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What’s Fashion Without a Little EVIL Behavior? “Helter Skelter” reviewed! (Radiance Films / Limited Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Beauty is Pain. “Helter Skelter” from 88 Films!

Lilico is the hottest Japanese fashion icon.  Fans adore her, brands want her, magazines crave her, and paparazzi and photographers yearn to shoot and work with her beauty that inspires all and commands undivided attention.  However, her astonishing beauty isn’t entirely organic as multiple surgeries through unorthodox surgical procedures that enhance her from a forgettable nobody to an unforgettable somebody.  Her radical surgeries begin to show blight side effects of the surface of her skin, sending her into vanity driven sociopathic spiral of sex, mental torture, and self-destruction, also affecting those closely around her, especially her assistant Hada who takes the brunt of her maltreatment.  When a new, hot model is presented by her manager and the world begins to fall in love with her, seemingly dropping Lilico from being the face of the fashion industry, the model’s snowballing and necrotizing surgical side effects can’t be stopped from becoming all but public. 

Social commentary horror movies like “The Substance,” “The Neon Demon,” and “The Ugly Stepsister” underline the vast awfulness and extreme lengths of beauty standards.  How to keep youthful, how to manipulate the face and body, and how envy can be weaponized from the worst of counterparts are just some of the attributes, which are very accurate outside the cinema, used as tropes for the body horror subgenre where attractiveness is the core catalyst that motivates monstrosities.  These late 2010s and early 2020 films might not have been directly inspired by Mika Ninagawa’s “Helter Skelter” but definitely pulls from the same cloth.  The 2012 Japanese fashion industrialized body and psychological horror is adapted by Arisa Kaneko based off the Kyôko Okazaki manga of the same name with established manga-to-film experienced producers, Morio Amagi (“Cutie Honey”) and Mitsuru Uda (“Xxxholic”), producing the WOWOW, Parco Co. Ltd, and Asmik Ace Entertainment film.

Objectification perspective isn’t always from the outside looking in but can be looking out as well.  In “Helter Skelter,” model Lilico believes in her self-importance, treating others in subordinate to her illustriousness career as the hottest flavor in Japan’s fashion society.  Society objectifies Lilico as nothing more than a stylistic Goddess who can do no wrong and even have the smallest bit of her in their space, whether be the hot topic of conversation or to the be face of their magazine cover, whereas Lilico objectifies those all around her with eviscerating self-proclaimed eminence and dominion over their mind, body, and soul.  “Ghost Train’s” Erika Sawajiri has the perfect look and approach to celebrity derision without blatancy toward others as her expressionless face never contorts with anger, never smiles without the devilish smirk and piercing eyes, that makes the fashion icon unreadable and to sway of control during bi-polar scenes where happiness and disgust swing rapid on a totalitarianism pendulum.  Personal assistant Michiko Hada, under the performance of “R100’s” Shinobu Terajima, takes the brunt of abuse during on-the-clock and off-the-clock professional and personal time.  Terajima’s ordinary bearings for Hada make the character an easy target in contrast to Lilico’s ornate wardrobe and lavish style of living spurred by ruthless nature to be best and most beautiful, taking an authoritative sovereign stance of control in the fashion hierarchy.  Lilico’s spoiled prince behavior coincides by a fueling Kaori Momoi in a queen-like mother figure as the talent agent who mostly advises her star pupil an instigating misconduct mindset with pro-surgical advice and like-minded guidance that artificially influences her body despite the pain and dangers as well as providing a mimicking behavior of dejecting and downcast harm.  Nao Ōmori (“Ichi the Killer”), Gô Ayano (“Woman Transformation”), Kiko Mizuhara (“Attack on Titan”), Hirofumi Arai (“The Neighbor No. Thirteen”), Anne Suzuki (“Returner”), and Mieko Harada (“Ran”) all play a role in the rise and fall of Lilico.

