’s right, a penis is detached and a gentleman accidentally eats it without noticing its subtle flavor. How could anyone bite into a bloody, human tissue covered penis and not realize it isn’t a roasted piece of pork? Your guess is as good as mine, but I can’t help but love this movie for having the gumption to actually go in such an oddball direction.

Naked Killer is a surface-level film, there is no doubt. Although there is a sentimental, yet also bizarre, love story at work through most of the picture, this is just a part of the texture. This is a film of transgression and breaking taboos, while being as stylish as one could possibly be in the mean time. The violence is brutal at times (any person who gets their head slammed into an object immediately erupts a gallon of blood) and the sexuality is grandiose and in your face. The lesbian seduction during Chingmy Yau’s training sequence is potent and the eroticism is really on point. Unfortunately Fortune Star, who I generally like quite a bit, released this film in its cut form so for those of us with that disc we were left out of the one or two instances of actual nudity throughout the film. That’s right, a movie with the title Naked Killer actually has no nudity in its US release. A let down for those who might have hoped to see a bit more from these beautiful women. Although I would have preferred to watch the uncut version, I think the ostracization of sex in the film really brings to light how utterly strange it is in all other areas. It also helps us to focus on the action, which is plentiful to say the least. Taking a cue from the John Woo handbook of Heroic Bloodshed, we are treated to a few instances of really well choreographed gun battling. Mixed in with the blistering pace of the martial arts and you have a movie that handles its action in far more regard than its sexuality.

	The Trivia

	The Conclusion

Although it is far from perfect, I loved Naked Killer. It is sleazy and morally bankrupt at times, but never knowledgeable of this fact. It chugs away with the speed of a rocket as we take on subplot after subplot until the movie finds its explosive climax. I would recommend readers searching out the uncut version first if possible, but I really don’t think you can go wrong with any copy of this classic piece of Cat III insanity. Easily one of the best I have seen to bear that particular title. Check it out some time!

[imdb]0076337[/imdb] The Plot: It’s 1941 and Rudolf Hess makes his flight to England in surrender. The head of Hess’ staff, Colonel Werner von Uhland, is sentenced to death by the Gestapo. However, the Gestapo has another plan for him: It turns out there’s more traitors among the Third Reich and they’re all connected to each other under the name of The Intelligentsia. Col. von Uhland’s head decides to give him a chance to redeem himself by having him befriend the conspirators, arrange a brothel to invite the traitors in to use all their sexual weaknesses against them and expose their traitorous ways.

	The Review

It’s a little hard looking for historical accuracy in the Nazisploitation genre, yet part of the reason why that is revolves around the entertainment value of the genre. It’s like pointing out the anachronisms of a WWII video game: The Nazi’s never had zombies, double-D bikini-clad devil worshippers or (my personal favorite) transforming mecha vehicles equipped with homing missiles and lasers, but it doesn’t matter so long as it’s an entertaining experience. So what happens when you get a Nazisploitation movie that has a heavy dose of historical straightness? You get Red Nights of the Gestapo… what could be the least entertaining Nazisplotation movie I’ve seen so far. My problem with this movie is that it’s boring. Out right, unentertaining, occasionally funny, barely brutal and straight-up dull. This isn’t Women’s Camp 119 where it’s nothing but mean-spirited, uncomfortable sleaze with a hint of campiness, it’s not SS Hell Camp’s brutal, but hilariously bad and over-the-top bloody. It’s almost like SS Girls without the groovy soundtrack and 85% of the sexiness and humor completely removed. The cinematography to this movie is actually very good. The film stock is clear, there are some impressive shots, close-ups and the art direction is great. from the Head Gestapo’s office to most of the architecture we get several well shot-close-ups of the different objects of art surrounding the actors including several stone statues, wood carvings, metallic figures and what appears to be a preserved heart wrapped in barbed wire. Really, from a technical and artistic aspect the movie is good and the props are unique… I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the money was spent on the seemingly Caligula-like sets and antique props. After watching the Nazisploitation movies of Bruno Mattei, it’s easy getting used to seeing Nazi characters who look 100% Italian, but the Italian actors of Red Nights were actually made-up to look more German with bleach-blonde hair and pale faces. That aside, the rest of the cast could’ve come from anywhere.

