Neji-shiki (1998)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Teruo Ishii

Writer:

Yoshiharu Tsuge (writer)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

It has been two years since unsuccessful cartoonist, Tsube (Asano), started to live with Kuniko (Fujitani) casually in a small apartment...

Plot Keywords:

Beach | Infidelity | Doctor | Cartoonist | Gynecologist

Cast

Tadanobu Asano	...	Tsube
Miki Fujitani	...	Kuniko
Yuko Fujimori	...	Nurse
Kazuhiko Kanayama	...	Kimoto
Tsugumi	...	Chiyoji Kobayashi
Mutsumi Fujita	...	Woman at Yanagiya
Mika Aoba	...	Stripper
Kaoru Mizuki	...	Gynecologist
Nijiko Kiyokawa	...	Candy Seller
Hideo Sunazuka	...	Station Attendant
Tetsuro Tamba	...	Landlord
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Masumi Hara

Also Known As:

Screwed (International: English title)

Runtime:

Japan:87 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Japan:R-15

Company:

Ishii Production

I'm hard pressed to describe this

"Screwed" begins with a very surreal and disturbing scene of people, mutated and perhaps rotting, on a beach or something, writhing and wriggling and moving in rather creepy ways, and then it shifts gears into normality (for a bit) with a tale of a young cartoonist (played by the guy from Ichi the Killer & Electic Dragon 80,000V) who is poverty stricken and he and his young wife/girlfriend/whoever are having some troubles and have been thrown out of their apartment. She finds lodging at some dormitory as a cook (think "Residence Inn", not college dorm) and he finds lodging with some strange dude that lives in a place where people have committed suicide previously, and after taking stock of his situation, no money, girlfriend/wife sleeping around, etc., he decides to commit suicide as well, but he's found and saved, and ends up going to some seaside town where he hooks up with more strange people and then the film slides off the edge of reality into a bizarre surreal world once again, although this time you're REALLY not sure what's going on. Apparently the young man went swimming in the sea and his arm was laid open by a jellyfish (I didn't know they were capable of that) and he's searching for help but can't seem to find any except for a gynecologist? And then perhaps (and I say perhaps because I'm not sure) you find the meaning of the title, and it hasn't got anything to do with sex. Now, I'm sure my description does this little justice, but if you were to watch this you'd probably understand why it's hard to describe. It's by no means bad, it's just like someone's bad acid trip committed to film. I liked it because it's cool to watch, but otherwise I'd have to say I was pretty lost about what it was all about. 7 out of 10, extremely weird and perhaps even unfathomable. But like I said, cool to watch.