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Step Into the Ring with “Visceral: Between the Ropes of Madness” On Blu-ray!

A low-ranking boxer is set up with a match of a lifetime. Quiet but confident, his manager doesn’t exactly have a faith in the underdog, constantly questioning his training with gambled money on the line. When the boxer is beaten to a pulp in the ring, he’s immediately disowned by the unsympathetic manager and spirals out of his training and into darkness, finding murdering young women to be more pleasurable than the pain of loss and rejection. His darkness in death incites a demon, perhaps even the Prince of Darkness himself, if the form of a half-naked woman with a distorted face and places him under her ward, forcing him into submission of pain and suffering while also commanding him to collect souls for her through his own tasting menu of torture. The boxer’s life is told in three different stages of time on how he becomes evil’s most prized champion.

Accurately titular described, “Visceral: Between the Ropes of Madness” pushes deviant instinct over everything else, a formidable urge to listen and adhere to those intrusive thoughts, especially after one’s lifelong goal, their most prized position, is creamed and squashed for good and forever in a humiliating way. Writer-director Felipe Eluti uses hopelessness as pure evil’s plaything, turning a dedicated fighter being managed by Hell for the sake of not only revenge but also to fill the emptiness of the Netherworld with tortured souls. The Chilean born and film schooled Eluti debut feature also enacts him to star as the demented boxer in a gore-soaked, ringside performance that moderately excites and intensifies with rope bondage as one of his character’s key motifs. The extreme exploitation thriller is under the producing team of Sebastián Amenábar, Cristóbal Rivera, Andres Palma, and Daniel Vivanco.

Felipe Eluti is a one-man steamroller as the unnamed boxer leaving a laid-to-waste corpse trial in his wake. Going virtually pantomime through the entire quasi-plotted narrative, Eluti conveys an apathy through blood and body language as well as utilizing his unsettling glare underneath different stages of head and facial hair growth from his time as a slimmed down, smooth-shaven boxer to a Curly-do’d, five o’clock shadowed, and expressionless shell of a human being. From an outsider’s characteristic perspective, the boxer can be considered pathetic by preying down upon and torturing to kill smaller women in what is almost a result of retaliatory motivation after his brutal loss and he literally uses their bodies as his personal punching bags of stoic anger and hate. The demon also presents itself in the form of a woman named Judas (Carolina Salles), cladded in bondage ropes, speaks in a whispery, omnipotent voice and visits him with a twisted face to represent the evil, or even the ugliness, she embodies, or the boxer sees in all his feminine victims. Personified as a woman who tortures, beats, and verbally belittles him into a pacifistic submission only amplifies his dark crusade of soul collection. Other than the boxer’s manager, a porn addicted, condescending loudmouth by José Manuel García, the remaining cast is filled with fleetingly visited torture victims, mostly women who are also voiceless and have little-to-no fight in them until the boxer works up to courage near the end for revenge which he can call his own, and Gabriela Aranchibia, Valentina Varela, Tamara Zuñega, Daniela Pardo, Pia Cardenas, Claudia Mena, Carolina Palacios, and Felipe Ruiz fill in those fated roles.

While Felipe Eluti’s boxing themed gory shocker and exploitation rope-a-dope is definitely not a Rocky Balboa prime time fight film, “Visceral: Between the Ropes of Madness” favors severe mental deterioration over an underdog beating the odds with glorifying the ultra-violence. The strange-faced Judas pertains only to the Boxer’s vision or presence, conjured by feeding off the fighter’s anguish and indoctrinating him through pain, suffering, abuse, torture, and the most horrible like to do the demon’s bidding without resistance or fear. The boxer’s kidnap and slasher traits shows a motif dominance over women that could possibly stem from most of the Freudian theorized root of a lot of evil doing, mother issues. Supporting this scenario is the boxer’s visit to his mother. Face never shown within the thicket of a deep shadow and directed toward a glowing television set, the avoided boxer seeks self-satisfaction approval and support from presumably his one and only blood relation on this planet, but the attentive mother denounces him, rejects him, and belittles his existence as the worst thing to ever happen to her just before his big match. Eluti’s arthouse direction focuses on the boxer’s lack of love, support, and concern for his wellbeing and uses that the-world-vs-me detestation as a fuel and resupplied by his submission to Juda’s verbal and physical abuse to carry on his hate-filled and apathetic tear of women.