So with all this on our table, you’d think that for once you’d have dirty Nazisploitation with a hint of class. Sadly, there’s very little room for the dirty Nazisploitation factor. The first half of the movie consists of Uhland doing the Gestapo’s dirty work, rounding up insane women to be a particular traitor’s love slave from a very fake-looking asylum. All fine and well, but the second half of the movie mostly consists of Uhland talking to the traitors, the traitors talking to each other and then sometimes screwing the women. All of which sounds like it might be fun, but it isn’t. The nudity and sexual antics just aren’t as well shot as the rest of the movie. There are some decent close-ups (a few of which actually show some labia), but its not unique or angled enough to be memorable. Part of the problem may be due to the fact that the movie is actually based on a novel by Bertha Uhland so maybe the film is just playing out page for page.

I’ve never seen a movie make sex and nudity so tedious before and that includes Orgy of the Dead. There’s a scene where two characters are having sex on the back of an old butler and another character is playing a repetitive melody on a squeaky violin to it for four minutes; instead of coming off as erotic, or interesting it only serves as obnoxious and poorly shot. The only good close-up of the event is of the butler’s face as he’s walking the nympho over his back and stroking her hair. There’s even an odd amount of scenes where a little girl is recruited to tug at the heart strings of a conspirator who is a father. I guess it’s supposed to be subtly disturbing having a little kid hanging around these people, but it really just amounts to another talking scene. I don’t even want to talk about the soundtrack to this movie. I get what they were going for: the whole score consists of violin stringing and plucking that try to accentuate a sense of insanity, but it just comes across as annoying. The movie even has its own theme song like the Gestapo’s Last Orgy, only not sung too well; it’s like listening to Edith Piaf singing Haikus in Dutch… it just doesn’t go well together.

There are moments where the movie does get a little sleazy and its in these brief moments that the movie starts to get entertaining. There’s a scene where a group of spying Nazi Officers take a break by having a foursome with a female officer and even better is a scene where two ladies entertain the conspirators with an erotic and goofy strip show in a theater. Hell, there’s even a ping-pong ball trick show! It’s pretty glorious, but there’s just not enough of it; there are too many moments where the Intelligentsia are sitting around and talking about their situation or sitting down at dinner and talking, none of which gets them anywhere in the plot.

Col. von Uhland does come across as a capable and clever bad-ass, but the movie doesn’t give him enough to do. After a surprisingly harsh but brief scene where he guns down three male Nazi officers and assaults the female officer (to make it look like someone else did it), he spends the rest of the movie either sitting or standing around talking or eavesdropping. He doesn’t even pick-up a gun again until the end of the movie! Fred Williams from a Bridge Too Far shows up as a perverted aristocrat housing a French exhibitionist and a lesbian, and he’s pretty good but they don’t give the man enough to do here.

I will admit some of the characters are fairly likable: some of the crazy women recruited for prostitution get excited at either bondage, clothes-tearing or just plain getting nude and they’re fairly entertaining. Unfortunately, the movie just doesn’t do enough with these characters. The nympho girl is about the only fun one; she did remind me of a blonde Allyson King from Don’t look in the Basement only more nude. There is some bondage thrown in near the end where the clothes’ tearing girl tortures the sadomasochist woman, but there’s nothing brutal or erotic about it.

There’s very little brutality in the movie. Most of its disturbing factors come from the fact that there’s a war going on, there are Nazis and the traitors to the SS are mostly perverts. The scene where Col. von Uhland assaults the female officer was only a sample of rawness and the remaining brutality comes at the film’s climax when the beautiful unarmed women are gunned down by sub-machine gun fire. I seem to remember an episode of Cowboy Bebop doing something similar in a restaurant scene and it was stupid, as it was annoying, so it’s really more annoying than it is brutal here.

Speaking of death, there aren’t any uncomfortable death scenes in this movie. One woman gets stuffed in a box before being thrown out a window and one character suddenly dies from a heart attack after screaming and farting into a microphone. That’s about as memorable as the death scenes are. Funny enough, after this happened, the nymphomaniac character got so upset at the man’s sudden death that she started masturbating to which I sympathized saying ‘You know what? That’s not a bad plan! Now to find something sleazier..!’

	The DVD

The DVD transfer is pretty good and the menus are very well put together… but that’s it. Much like the movie, the DVD is very minimalist. The most Extra Features it has include deleted scenes that are pointless because it’s just more dialogue leading from other scenes, most of which are muted and don’t include original audio. Huh, something tells me even the transfer team was a little bored by this flick.

