Jigoku (1960)

Director:

Nobuo Nakagawa

Writers:

Ichirô Miyagawa (writer)
Nobuo Nakagawa (writer)

Release Date:

30 July 1960 (Japan)

Genre:

Horror

Plot:

A graduate-school student has a friend who is pure evil. His friend and he are out driving one night...

Plot Keywords:

Hit And Run | Poison | Fiancee | Revenge | Doctor

Cast

Shigeru Amachi	...	Shiro Shimizu
Yoichi Numata	...	Tamura
Utako Mitsuya	...	Yukiko / Sachiko
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Kanjuro Arashi	...	Enma, King of Hell
Hiroshi Hayashi	...	Gozo Shimizu
Hiroshi Izumida	...	'Tiger' Kyoichi Shiga
Koichi Miya	...	Journalist Akagawa
Fumiko Miyata	...	Mrs. Yajima
Torahiko Nakamura	...	Professor Yajima
Tomohiko Ohtani	...	Dr. Kusama
Akiko Ono	...	Yoko
Jun Otomo	...	Ensai Taniguchi
Hiroshi Shinguji	...	Detective Hariya
Kimie Tokudaiji	...	Ito Shimizu
Sakutaro Yamakawa	...	Fisherman
Akiko Yamashita	...	Kinuko

Also Known As:

Hell (USA) (original subtitled version)
Jigoku (USA) (DVD title)
Story of the Great 8-Tombed Hell
The Sinners of Hell (International: English title)

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Company:

Shintoho Company

Trivia:

The film's production company was going out of business while the film was being completed, leading to budget-saving tactics such as the actors helping dig their own holes in the movie's set for Hell. Critics kidded that this film killed the Shintoho Studio.

Quotes:

Tamura: So you want to turn me in for manslaughter?
Shiro Shimizu: We're the ones who killed him. We caused it. Let's go together. Please.
Tamura: That might ease your conscience, but I'm not interested. It'd be stupid. He was drunk. He ran into the road. It was basically suicide. Besides, he was just some yakuza scum. He's not worth the best years of our lives.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Building the Inferno: Nobuo Nakagawa and the Making of 'Jigoku' (2006) (V)

Soundtrack:

Comin' through the Rye

It's so ahead of its time that its almost ahead of itself

Drawing on diverse sources Jigoku is a living proof that you can't actually "represent" in a meaningful way such a complex concept, filled with theological and philosophical connotations as that of hell. This idea is reinforced by the categorization of the movie as a horror when it is anything but a horror. The scenes from hell are actually supposed to be physical expressions of mental states but since the latter cannot be expressed through the medium of cinema the screenwriter and director opted for the graphic display.

One of the inspiration sources is the Buddhist conception of Hell, similar in many ways to what we find in Dante's Inferno and to many representations that could be found in Mediaeval and even Rennaisance painting. This idea of hell is, of course, pretty much trivialized. For a modern viewer it seems quite clear that the whole Hell sequence is artificial and almost funny in an unintentional way. The use of annoying extreme close-ups of actors who yell their heads off may have been terrifying in the sixties but today we know better. On the other hand the gore was something new at that time and the visual aspect of the movie is amazing. The studio that produced the movie was falling apart at the moment of the film's production so the movie makers should be applauded for pulling this off with a limited budget and using it in a very resourceful manner (not everything needs to be big-budget in order to be effective)

There is a very interesting idea of the demon from Hell that comes to tempt the lead character into committing crimes therefore inoculating him a feeling of guilt. This is reminiscent of Goethe's Faust but also of film noir where the character is lead into a quandary by a fascinating and mysterious agent but also by his predisposition to be tempted and by his inherent faults. In Jigoku the Mephisto and the Faust elements are seen as sides of the same characters but are not played by the same actor, which is something I found very ingenious.

The actors performance is very hard to assess. In such a difficult film it could be said that the actors' quirkiness enhances the mood but I think that much of what we see is simply bad acting caused by misunderstanding the parts. And the director didn't always know how to control the actors, this explains much of the screaming and pointless "gnashing of the teeth" that makes the Hell sequences pretty boring after a while.

Overall, I couldn't say I regret seeing Jigoku but it may have been so ahead of its time that in many places it's ahead of itself.