Much like Lilico’s quickly deteriorating fractured state of mind, and body, Ninagawa utilizes a cinematic style that’s overly brilliant with neon colors and a sharp polished look that contrasts reality and distorted perception, creating a disjointed narrative digression Lilico experiences.  The hyper stylization keeps in tandem with the fashion world of flash photography and gaudy maximalism, the ultra-violence and promiscuous behavior depict the cutthroat competition of remaining beautiful and the ugliness that’s truly inside, and the sheer flaunting of indifference and superficiality lingers throughout in and out of favor of our terrible protagonist who is actually the villain and the victim of her own tale.  Each character is flawed beyond reproach and having no redeemable qualities that make them appear strong or promising to be a virtuous type.  Not even the meek and eager-to-please personal assistant Hada who takes the punishing commands of her employer and manager in a purely pitiful subjugation of oneself to not lose a job position and be in the presence of stardom.  Hada even lets Lilico invade her personal life and continues to let it happen with no choice in the matter.  “Helter Skelter” embodies the very definition of the term with its confused and hurried chaotic state in design and in story while, in the same baroque breath, disenchanting the illusion of the fashion industry and beauty standards as not glamourous and genuine but fickle and fabricated with a heavy dish of backstabbing and self-destruction. 

In the same spirit as photogenic magazine models, UK label 88 Films releases a beautifully crafted, limited-edition Blu-ray release.  The numbered release Blu-ray is AVC encoded, 1080 high-definition resolution, onto a BD50 that was already shot digitally with a Red One MX camera through Zeiss Ultra Prime and Angenieux Optimo lenses under cinematographer Daisuke Soma.  This gave “Helter Skelter” a glamorously polished look to accentuate the hyper-stylized and contemporary look that starkly discolor the centralized characters as ruthless people of fashion and high society.  When good finally enters the picture, a young model stepping to Lilico’s high heels as the next young, hot model, the harsh design of modernism is scaled back to simple and sterile aspects with more of the dramatics being held locally to the downfallen characters.  Higher contrasts create deeper shadows amongst a medium-heavy color saturation that primaries strong statement colors like fire-engine red and Duke blue.  The curvature of the anamophoric lenses, presenting in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, do show intentional signs of wrapping at the sides to capture the entirety of the wide shots in smaller spaces but adds to the surrealistic effect and is implemented at the right moments to make it all sensible.  No compression issues to note.  The Japanese DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and 2.0 Stereo tracks are the only two formats encoded.  The 5.1 has formidable attention to the side and back channels with the chaotic fashion-industry ambiance with erratic behaviors steering the scene.  Every action detail is highlighted to bring quieter scenes more tension and every tumultuous moments a fuller body.  The dialogue is crystal clear and layered appropriate with environmental track and soundtrack.  Moods rise up and down with the fluctuation soundtrack that pulsates in breath-holding, provocative, turning-point scenes that while melodies play in more of shocking portions to entice attention during climatic notes.  The newly translated English subtitles have no synchronization or grammatical issues to note and pace well with the visuals.  Special features include a feature in tandem audio commentary with Tori Potenza and Amber T., interviews with star Erika Sawajiri and director Mika Ninagawa, a behind the scenes of raw footage making the film, the Japanese premiere stage greeting, an opening day stage greeting, the Q&A from the Taipei Film Festival with director Mika Ninagawa, the original rehearsal footage, an image gallery, and the teaser and official trailers.  Like Ninagawa’s film, 88 Films tangible release is also hyper-stylized with newly commissioned art by Luke Insect that’s surreal, color, and slightly disturbing.  The clear Scanavo cases comes with an gold Obi strip with film and Blu-ray details and the sleeve is dual sided with original Japaense compositional design on the inside.  Inserted inside is a 23-page color booklet with a chaptered essay by Violet Burns, complete with color photo stills and promotional photos with the front and back art contrasting the two model women in a good and evil, light and dark, way.  The not rated, limited-edition Blu-ray has a runtime of 127 minutes and is A and B encoded to support playback in the Americas as well as Europe. 

Last Rites: There are plenty of horror as well as commentary films about fashion, but none do it with style quite like Mika Ninagawa and still develop an unrivaled cynicism of self-implosion.

Beauty is Pain. “Helter Skelter” from 88 Films!