	The Conclusion

Considering the reputation of the Nazisploitation genre, Red Nights comes off as extremely tame. Even if it weren’t, it’s still a dull descent into World War II history facts; in the end, it’s a movie that tries to be smarter than it really is. It is very well shot and decorated, I can’t deny that, but if you’re looking for dark, brutal, sleazy exploitation or even crazy, zany sexual perversion or overall entertainment, don’t look for it here.

The Plot: Yu Honda (Takahiro Nishijima) is a young man born into a Christian family in the very Buddhist society of Japan. His mother dies while he is still young, but before she passes on she gives him a statue of the virgin Mary and insists that he some day find his own Maria. After the death of his mother, his father is left in a state of confusion and turns to the priesthood. He dedicates his life to god, but after a few years confusion once again enters his life as a mysterious woman shows up at his church crying. She slowly starts to seduce the priest and the two begin living with one another behind the church’s back. Everything seems to be going well for this new family unit, but when it becomes apparent that their relationship is going to remain hidden, the woman leaves and Yu’s father is once again alone. Bitterness begins to take over his life as his sermon’s take on a dark tone and his interest in the well-being of others is diminished. He starts turning to Yu for him to confess all of his sins on a daily basis, but Yu is a kind teen and doesn’t commit any terrible sins but his father refuses to believe this. In fact, Yu doesn’t even lust after women. He has never even had an erection at this point in his life and he believes the only girl who will ever do that for him is his Maria. Now, as Yu can’t seem to fool his father during their confessions, he decides he will have to commit as many sins as he possibly can. He teams up with some local punks and begins his mission to find the worst sins he can. This leads him to being trained in the ways of upskirt photography! His father, who has shown disinterest in everything up until this point finally shows some anger towards his son – which is better than the emptiness he had been showing. At the same time that this is happening, the priest’s former mistress has moved on and found another man who has a daughter named Yoko Ozawa (Hikari Mitsushima) who is obsessed with Kurt Cobain. Although she quickly loses interest in this new man, her new “daughter” of sorts becomes very attached to her and vice versa. The two leave and head back to Yu’s father and unknown to Yu Honda, the young Jesus loving Kurt Cobain freak may just be his very own Maria!

	The Review

Sion Sono is a filmmaker that has defied the world of genre cinema since our introduction to his world with Suicide Club. Starting his career off in gay porn, he is an unconventional director to say the least. In his interviews he sometimes comes off as a little unbalanced. He seems strange at first glance, as if he were some kind of wild man who simply confused a great number of people to get to this prestigeous position as a top flight arthouse director. However, actions speak louder than words and despite his flighty attitude, his work comes across as deeply personal and often touching. His talent has grown tremendously over the years and his success with Suicide Club has been proven to be more than just a fluke. Love Exposure, a four hour arthouse action drama comedy, may just be the culmination of all his efforts up until this point. His work has been consistent in his use of various narrative functions and Love Exposure continues this love affair in the firmest possible way. His love for voiceover narration and split narratives was cemented in the excellent Noriko’s Dinner Table, but Love Exposure shows him taking all of his gifts as a filmmaker and amping them up to their highest potential.

Love Exposure by its length alone will divide audiences. Within recent times I have actually grown very disapproving of filmmakers who don’t properly edit their films. It seems that every independent film or arthouse title simply must break through the two hour time length. In fact, with its popularity growing, Asian cinema has unfortunately developed a reputation for having films that are overly long and lacking in solid editing power. While Love Exposure is not a movie that I find without flaw in terms of its editing, I have to give credit where it is due! For a four hour long film there is hardly a lagging moment throughout. There are scenes here and there that do not add anything to the plot particularly, yet Sono manages to keep the audience enthralled by examining all of the little crevices of this world that he has created around his characters. Taking place within a heightened state of reality, Sono’s world is full of weirdos, perverts and general lost souls and at no point are these characters not interesting.

Love Exposure certainly seems to have that outsiders look at the interior side of Christianity, but what I appreciate about the film is the actual care and understanding that it employs. Christianity is often beguiled by outsiders as a religion of condemnation and judgment. Although our leading man’s father is unable to believe his son’s lack of “valid” sinning, he is not a man who goes about judging everyone around him. Instead, there are certain elements of Christianity that actually do get to shine through in Love Exposure such as Christ’s love and the importance of understanding. There is a particular sequence where 1 Corinthians: 13 is read out loud and the profound understanding of the words are made clear for the characters.