Unearthed Films, a leader in producing and distributor extreme, ultra-violent and gory movie content brings “Visceral: Between the Ropes of Madness” into the squared circle with a new Blu-ray release of Chilean production. The single layered BD25 is AVC encoded and presented in a high-definition, 1080p resolution, with a widescreen 1.77:1 aspect ratio. Cinematographer Tomas Smith’s approach to the content serves up stark and severe drab with a lifeless parallel to the apathy spree of the Boxer’s dark undertaking. Heavy on grays and browns, there’s hardly any pop of aesthetic style or color but is counterbalanced by some interesting just obscure or to the side framing that ignite more imagination than having the scene spelled out for you. There are also other interesting visuals with Judas and inside the Boxer’s mental state that don’t allow much in the way if finer details but allure to and speak of motivation and context. The divided darkness through provides plenty of opportunities for compressions issues on a lower capacity disc compression but there’s not a whole lot to speak in way of artefacts. The Spanish PCM 2.0 mix plays the familiar tones of an arthouse gore film by giving more stock to the soundtrack than to the dialogue. While the dialogue is apparent despite the Boxer saying very little and Judas’s voice done in post, composer René Roco has free reign to be industrially glum above the whimpers, cries, and screams of the Boxer’s tortured women. Ambient action is perceived post-product separation as the sounds don’t necessary match or synch in frame with the carnage and the environmental ambience is reduced to near nothing with low levels murmurs of city life stock sounds in the exterior scenes. The English subtitles appear accurate and match well with in-scene prattle. Extras include a commentary with director Felipe Eluti, a post-showing speech at the Cineteca Nacional’s Massacre in Xoco, Mexico City circa 2013, a behind-the-scenes gallery, and a teaser trailer. The reverse cover liner art inside the clear Amaray case has barely safe for work primary of the mad Boxer and a bloodied woman bound in rope and a not safe for work cover that focuses on a bare-chested and rope bound Judas, both in contrasted to a deep inky void background. There are no insert liner supplements and the disc is pressed with the same NSFW cover art image. The not rated, region A encoded release has a runtime of 76 minutes.

Last Rites: Glorifying hopelessness through violence, “Visceral: Between the Ropes of Madness” is a round-for-round degression from failure through the dreary lens of director Felipe Eluti and his kink for rope bondage that sets forth an unstable champion amongst the maidenly defeated.

Step Into the Ring with “Visceral: Between the Ropes of Madness” On Blu-ray!

Orphaned boxer Leo grows up to be an up-and-coming star in the sport. After losing a match by TKO from a soft punch, Leo is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor that sends himself into despair. In another part of town, the established yakuza and the imported Chinese mafia boil toward an inevitable war over turf and drugs. When Kase, a junior enforcer, betrays his yakuza family, scheming with a crooked cop to steal drugs for profitable gain, the tide turns blood red as the yakuza naively blames the Chinese. Caught in the middle is a drug addicted prostitute named Monica, a slave to the yakuza for her father’s past mishaps, who is kept locked away in a small apartment overseen by a yakuza lackeys, romantic couple Yasu and Julie, that also use the apartment to control drug flow. When Kase plan to raid the apartment and steal the drugs goes array, Yasu winds up dead and Monica escapes, running into Leo who has nothing left to live for except to protect Monica. A distraught-induced psychotic Julie, the deadly yakuza, the Chinese Mafia, a double-crosser and his crooked cop partner, a delusional girl of the night, and one apathetic boxer clash in a single night’s ultraviolet web.

Extreme Japanese auteur Takashi Miike fastens a lively tongue-and-cheek and supremely savage crime thriller in his latest mad yakuza film, amiably entitled, “First Love,” also known “Hatsukoi.” “First Love” is anything but friendly and pleasant as the street of Tokyo run red with blood or else the 2019 released film wouldn’t be a Takashi Miike trademark special. Penned by Miike’s long time collaborator, Masa Nakamura, the filmmaker’s affection for horror eludes this title that hones more toward the unpleasantries of clan betrayals, snarky criminal shenanigans, and, of course, a flavor for mega violence that become a maelstrom angrily surrounding a demoralized boxer and the victimized forced-into-prostitution young woman he aims to selfishly protect while in his mental clout regarding his mortality. Produced by OLM, Inc production company headquartered in Tokyo takes a step away from manga with “First Love,” a step that has been evolved over the last few years, but may have contributed to some of the illustrated content that seemingly has infiltrated into the third act with an initial explosiveness in the beginning portions of a car chase scene.

