Freeze Me (2000)

Chihiro is raped by three men and it is captured on video camera. She leaves her hometown and prepares to marry a colleague five years later, when one of the rapists arrives and says the ... See full summary »

Director:

Takashi Ishii

Writer:

Takashi Ishii

Stars:

Harumi Inoue, Shingo Tsurumi, Kazuki Kitamura

Cast

Credited cast:
Harumi Inoue	...	Chihiro
Shingo Tsurumi	...	Kojima
Kazuki Kitamura	...	Hirokawa
Shunsuke Matsuoka	...	Nogami
Daisuke Iijima
Yôzaburô Itô
Ken Nakayama
Kyoko Muramatsu
Satsuki Natsukawa
Takeko Kubota
Kyoko Hayami
Naoto Takenaka	...	Baba
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Debbie Rothstein	...	Chihiro (voice)

Storyline

Chihiro is raped by three men and it is captured on video camera. She leaves her hometown and prepares to marry a colleague five years later, when one of the rapists arrives and says the others are on their way. He behaves like her long-lost lover and mistreats her again. Chihiro takes revenge, kills him and puts him in a freezer. The other rapists are awaiting a similar fate...

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Plot Keywords:

rapist | freezer | video | revenge | colleague | 

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Taglines:

Revenge Has Never Been So Cold

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Genres:

Drama | Thriller

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Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese English

Release Date:

27 May 2000 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Freezer

Filming Locations:

Japan

Company Credits

Production Co:

KSS, Nikkatsu

Technical Specs

Runtime:

101 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Quotes

Chihiro: I'll be forgiven for all of this... Isn't that right, God?

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Connections

References Psycho (1960)

User Reviews

Superior Rape/Revenge Film

The rape-revenge genre is rife with dodgy exploitation pics and under-the-counter sleaze, with I Spit On Your Grave (Day of the Woman) being the most (in)famous and, possibly, the most misogynistic. Artistic merit is not something the rape-revenge film concerns itself with (let's face it, 'Last House on the Left' is a crude, artless fluke), concentrating more on graphic sex / nudity for graphic sex / nudity's sake. Oh, and the rape has to be really horrible to justify the rapists' sticky end (no pun intended).

If you're watching a good example of the genre, you'll be putting yourself in the place of the woman and relating to her, something the horror genre frequently does (it's one of the only genres where men will relate to a woman) and wishing her attackers dead - in any way possible, not necessarily in a sensationalist way.

I think Freeze Me (or Freezer, here in the UK) succeeds in this, as the plight of the female character is always put first. Agreed, there are a lot of gratuitous shots of her naked body, but these act as a reminder to her beauty and frailty. When it comes to the rape, it is often more implied and in no way staged to be titillating, something the more dubious examples try to achieve, rather disturbingly.

Freeze Me, therefore, isn't exactly an enjoyable experience (I'll have to look up the word 'entertainment'), but it is thought-provoking, well-made on a very tight budget, and incredibly disturbing. One of the best examples of this horror sub-genre.