Kazuyoshi Kumakiri makes his directorial debut with this surrealist psychological horror flick about revenge and radical politics. Set during the early '70s, the film centers on a group of radicals holed up in a dingy Tokyo apartment. With their leader Aikawa (Yuji Hashimoto) in jail, his girlfriend Masami (Sumiko Mikami) rules the group with her overt sexuality and her iron will. While her Mr. Right is in stir, her Mr. Right Now is a fellow sect member -- the stocky, bearded Yamane (Tomohiro Zaizen). After two other members return from a bank robbery that Masami ordered, Yamane launches into her and a heated fight ensues. When he makes a minor comment about the exalted Aikawa, he is beaten up and spirited out the door. Yamane is replaced by two more ruthless believers: the silent, shorn Fujihara (Kentaro Ogiso) who was Aikawa's prison mate, and Sugihara (Toshiyuki Sugihara), who is the college friend of longhaired fellow sect member Kumatani (Shigeru Bokuda). Later, the sect continues to prepare for the eventual confrontation with the man, particularly by collecting a small arsenal. One day after nabbing a shotgun, which Masami fondles with freakish intensity, they throw a party. Masami, ever the center of attention, stages a Chinese-style lion dance and then takes the guitar-strumming Kumatani for a lover. When they learn that Aikawa died in prison, the group unity threatens to come apart at the seams. They need a scapegoat and fast. When Yamane picks a fight with Kumatani about his former lover, the pudgy belligerent is stuffed into a car and driven to an idyllic forest setting. There the horror begins. This film was screened at the 1997 PIA and Berlin Film Festivals. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
In the year 1972, a small group of left-wing students are living at a dingy Tokyo apartment in the mountain village of Karuizawa in Nagano-ken, Japan. While the group leader, Aizawa waits to be released from prison, his promiscuous girlfriend, Masami is left in charge of the group. While waiting for Aizawa's release, Masami uses her overt sexuality and engages in promiscuity with the fellow students. As the days pass by, things take a tragic turn. Within a few days of his release, the group's leader soon commits hari-kiri. After learning of Aizawa's suicide, the shotgun- toting Masami loses control and the group quickly falls into self-destruction, as sex, distrust, paranoia, and violence overtakes the group.[1]