The Empire of EVIL Reduced to Prostitution, Corruption, and a Wasteland. “Gate of Flesh” reviewed! (88 Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

88 Films’ “Gate of Flesh” Now Available in the U.S.!

The American occupation of Japan post-World War II was the result of not only the Iwo Jima atomic bomb but also the relentless destruction of carpet-bombing Tokyo.  Left in near ruins and swarming with the presence of American soldiers, the Japanese people have disseminated into gangs and territories for financial gains and power.  For Kanto Komasa, she and her gang of highly motivated women prostitute themselves for sex-starved American soldiers to accure money for Paradise, the future name of their bomb-ruined, leftover-skeletal building structure revamped into an elegant dance hall where they run the show.  When a rival male gang threatens their business, another all-woman gang challenges them, an inducted outsider betrays them, and a bloodied stranger is found inside their bombed out homebase, all with the Americans military police continuously rounding up prostitutes nightly, Komasa and her gang must walk the paved road through Hell to scratch and claw toward Paradise, even if that means going against their set principles.

Since the end of the World War II Pacific campaign, Japanese novelist Taijirô Tamura’s “Gate of Flesh” has been filmically adapted a handful of times just after the war in 1947.  In 1948, directors Masahir Makino and Ozaki Masafusa first adapted the novel, followed by the Seijun Suzuki version in 1964 and Shōgorō Nishimura’s adaptation in 1977.  In this review, Hideo Gosha’s “Gate of Flesh,” also known as “Carmen 1945,” moves from samurai period actioners, such as “Sword of the Beast,” “Three Outlaw Samurai,” and “Samurai Wolf,” and into a yakuza era of storytelling that came on strong in the 1980s.  “Gate of Flesh” is no different with plenty of yakuza tropes without actually affirming the term in the dialogue.  Gosha’s tale provides more glamour, style, and substance, especially around themes of inner turmoil under outsider control and the divine praise for an enemy-built weapon of destruction, from a screenplay by prolific writer Kazuo Kasahara of “Hiroshima Death Machine” and “Yakuza Graveyard.”  The Toei Company production is produced by Shigeru Okada (“Inferno of Torture”).

“Gate of Flesh” has the interweaving stories of an ensemble with the various faceted chess piece pawns aimed to promote themselves, by cutthroat and sordid means, to a higher degree of social status and wealth improvement like queens and kings within a crummy economical and degraded societal Tokyo commune of prostitution, gambling, and survival.  There are also a few other pieces stealthier knighted behind enemy lines with more noble goals in mind.  While different storylines unfold and merge, Kanto Komasa becomes the generally sensed centerpiece, played by Rino Katase of previously directed Gosha films, “Yakuza Ladies” and “Tokyo Bordello.”  Her preparedness to take on the “Gate of Flesh” role as the female-led gang leader promising Paradise has been success before of her previous performances in Gosha’s films that contain similar traits but Katase delivers a powerhouse, immensely conflicted, act as Komasa’s hopes and dreams to dig herself out of poverty and into high-class are thwarted by deceptive ranks, a haunting past, and, of course, the more present occupation troubles of inner city gang-on-gang wardom, battling advances, negotiates, and the potential for mediation between fellow gang leaders Yoshio Hakamada (Jinpachi Nezu, “Ran”), who wants her building that’ll be lucrative in the future, and Rakucho no Osumi (Yūko Natori, “Stranger”).  Of course, there’s more to bereft Komasa’s mind with the sudden wounded appearance and peculiarity familiarity of stranger Shintaro Ibuki (Tsunehiko Watase, “The Rapacious Jailbreaker”) who has protective parallelism with the 2-ton bomb that also acts as a rival gang repellant and an explosive safety net for Komasa.  Secondary characters provide a layered depth to Hideo Gosha’s charismatic and gender-battling narrative with Miyuki Kanō, Yūko Natori, Senri Yamazaki, Shinsuke Ashida, Naomi Hase, Chie Matsuoka, and Yoshimi Ashikawa.

