Protagonist Yu comes from a devoutly Christian family. A certain incident results in his priest father forcing him to confess his sins, which he commits daily out of a strong desire for praise. In the process Yu develops a taste for the sin of secretly taking photos of others and becomes the sneak photography king of high school students, but then he falls in love with a girl named Yoko who he meets by chance one day in town. Their relationship leads to unexpected developments involving a mysterious religious cult...With an extraordinary running time of almost four hours, Sono Sion's latest film is an unconventional masterwork that throws various aspects of contemporary Japan into its wild potpourri, depcted in the framework of an epic love story. His adeptness in presenting chaos as chaos while also realizing breathless entertainment is worthy of admiration.
A four hour indie cult film? Revolving around a man taking up-skirt photos of young women? Even for fans of Sion Sono (Strange Circus, Suicide Club, Exte) it was hard to imagine this turning out well. But - wait for it - the film just had its world premier at the Tokyo Filmex, I know two people who were there and both are throwing around words like masterpiece. Both know whereof they speak and one's already gone on record. This one's going to be hitting the fest circuit so get ready for a massive surge of cult excess.
Check out the trailer below the break.
Holy crap! 4 hours? But what a ride, trailer looks very good, and im not just talking about the upskirt shots and the 2 girls making out hehe.
I thought that trailer was brilliant. I could watch that trailer for four hours. lol.
This movie rocks out with its cock out...literally. I'm the one who used the M-word and I stand by it - this thing barely sags throughout its entire running time. It also doesn't need the short intermission Filmex gave it (it's not built into the film itself). This is the movie that'll break Sono onto the international scene as more than just a cult film director - if mainstream audiences can look past the panties and the penises!
4 hours... That something...Strange how Sion Sono didn't release the movie in two part... But maybe that wouldn't had made any sense... Love to see this one...
I love the black Female Convict Scorpion outfit on one of the girls. And the camera on the retractable cord! Man, this looks like it'll be easy to watch for four hours. Can't wait for this.
Can't wait; though really, really liked SUICIDE CLUB, enjoyed EXTE, have a copy of NORIKO'S DINNER TABLE lying around and liked what I saw of INTO A DREAM (alas, the screener conked out at its last 15 minutes....leaving me oh so alone). If this is anywhere as good as Marc claims, I will be in heaven.
This may be a cult hit, but 4 hours? That's a lot of I'm not sure how well it's going to play on the festival market, it's nearly impossible to program a four hour film into an already crowded schedule.
CRAZY!!!!!!
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. To me, the reasons they were ending their lives were clear. The song wasn't driving people to kill themselves, and the group was just a front for the suicide circle cult. The people who were interested enough in the group (which itself was a statement on pop culture in Japan and its inherent emptiness) found the secret meaning, which led them to find the cult, and be asked "the question," which was what drove them to killing themselves, not the song. Yes, all the group's songs had to do with suicide too ("I need a place where my piece fits forever; I think I'll say goodbye"), but they were not directly responsible for anyone's death.
SPOILERS
Yeah, I'm with Metrogenic on this one. It wasn't the song that killed them but rather their deep-seated unhappiness. The fact that the cult that operated out of the bowling alley weren't the real killers spoke to the idea that there was no easily defined or understandable single reason (like your song as killer theory) for these teens to have killed themselves. The song was really, to my understanding, just a signal that gathered them all together. They succumbed to a weird hypnotic suggestion before that but what led them to that group that made them believe that suicide was the answer is intentionally left a mystery.
So, the song wasn't the one killing people, even if the movie clearly shows that after listening to the song a bunch of people killed themselves? Heck, even Ryo Ishibashi's family kills themselves after some exposition to the song. I don't rememeber the whole movie, but i don't think there's a lot to explain here, the film is quite direct with it's intentions. It's not bad because of being "hard to get" or something of the like, it's ideas and the way it presents them is what makes this such an awful movie. It fails as both a satire and as a social commentary. The only thing most people will remember from the movie is all the cheap gore. Only the fans are digging their brains with theories for this and that.