Cast as Leo Katsuragi, the boxer, is Masataka Kubota, a familiar face from another Miike film, “13 Assassins,” and most recently from the heavily Japanese cultured specter feature, ‘Tokyo Ghoul.” Leo’s lighter weight physique and fresh face has Masataka look the part of a promising fighter whose positioned for fame early into the story, but that framework comes to a screeching halt when he’s destined for a tumorous death. When Leo is coupled with Monica, a drug addicted forced in prostitution plagued with crippling hallucinations side effects, the repressed Leo finds himself sheltering someone with more burden on her shoulders than upon his own. Monica’s portrayed by Sakurako Konishi in what’s essentially her first major role and being paired as a scared, lonely, and crazy character coupled with a stoic vet in Masataka makes for an easy dynamic. Shôta Sometani’s chin deep in trouble Kase goes without saying that Sometani’s unfathomable range and charisma adds an aloof comic relief along with Kase’s dishonest detective slipped covertly into by “Ichi the Killer” himself, Nao Ohmori and pursued by a retribution spirited girlfriend, Julie, of her slain yakuza boyfriend; a role spearheaded with such energy and gusto from Rebecca Eri Rabone, credited solely as Becky, who has a slight Cynthia Rothrock vibe. “First Love” is no slave to boorish performances from Takahiro Miura (“Shin Godzilla”), Cheng-Kuo Yen, Sansei Shiomi, and Mami Fujioka.

“First Love” emerges as a smart and fun battle royal of decimation in the anarchist criterion. One would think a prolific director such as Takashi Miike would wear out his welcome with tired and stale filmic bread, crumbling with every soggy rinse and repeat. That’s not the case with “First Love.” Why is it entitled “First Love” anyway, you ask? The question’s open for viewer interpretation, much like most of Miike’s suggestive elegant style, and presents an illuminating unexplored journey in itself. A ventured guess would be that Leo and Monica have never experienced the feeling previously in either content or a labored life with Leo being an impassive athlete and Monica an escort since high school. The corollary of bumping into each other by chance results in the unorthodox dismantling of two rival criminal organizations, baring then an age-old theme of love conquers all and renders the mystics of destiny fueled from from within all the way easter egging sexual taboos inside his brazen, sometimes insane, transgression storyline. Either way, Takashi Miike helms a tremendous brutal-comedy that brands him as being the Martin Scorsese of Japanese filmmaking.

Blades, guns, and a fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, “First Love” has mainstream aptitude with a carnage driven crime syndicate finesse and is now available on a two-disc, dual format Blu-ray and DVD release from Well Go USA Entertainment. Encased in a slipcover, the not rated feature is presented in full HD, 1080p, and in a widescreen, 16:9 aspect ratio. This review will focus it’s review on the Blu-ray quality. Much of Miike’s style is neo-noir basking in very grounded color palette that’s occasionally adorned by the neon brights of Tokyo. Often does Miike composite in his work and “First Love” is no exception with a brief manga nearly a rallying ending; the illustration is super sharp, a visual pop of blue and white, and, obviously, clean. Ultra-fine details add to a prizing fatalism and even the tasteful gore, on a granular level, passes the screen test. Some scenes appear sleeker than others inside a dark scope coded with darker shades of green and yellow, but the overall result smothers any kind of inconsistency. The Japanese and Chinese 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio tracks savor every last audiophile morsel. The clear dialogue renders nicely, big effects and action sequences offer a wide range, and the depth covers more than enough ground surrounded by hustle and bustle of the urban element. Kôji Endô’s enchantingly lethal score will immerse you right into the mix and provide a slick culture twist upon classical composition. The English subtitles are well paced and mostly accurate as I did catch one grammatical mistake. Incased inside a slight embossed titled cardboard slipcover, the release also offers a teaser and a theatrical run trailer. Cynical on the surface and romantically submersible to the core, “First Love” is a Takashi Miike instant favorite of amusing antagonism and shorn almost completely of genial garments.