The Sinners of Hell (1960)
"Jigoku" (original title)

A group of sinners involved in interconnected tales of murder, revenge, deceit and adultery all meet at the of Gates of Hell.

Director:

Nobuo Nakagawa

Writers:

Nobuo Nakagawa, Ichirô Miyagawa

Stars:

Shigeru Amachi, Utako Mitsuya, Yôichi Numata

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Shigeru Amachi	...	Shirô Shimizu
Utako Mitsuya	...	Yukiko / Sachiko
Yôichi Numata	...	Tamura
Hiroshi Hayashi	...	Gôzô Shimizu
Jun Ôtomo	...	Ensai Taniguchi
Akiko Yamashita	...	Kinuko
Kiyoko Tsuji	...	Kyôichi's Mother
Fumiko Miyata	...	Mrs. Yajima
Torahiko Nakamura	...	Professor Yajima
Kimie Tokudaiji	...	Ito Shimizu
Akiko Ono	...	Yoko
Tomohiko Ôtani	...	Dr. Kusama
Kôichi Miya	...	Journalist Akagawa
Sakutarô Yamakawa	...	Fisherman
Rei Ishikawa	...	Old Man with Tatoo

Storyline

A graduate-school student has a friend who is pure evil. His friend and he are out driving one night when they hit a drunkard and the friend leaves the accident victim to die. The student's life then goes downhill from there.

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Plot Keywords:

hell | demon | torture | baby | devil | 

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Genres:

Drama | Horror

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Certificate:

TV-MA

Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

30 July 1960 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Hell

Filming Locations:

Tokyo, Japan

Company Credits

Production Co:

Shintoho Film Distribution Committee

Technical Specs

Runtime:

101 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film's production company was going out of business while the film was being completed, leading to budget-saving tactics such as the actors helping dig their own holes in the movie's set for Hell. Critics kidded that this film killed the Shintoho Studio.

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Goofs

While Shiro is on the rope bridge, we see him at various times hanging on to the side handrails. Between shots, without him having changed position, these handrails quite noticeably change in diameter from thin cables to a much thicker cable, indicating that some shots were filmed on a real bridge, others were filmed on a studio mock-up.

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Quotes

Tamura: So you want to turn me in for manslaughter?
Shiro Shimizu: We're the ones who killed him. We caused it. Let's go together. Please.
Tamura: That might ease your conscience, but I'm not interested. It'd be stupid. He was drunk. He ran into the road. It was basically suicide. Besides, he was just some yakuza scum. He's not worth the best years of our lives.

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Connections

Remade as Hell (2005)

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Soundtracks

"Comin' through the Rye"
(uncredited)
Music: traditional
Japanese lyrics: unknown

User Reviews

What Fresh "Naraka" Is This?

Horror film about the "Buddhist Hells"(an important distinction from Christian Hell. 1. You don't go to Buddhist Hell because of any kind of God, you go because of past Karma, and you stay just as long as is necessary, for the pound of flesh to be rendered so to speak. "Naraka" the Buddhist word for Hell, we are told when the film opens means roughly "abdonimal" or "excrusiating", and though it's concept is more abstract than the Wests, it's torture's are much more specific, and would make Eli Roth blush.

The story, begins with young man, who get's in the wrong car with the wrong guy(Tamura, who just appears out of nowhere, and then usually just to cause trouble or point out others sins), who has a hit and run, with a drunken Yakuza. The two drive off, though our hero wants to go back, and from them on, everything in his life goes wrong. Girlfriend dies, mother becomes terminally ill, father revealed as an unrepentant adulterer and reprobate, a doppleganger of his girlfriend re-appears, and the girlfriend and mother of the man he killed are on his tail too, which all come together in one hellish night of murder, revenge, and accidental death that takes them all.

The next half hour to forty minutes takes place in Hell. We watch a series of spectacles from the outer depths of purgatory to the inner rings of the vortex of torment, where our Hero after meeting his wife again (who may have been his sister, it's revealed, at least one of the dopplegangers was), goes on a quest to find the soul of his brother/son, who is shown on screen as a baby riding a leaf down a river of blood.

Severed heads, flailing, a field of faces half buried (images I recognize from "What Dreams May Come" Hell sequence), and much, much, more.

Jigoku, is one of the few horror movies I've seen, that has no pre-cursors, nothing has ever looked this, though plenty have tried since. There's elements of theater, b-movie conventions, theology, sharp editing and directing, and some of the best set design I've ever seen.

Though over 60 years old, it feels surprisingly not too dated, and though bleak as any film about "Hell" could be, it's important to note that Buddhist Hell is more like a place for shedding psychic skin, than an eternal prison, as the last frame of our hero and his child on opposite ends of the wheel of torment, followed by a distant light shimmering in the darkness, would suggest.

So...not to scary, but Brilliant. One of the best horror movies ever.