is a 1997

Japanese film The has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world; as of 2021, it was the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. In 2011 Japan produced 411 feature films that ea ...

. It was written and directed by

Kazuyoshi Kumakiri is a Japanese film director. Career Kumakiri debuted with ''Kichiku'' in 1997. His 2001 film, ''Hole in the Sky'', starred Susumu Terajima and Yuriko Kikuchi. His 2004 film, ''Green Mind, Metal Bats'', screened at the International Film Festi ...

Story

In the year 1972 a small group of

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

students are living at a dingy

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

apartment in the mountain village of

Karuizawa is a resort town located in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 20,323 in 9897 households, and a population density of 130 persons per km². The total area of the town is . Karuizawa is one of the oldest and most ...

Nagano-ken is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,052,493 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture to the north, Gunma Prefecture to the ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. While the group leader, Aizawa, waits to be released from prison his

promiscuous Promiscuity is the practice of engaging in sexual activity frequently with different Sexual partner, partners or being indiscriminate in the choice of sexual partners. The term can carry a moral judgment. A common example of behavior viewed as pro ...

girlfriend, Masami, is left in charge. While waiting for Aizawa's release, Masami uses her overt sexuality and engages in promiscuity with the fellow students. As the days pass by things take a tragic turn. Within a few days of his release the group's leader commits

hara-kiri , sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese people d ...

. After learning of Aizawa's suicide, the

shotgun A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge (firearms), cartridge known as a shotshell, which usually discharges numerous small p ...

- toting Masami loses control and the group quickly falls into self-destruction as

sex Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing animal or plant produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce smaller mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm, pollen), while females produce larger ones (ova, oft ...

distrust Distrust is a formal way of not trusting any one party too much in a situation of grave risk or deep doubt. It is commonly expressed in civics as a division or balance of powers, or in politics as means of validating treaty terms. Systems based ...

paranoia Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concer ...

, and violence overtakes them.

Cast

Sumiko Mikami Sumiko (written: すみこ, 純子, 澄子, 寿美子, スミ子 or すみ子) is a feminine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese actress *Sumiko Hennessy (born 1937), Japanese-American social worker and academic ...

* Shigeru Bokuda * Shunsuke Sawada * Toshiyuki Sugihara

Production

References

External links

* * Giuseppe Sedia (October 2006)
''Interview with Kumakiri Kazuyoshi''
(Italian) a
Asia Express
1997 films 1990s Japanese-language films Films directed by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri Japanese horror drama films Japanese psychological horror films Psychological drama films 1997 drama films Japanese splatter films 1997 horror films 1990s Japanese films {{1990s-horror-film-stub