Branded to Kill (1967)
Our hero is Hanada, aka ‘Number 3 Killer’ (played by Jo Shishido), competing with other assassins to be the best in Japan. His biggest fetish is the smell of boiling rice that turns him on! A sexy, mysterious femme fatale, Misako (Mari Annu), approaches him for a contract. When he screws up the job, his girlfriend is hired by the mob to kill him. It all builds up to a crazy finale in a deserted gymnasium with the mystery rival: Killer Number 1.
Like most cult movies, Branded to Kill (Koroshi No Rakuin) was initially a commercial and critical failure. But it is a now both a fan favorite and a critics’ darling, even garnering a Criterion Collection release. The movie was such a flop in Japan that the legendary Nikkatsu film studio fired the director Seijun Suzuki for making films that “make no sense and no money”! The director counteattacked by suing the company, creating a publicity campaign, but he found himself blacklisted in Japanese film industry, not being able to make another film for a decade. It’s no wonder the movie didn’t make any sense or money – it is bizarre, psychedelic, absurd and quite ahead of its time!
Horrors of Malformed Men (1969)
A bizarro, surreal rendition of various stories of Edogawa Ranpo, the ‘Japanese Poe’. It is not easy to sum it up as a plot, but it goes something like this: Young medical student Hirosuke, after escaping a nuthouse, assumes the identity of a dead man, a mysterious doppelganger. He is lured into a strange island to solve the big mystery about his dead double. The island is ruled -of course- by a mad scientist, and his malformed creations inhabit the island. Understandably, our hero feels a little discombobulated, and so are we. If you like coherent, rational stories, this film is not for you!
There is a parade of grotesque, hideous characters and confusion abounds with insane sub-plots. The director Teruo Ishii helmed all of ‘Joys of Torture‘ film series, and is no stranger to the sort of perversions offered by Rampo’s tales. Ishii stitches together several Edogawa stories into one bizarro-fest. The film is little seen, even in Japan, as it has been always banned in its native country, which has only added to its cult appeal. The ban was not due to violence or sexuality however, as the film is rather tame in today’s standards, but strangely because of all the deformities shown in it. In Japan, deformity is a taboo and its exploitation is not tolerated. That’s not the only taboo it breaks though – some others: torture, incest, cannibalism, dismemberment etc. None of it is meant to be taken seriously though, and the grand finale in particular is hallucinatory, grotesque fun.
House (1977)
Maybe the ultimate Japanese cult movie, Hausu is quite indescribable. The premise is of a Then-There-Were-None Haunted-House teen-comedy: Bunch of sailor-uniformed schoolgirls (with names like Prof, Gorgeous, and Fantasy) arrive at a weird aunt’s house for spring break, and they start popping off one by one.
There are body parts flying, rivers of blood and a demonic house cat! One of the girls is devoured by a piano and then her five separated fingers come back to play a song! The inspiration for the film came from the childhood fears and fantasies of the director Kobayashi’s small daughter. Such as: a watermelon pulled out of a well appearing as a human head (such a nice imagination for a child.) Imagine a gory and psychedelic Scooby Doo episode. So dumb and real genius at the same time!
Violent Cop (1989)
The English title sums it up: Takeshi Kitano as the cop surely has a violent streak. In fact, he is a proper psychopath with a police badge. Yet, he is the hero we root for. Original title translates as: ‘Warning: This Man is Wild’. We first see him beating the shit out of a delinquent teenager. Talk about disproportionate force! He belongs to that dying breed of tough cops like Dirty Harry who will not tolerate Punks. However, the style here couldn’t be more far from Hollywood action movies with likeable heroes uttering cool one-liners as they serve justice. It is also galaxies apart from the fastpaced, explosive Hong-Kong cop/action films from the period. This is deliberately quiet and slow, mostly comprised of long shots of Kitano walking and slapping and kicking the faces of scummy men.
This is a precursor to Abel Ferrara’s ‘Bad Lieutenant’ (1992) with Harvey Keitel’s corrupt, anti-hero cop, but at least Keitel gets a chance for redemption. This is a gritty crime drama that is completely uncompromising in its cruel, nihilistic vision. The film gets darker and darker as the storyline with the cop’s mentally feeble sister is exploited in horrible ways, kidnapped, drugged and raped, and the cop seeks justice and vengeance on his own terms. This bleak vision and the sociopath anti-hero is all the more remarkable when you consider the fact that Kitano was actually known as a TV comedian when he made this film, which was the first he directed, and probably his best along with his other minimalist cop film, Hana-Bi (1997).
Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)
Decades before Titane‘s metal-fetishistic body-horror, Shinya Tsukamato’s underground hit Tetsuo has gone to such extremes that no filmmaker has gone before or since, creating a cyperpunk freakout classic. There is no plot to speak of: A man known as the “metal fetishist”, scrapping metal into his body, is followed by a Japanese “salaryman” and is overtaken by a disease that turns his body into metal. Almost unwatchable with a torturous soundtrack, ultra-violent effects and stupefying editing, this is an endurance test, an assault on all senses!
David Cronenberg’s wildest fantasies look like Forrest Gump’s compared to Tsukamato’s sick imagination. After this miniscule-budget first film’s success in underground circles, he continued his wild explorations with slightly bigger budgets to make Tetsuo 2 (1992), Tokyo Fist (1995) and Bullet Ballet (1998). Tsukamoto said he was impressed by Videodrome (1984) and was influenced by the burgeoning cyberpunk movement in the 80s. He describes what’s going on in the film as “the process in which human beings become ‘Iron’; it’s some kind of human condition“.
All films are available for streaming in English on Prime Video:
For Collectors
Criterion Collection restored Branded to Kill and added a handsome 4K Ultra-High-Def release in 2023:
Branded to Kill (The Criterion Collection)
Cult film connoisseurs ARROW Video restored Horrors of Malformed Men with a Special Edition Blu-Ray option:
Horrors of Malformed Men (Arrow Video)
A surprising pick by Criterion Collection, Hausu / House was given a fan-pleasing Blu-Ray packaging:
House (The Criterion Collection)
Film Movement has the latest release of Violent Cop, including Blu-ray format:
Tartan Video’s 2005 Tetsuo DVD release with English subtitles is still available:
Tetsuo: The Iron Man (Tartan Video)
But collectors will want to have Tetsuo II: Body Hammer as well, which were released together as a Blu-ray in 2018 by Third Window Films as a Region 2 offer: