Tokugawa irezumi-shi: Seme jigoku (1969)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Teruo Ishii

Release Date:

2 May 1969 (Japan)

Genre:

Drama | Horror

Plot Keywords:

Body Art | Framed For Murder | Kidnapping | Tattoo Artist | Kick In Stomach

Cast

Mieko Fujimoto
Reiichi Hatanaka
Yuki Kagawa
Kamiko Katayama
Asao Koike
Miki Obana
Masumi Tachibana
Haruo Tanaka
Teruo Yoshida

Also Known As:

Inferno of Torture (International: English title) (USA) (video title)
Hell's Tattooers

Runtime:

France:90 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

West Germany:18 (cut)

Company:

Toei Company

Tattoos, tattoos, torture, tattoos

A film about obsessions on bondage and tattoos, disguised as historically adequate treatment of an inglorious episode in Japans long gone past. It's ingredients are violence, brothels, tattoos, female whorehouse bosses, tattoos, mean pimps, even meaner prostitutes, tattoos, whips, knives, drugs, torture and tattoos. The main theme is the transformation of young girls' skins into pieces of art, depicting both abstract and figurative motives, the latter mainly dealing with death, birth, violence and other more or less disturbing themes. Compared to other far eastern films from the same exploitation category, the violence seems almost moderate. The narration, in a fairytale-like old fashioned style, is, of course, a child of it's time. In total, the film's not so good, but not so bad either; it is not very original, but still (in a positive sense) light years away from the commercial cinema we have today – which is intriguing since films like this, in their days, were themselves first and foremost done to make money.