Written and directed by: Koji Shiraishi

Starring Tsugumi Nagasawa, Hiroaki Kawatsure and Shigeo Osako

To sit through Koji Shiraishi's Grotesque, without any background knowledge about Japanese pinku eiga trends would be a total mistake. To try to analyse the film outside of its context and only comparing it to Western productions would be pointless and Grotesque would certainly fail to be assessed as delivering anything useful to the audience. But just as any other film genre, this one has its purpose for existing and it does appeal to certain audiences (although appeal is not necessarily used with the implications of pleasure).

The film follows a young couple Aki and Kazuo (Hiroaki Kawatsure and Tsugumi Nagasawa) on their first date. Unfortunately for them, another man named Tachikawa (played brilliantly by Shigeo Osako) has been observing them with interest and kidnaps them in order to fulfil some of his darkest thoughts. There seems to be a suggested narrative pattern, as the film starts with the couple living their normal lives, which are being disrupted by the appearance of Tachikawa, and there is a suggestion of a happy ending near the end, which gets disrupted a second time. But the film does not focus on narrative, as the main concept is rather ideological, even though it is being portrayed in a rather gruesome and seemingly pointless manner.

A slightly different production within the realm of pinku eiga, as in this Japanese cinema trend it is usually the female character who is being punished for her femininity, rather than the male being punished for being too masculine. In Grotesque, Kazuo suffers the most of physical torture, because of having obtained the role of the knight trying to save the damsel in distress. This concept is even strengthened by the fact that the couple was on their first date, without having already established a love connection, and the man obtains the role of saviour only because of his sex and his social position - or in other words, just because he is a man and this is what is expected of him.

The end of the film is purposefully fake in order to deliver a sense of unreality to the audience and to relieve it of the necessity to deal with the seen violence, as the final scene lightens the tone and suggests it is 'only a film'. The false happiness in the middle has the same role, as by that time the viewer has seen enough violence to be disturbed and affected, when the tone of the film suddenly shifts and delivers a moment of peace and a feeling of 'it's ok, everything will end happily'. It also serves as a pointing towards the falseness of the whole film, as the whole plot line afterwards is too predictable for the audience, which makes the whole film easier to deal with.

Ideologically, Grotesque does touch upon some universal issues, whether purposefully or subtly. The social order and the gender expectations from men and women when it comes to their social roles is an important concept to be considered within the film, as well as the more trivial problem of people's safety when it comes to psychotic criminals - as most people have the idea that women get more often attacked than men and that women are safe in the presence of men. Also the fact that the 'violence-causer' is a male character touches upon the argument about gender-related violence and who is more likely to become a criminal out of both sexes.

The problem with this film is not in the violence or gore, but it is in the rather unrealistic imagery. Although Grotesque has been supposedly taken for an actual snuff film by some, there have been Asian productions with far more believable violence, most recently seen by me in Tung-shing Yee's Shinjuku Incident, starring Jackie Chan, where Daniel Wu gets his arm chopped in a very realistic scene, and Yang-ik Joon's Breathless, which disturbed audiences with its repetitive beating scenes. But I wouldn't suppose that the violence is the main thing aimed at disturbing the audience and making it uncomfortable. What is most successful at doing that role is the ideology behind, which leaves a long-lasting feeling of 'uncomfortableness' and 'un-safety', together with the troubling questions about the place of men and women in society, relating to masculinity and femininity.

Grotesque is not easy to watch and even dedicated horror or gore fans might find it disturbing. It is a specific concept to be dealt with and it has to be analysed within the particular tone and environment of pinku eiga films to be at least understood, as to talk about enjoyment within the realm of pinku eiga cinema would be close to ridiculous.



*Image source:
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