Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on January 2012

No doubt in his own estimation Sono Sion believes he is an edgy filmmaker pushing the boundaries of his art, and as such, in this adaptation of a manga of the same name, he includes footage from the 3/11 disaster. Sadly the overall effort is incoherent and the slapdash inclusion of tsunami wreckage seems exploitative and cynical. It is, though, thematically within the bounds of the flick in which everything is turned up to 11, and we basically watch people shriek and get brutally beaten for two-plus hours.

High-school student Sumida (Shota Sometani) lives in a ramshackle boathouse with his drunken mother who, literally, brings home a different man every night. His drunken father only turns up rarely to give him a good beating, steal money and let be known his desire to see him dead. In between being thrashed by an assortment of yakuza and family members, Sumida occasionally drops by school where Chazawa (Fumi Nikaido), a twisted rich girl, is crazy in love with him (emphasis on the crazy, like stalker crazy).

The atmosphere of this pic is cemented as Chazawa’s mom builds a gallows for her, encouraging her to hang when it’s completed. While the majority of the screen time is face smashing, Sono sees fit to change the tone completely and work in schlocky romantic scenes between the two students, use classical French poetry and Mozart. Shrill times ten, weirdly both repetitive and wildly uneven, this is unwatchable, “even” for Sono Sion. (128 min)