Yet, Love Exposure is not a Christian film in particular but for fellow Christians who are open to a film featuring fallible and confused characters, it shows a different side to the faith. With characters who are lost in the act of spiritual growth. Sono looks to paint organized religion in as much of a guilty light as the boxed in cult mentality. Thankfully Sono does not carve his ideas in stone and leaves his film very open to interpretation in terms of just what it has to say about religion and the culture that is promoted through it. Sure enough there are organized versions of Christianity that ask for its fellowship to devote an extraordinary amount of their life and livelihood that is not biblical. A little satire is surely good enough for those who pervert the faith. For fans of Sono however, you can see much of what has made the filmmaker the talent that he is. I’ve already mentioned Noriko’s Dinner Table, but parallels between that film and Love Exposure are numerous and we can see the patterns and continual themes that seem to attract Sono’s interest. With Suicide Club and Noriko’s Dinner Table, Sono explored a very similar cult like situation and this time around he delves back into those similar waters but is even more contemplative and engaging in his examination of the topic at hand. This is Sono at his most refined.

Sono loves to play with narrative conventions and he does so in Love Exposure with gleeful abandonment. The film is told in three different chapters, features a split narrative that takes three different voice over narrations and even has a nondescript deadline that the film steadily hurtles towards. From the start, we have these title cards that pop up and inform us that we have 365 days until a miracle is to happen. All of this begins in simply the first half of this four hour feature. Yet, it’s from these intricate takes on narrative structure that the film never seems to slow down and is surprisingly brisk in its editing. Although it is four hours in length, there is very little in this film I would dare want to see cut out. There are things that I’m sure you could actually remove. There is a good chunk of film dedicated wholly to the training of Yu Honda, which could probably be toned down. Then there are the courting sequence, which follow Yu Honda (Takahiro Nishijima) and his attempts to impress Yoko Ozawa (Hikari Mitsushima) despite her being in love with Yu only when he is disguised in drag as Miss Scorpion (yes, as in THE Scorpion from the Female Convict Scorpion series starring Meiko Kaji, who Nishijima is dressed to resemble). This sequence in particular seems as if it would be ripe for the chopping block due to the way the film takes on the feel of a romantic comedy of sorts. However, these are the moments that add texture to the characters and ultimately reveals their interior for the audience to see. While these character are fleshed out, with the twists and turns in tone, the movement of the film seems to move with a lightning pace.

With the addition of superflous genre cinema references and ideals, Sono helps to take this very simple story and multiply the gravity of such a situation tenfold. This simple story of love and the ties that bind are wrapped up inside of an enigma of spirituality, religious furvor, perversity and martial arts. The martial arts come into play as Yu is trained to be an upskirt photographer and the way in which the film shows us the dedication it takes for him to become this highly decorated pornographer is by giving the artform a martial arts style training sequence. Instead of simply waiting for the right moment and snapping a picture, Yu does cartwheels, flips and acrobatic somersaults in order to snap the right photograph. These sequences are entertaining due mostly to the intense choreography and imagination involved in developing such an idea. This sort of gimmick could very well carry a weaker comedy, as we have seen with select Stephen Chow films. Within the realm of Love Exposure, this is just one idea out of many that Sono chooses to explore simply for the fun of the idea.

Sion Sono also runs the gauntlet in terms of visual ideas and aesthetic over this four hour long journey. He takes us through so many different textures and design ideas that one feels drunk after the experience. The cast wear an assortment of colorful garbs throughout the film, to the point where it becomes obvious that this film takes place within some form of hyper reality that just barely resembles our home earth. Sono’s set design takes us from very modest Japanese homes up to the very top of corporate skylines that are so pristine that they lack any form of definition and simply beam white. Possibly reflecting the spiritual enlightenment that those who inhabit it hope to achieve, or maybe the walls are simply white because a samurai showdown is soon to take place and will reflect the gallons of blood in a much cooler way. Then again, maybe the white walls do represent that purity and its the blood that represents reality that not one of us will ever achieve true spiritual purity due to our own sinful nature? Who is to say, but Sono certainly leaves his film open to interpretation.

	The Trivia

	The Conclusion

I can’t get over Love Exposure. It has been days, even a week at this point, since I sat down to watch it. This review has been one of the most contemplated I have written because the film truly touched me and it isn’t the easiest movie to put into words. It won’t prove to be for all audiences. What four hour film really could be? However, if you are patient enough you may find a brilliantly crafted piece of arthouse entertainment. Although it isn’t perfect, I feel that the steps it makes in the world of cinema warrants my highest rating. I give it a five and I hope others have the opportunity to search this one out because it is truly worth your time.