Surreal like a dystopian science-fiction and wasteland thriller, “Gate of Flesh” has that otherworldly, alternate reality appeal accentuated by Hideo Gosha’s colorfully grim realism that doesn’t convey truth or fact.  In fact, “Gate of Flesh” is very much rooted in reality, truth, and fact in regard to U.S. occupation of Japan after the country’s surrender between 1945 and 1952.  This drops a non-fictionalized period as “Gate of Flesh’s” backlot, corroded by the illicit prostitution that spread to satisfy and bank off allied forces.  Gosha’s film is a game of wits amongst crooks and connivers while the developing sympathy envelopes around the seemingly tough of nails Kanto Kamase with a violin-pining and sympathetic backstory colliding with the injured Colt Shin aka Shintaro Ibuki.  Ibuki himself has history, or perhaps even beef history, with the iron rule of Hakamada, but through thick and thin, Ibuki’s clearly maneuvering the chess board around protecting Kamase for clued in reasons only to be precisely unveiled near the end.  The American presence doesn’t even feel weighty, reduced to hooker johns, voiceless military police, and a one uncouthly boisterous and unpleasant Sergeant to become the poster boy from Japan’s perspective of the occupational paradigm. Other than that, the U.S. forces are background noise, a sidestepped component of a much bigger, domestic ordeal amongst the Japanese people but are still the cause of so much heartache, gangsterism, and civil war.  Sex is also a huge theme as strictly a monetary activity rather than a joyful expression of romance and liberating relief from oppression, which there is none from U.S. forces.  Kazuo Kasahara’s script skirts around the inkling of affection between two people as much of everything else is for ostentatious and desperation means in a time when there was not much else to hold onto in Tokyo after suffering defeat, aside from ruined property, cash for hope, and tattoos to honor the past. 

88 Films proudly presents “Gate of Flesh” from their UK catalogue to their quickly growing US list of titles.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 is the first home video release for the rest of the world outside of Japan with a limited-edition release, presented in the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 widescreen.  Hideo Gosha’s style brilliance flourishes with this impeccably detailed and graded release that pedestals a rich and sustaining color palette.  The stabilization of color extends to the details as textures pop from the screen, especially in Kamase’s gang where each one has a distinct color flair and different pattern design to have them stand out amongst each other in a story that’s greatly character-individualized aware and often tangents into side characters to be worked into the parent plot.  No compression issues to note, day and night transitions have equal clarity and depth, and the Gosha and Yuko Morita’s aesthetic brings the stylistic aspects to the forefront without taking away from the schemes of skin tones and milieu details in the set design of a tumbledown Tokyo.  The Japanese LPCM 2.0 Mono mix diffuses perfectly into the single channel fold and aligns well with the picture, casting synchronous UK English optional subtitles that only had a single misspelling that I had caught.  “Gate of Flesh” has plenty of range and depth captured precisely on this 88 Films release that doesn’t show signs of audio layer wear or any compression issues.  The summiting explosion capitalizes the full potential of the mix with a story grand exit designed to be immersive as possible in its limited capacity through an assistant of visual means.  The special features include an audio commentary by film critics and analysts Amber T and Jasper Sharp, critic Earl Jackson provides an introduction on the many adaptations of Taijiro Tamura’s “Gate of Flesh” with timelines, history, and his own preference accompanied by stills, posters, and video clips, an exclusive interview with tattoo artist Seiji Mouri Flesh & Blood Tattoos who doesn’t view the Gosha’s work as a yakuza-spiced, and rounds out the content with a still gallery and a pair of trailers.  The limited-edition and numbered set, that includes an Obi strip over top a commissioned illustrative composition covert art by Ilan Sheady and housed in a clear Scanova case, contains a 23-page booklet with color photos and posters and essay notes by Robin Gatto and Irene González-López.  The cover art has a reversible side with the original Japanese poster.  Only playable in region A and B, the not rated 88 Films disc comes not rated and with a 119 runtime.

Last Rites: “Gate of Flesh” bears the weight of Taijiro Tamura’s prostitution-laden tale of survival, revenge, and hope with Hideo Gosha’s cinematic eye that captures the beauty and indomitability in the badlands of the occupied proud.

88 Films’ “Gate of Flesh” Now Available in the U.S.!