Haggisboy
01-08-2007, 02:07 PM
Sometimes I’m tempted to think that those two bombs the Americans dropped on Japan did more than end a war and hundreds of thousands of lives in the process. Sometimes I think they affected that country’s psyche. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The Japanese were messed up long before that. Want proof? Look no further than director Takashi Miike’s ("Audition" and "Ichi the Killer") installment “Imprint” of the Showtime cable TV series Masters of Horror, which draws as its inspiration tales of horror from the days of feudal Japan.
Originally created as episode 13 of season 1 (the show is entering its third season this year - 2007), it was deemed too disturbing by Showcase’s brass and was withdrawn from circulation, only to appear on DVD.
Now, given the amount of sick, twisted and bizarre gore that is making its way to theatre screens these days as part of the current vogue of “torture porn” like Hostel and Touristas, one could easily be forgiven for thinking that Imprint, because it was created for an anthology TV series, albeit one for US cable TV, would be far removed on the depravity scale from the theatrical realm. Well, think again. Even Mick Garris, who created and served as executive producer of the Masters of Horror series, admitted in a New York Times interview that Miike’s installment was the most disturbing film he’d ever seen.
In one hour Miike’s Imprint manages to pack in as much, and arguably more, disturbing imagery than just about anything brought to the big screen this decade. After watching it is crystal clear why Showcase pulled it from cable – a realm not bound by US broadcast restraints and generally unfettered from censorship.
Based on a novel by Shimako Iwai, the story, largely told in flashbacks, revolves around Billy Drago (Frank Nitti in Brian De Palma’s “The Untouchables”) as an American who travels to a remote island in Japan to bring back to America a prostitute he had pledged to marry several years previous. Instead he uncovers a twisted tale of murder, torture, horror and madness among the denizens of a bordello.
Here’s a brief summary of some of the horrors, either overtly displayed or not so subtly implied in this one hour of human carnage – surprisingly none of which involve Drago’s acting, which is largely enhanced by Miike’s mind numbing visual abominations: fetuses ripped out of wombs, torture by acupuncture, bludgeoning, self urination, torture by burning embers, child rape, and vestigial twins – and I’m glossing over a lot here. It’s easy to see where Showcase figured selling commercial air time wouldn’t exactly be a walk in the park for this episode.
To its credit, Imprint is artfully photographed and musically scored in the ancient Japanese tradition, but in the end that’s like asking people to be impressed by the jeweled necklace you’ve given your pig; the swine just gets in the way.
Originally created as episode 13 of season 1 (the show is entering its third season this year - 2007), it was deemed too disturbing by Showcase’s brass and was withdrawn from circulation, only to appear on DVD.
Now, given the amount of sick, twisted and bizarre gore that is making its way to theatre screens these days as part of the current vogue of “torture porn” like Hostel and Touristas, one could easily be forgiven for thinking that Imprint, because it was created for an anthology TV series, albeit one for US cable TV, would be far removed on the depravity scale from the theatrical realm. Well, think again. Even Mick Garris, who created and served as executive producer of the Masters of Horror series, admitted in a New York Times interview that Miike’s installment was the most disturbing film he’d ever seen.
In one hour Miike’s Imprint manages to pack in as much, and arguably more, disturbing imagery than just about anything brought to the big screen this decade. After watching it is crystal clear why Showcase pulled it from cable – a realm not bound by US broadcast restraints and generally unfettered from censorship.
Based on a novel by Shimako Iwai, the story, largely told in flashbacks, revolves around Billy Drago (Frank Nitti in Brian De Palma’s “The Untouchables”) as an American who travels to a remote island in Japan to bring back to America a prostitute he had pledged to marry several years previous. Instead he uncovers a twisted tale of murder, torture, horror and madness among the denizens of a bordello.
Here’s a brief summary of some of the horrors, either overtly displayed or not so subtly implied in this one hour of human carnage – surprisingly none of which involve Drago’s acting, which is largely enhanced by Miike’s mind numbing visual abominations: fetuses ripped out of wombs, torture by acupuncture, bludgeoning, self urination, torture by burning embers, child rape, and vestigial twins – and I’m glossing over a lot here. It’s easy to see where Showcase figured selling commercial air time wouldn’t exactly be a walk in the park for this episode.
To its credit, Imprint is artfully photographed and musically scored in the ancient Japanese tradition, but in the end that’s like asking people to be impressed by the jeweled necklace you’ve given your pig; the swine just gets in the way.