Two of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival heavy hitters are finally up to bat. A follow-up to a NYAFF favorite plus the so-called return of Japan’s most controversial and prolific director working today…
The Warped Forest
The Warped Forest is one of those rare movies in which the rather hackneyed, and ever so slightly racist “oh Japan!” label is legitimately applicable. Which is why trying to describe the movie is a fool’s game, but here goes anyway: three groups of three friends (a trio of middle aged dudes, a trio of sisters, and a trio of college aged shmucks) all decide to unwind at the hot springs. Where they’re all transported… sorry, warped… to some other realm, to live out some parallel existence. I think? This foreign place is vaguely like the world we live in today, with some key exceptions. Like:
- The gigantic upside pyramid that hangs high above the sky rather ominously, though no one seems to mind
- People are either really big or really small
- The primary form of currency is acorns, which everyone houses in their bellybuttons
- The primary activity is sucking on fruits that’s harvested from naked girls who grow like trees, with the fruit itself resembling nipples, anuses, and vaginas
- Musical instruments and PDAs also sports nipples as well
- Plus you have the rifle that’s basically a placid penis on the end that shoots semen
- And everyone’s obsessed with an exclamation point in the forest that supposedly grants wishes, though some say it’s cursed
As for the aforementioned individuals; middle-aged guy #1 is runs a self-help seminar that says the key to happiness is just constantly repeating to yourself that your happy, but is (not so) deep down quite miserable. Middle-aged guy #2 runs a bakery alongside his totally bored wife, and as such, gets his rocks off by going to some place in which a Dr. Seuss-ian creature sucks on patron’s nipples. Middle-aged guy #3 runs a weapons shop, but isn’t very good at it, and everything little move he makes elicits a sound effect, like when he fusses with his luxurious hair.
Meanwhile, sister #1 divides her time between running a very tiny shop during the day, working at that nipple-sucking place I just mentioned during the night, and be treated like crap by her very tiny boyfriend. Sister #2 spends harvests the aforementioned phallic fruit, though her body is also covered with anuses, the result of a curse from sister #3 meddling with the aforementioned wish-granting exclamation mark. As for the third sister, she spends her time roaming the woods with the aforementioned penis rifle, to hunt down a wild creature known as the ”Pinkie Pankie”.
As for the three young dorks, they mostly work alongside the other characters, and share in everyone’s misery (or plays a key role). At the end of the day, The Warped Forest is simply about people who are unhappy with each other and themselves, along with the nonsense that happens when attempting to rectify this universal dilemma. Which even exists in a world where acorns are used to pay for dream augmentation and where fruit sport vaginal lips. The Warped Forest is a pseudo-sequel to The Funky Forest and is by one that film’s three directors, Shunichiro Miki.
The Funky Forest remains a sentimental favorite amount long-time NYAFF attendees, though I personally found it to be a meandering, boring mess (and this from a guy who totally appreciates and even gets absurdist Japanese humor). Whereas The Warped Forest is the superior movie since it has a far more cohesive narrative and has more identifiable (as well far far likable) characters. Which is not to say that The Warped Forest is not out there, because it definitely is! You simply have to check it out for yourself, on Sunday July 14, 12:30PM, at Japan Society.
Lesson of the Evil
On their website, Japan Society states that, with Lesson of the Evil, “The real Takashi Miike is back!” Which in my book is the understatement of 2013, at least thus far. Miike basically became a god among Asian cinephiles, thanks to seminal works like Ichii The Killer, Audition, and Visitor Q. But then he decided to expand his horizons, with offerings like Thirteen Assassins, Zatoichi, and Ace Attorney: The Movie. Which were all really good, but much of it have left longtime Miike diehards a bit cold (admittedly, I haven’t really dug his totally family friendly fare either, like The Great Yokai War or Ninja Kids, and his lone take at a cowboy movies, Sukiyaki Western Django, simply flat out sucked).
So Lesson of the Evil represents Miike returning to his roots, essentially, and the end result is a movie that… in all seriousness… makes Ichii The Killer look like a Disney Channel movie, I sh*t you not. Based upon a novel, it tells the tale of Mr. Hasumi, an English teacher at a Japanese high school who appears to be the total package: good looking, quick witted, and confident. No wonder all the kids are in love with him, and all his peers respect the hell out of him. Though, little by little, we see what a real son of a bitch Hasumi truly is; everything from having an affair with a female student, to blackmailing a gay colleague who’s having an affair with a male student, even pitting kids against each other by posting vicious lies on message boards. And when he realizes that a few smart folk have connected the dots of his mysterious past, the teacher from hell really turns it up a notch, with all his acts of torture performed to the tune Mack the Knife (including a supremely creepy rendition of the original German version).
The first hour is the typical slow build you’ve seen in countless Miike movies. Most devotees are fans of his vivid depictions of people getting slaughtered, which is indeed cool, though I especially dig what comes before, all the character building. It’s always so well orchestrated and thorough, yet simultaneously so effortless and efficient. Guess when you make 15 movies during the same time it takes most to make just one (which he did between 2001-02), you learn to do things quickly, easily, and correctly. I just love his style as a whole, the fact that a psychotic schoolteacher and a defense attorney from a video game are largely approached the same, and it still works. Anyways, all the setting up is for the second hour, in which Hasumi goes on a killing spree; all those kids that Miike did such a meticulous job realizing are blown away with a shotgun in the blink of an eye, at point blank range, and with pools of blood squiring EVERYWHERE, for pretty much the entirety of the second hour. At this point, it’s all about which student will survive, if possible. Naturally we get to witness their personalities in the midst of madness contrast with how they were before, to see who can handle the pressure and who’s a total chickensh*t. We also discover that Hasumi’s firearm can talk.
It’s worth noting that Hideaki Ito’s performance of Hasumi is both “magnificent” and blood curdling; he’s up there when with Hannibal Lecter when it comes to charming your pants off. But yeah, Lesson of the Evil is absolutely not for the weak of heart, and might be the most violent movie I have ever personally witnessed (and I have seen a TON of violent nonsense over the years). It’s a level of mayhem that simply could not be produced in America, let alone screened here under normal circumstances (it’s technically unrated, but would totally get a NC-17 rating, and that would be totally understandable). But if you’re one of those old-school Miike fan that believes the man has gone soft, then brother, Lesson of the Evil will prove you dead wrong. All those that dare can check it out Thursday July 11, 6:00PM, at Japan Society. You have been warned.
