Rasuto Furankenshutain (1991) User Reviews

The First Frankenstein.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 6/10 · 12 August 2018]

Over Christmas 2017 I decided to pick up a large number of Japanese films so I could explore this area of cinema more extensively in the oncoming year. Watching the swift and strange Pinku Horror Neigh Means Yes for the 1991 movie poll on ICM,I decided to double bill it with this rarely-mentioned take on Frankenstein.

View on the film:

For his lone departure from postmodern theatrical experimentation stage productions to film, writer/ director and star Takeshi Kawamura revisits his 1986 play Last Frankenstein. Taking the bare bones of Mary Shelley's creature, Kawamura's uses them to focus on Japanese sensibilities, with Kawamura exploring the ritual of suicide in Japan, (with the forest chillingly looking like Aokigahara) sex without love at the centre of the relationship, and the evolution of people and society.

Examining themes explored in his stage work, Kawamura is sadly unable to blend the serious with shots at grisly Horror, as deep exchanges over a rise in suicide,are paused with morbid fetuses suicides. Taking advantage of the canvas offered by film, Kawamura & cinematographer Yôichi Shiga make their moments of gore stand out as ill-fitting, by making the rest of their creation stylishly surreal, via stilted shots of everyone frozen in time, and a dour bleak atmosphere covering the DR and his grotesque family bringing to life the last Frankenstein.

A sluggish, artsy, self-indulgent pile (spoilers!)

[spetersen-79-962044 · 13 October 2011]

When I watched this movie, by the end I was certain it had lasted 3 hours and muttered to myself "Why do 'artsy' directors always do such long movies." Imagine my amazement when I looked at the running time and found it was less than two hours. It sure SEEMS a lot longer.

1) This film has BAD special effects. The hunchback is risible, and the male monster is even lamer - a few bad fake scars and some bolts on his neck. He's not even tall.

2) This film has INCONSISTENT special effects. While the male monster has some scars, the female monster is completely nubile and untouched.

3) This film has GIANT plot holes. A major, and kind of interesting, plot line features a suicide cult. But then the director forgets about it and it's gone for much of the film. He remembers its existence at the end just long enough to get rid of it. Other major plot holes include the hero being infected by the suicide "virus" (then the director forgets), and the oft-stated fact that the monsters are supposed to be emotionless, but in fact they are the most emotional characters in the movie. Maybe that last was intentional absurdism but it failed as badly as the scene with the famous scientists acting like monkeys.

4) This film does not know when to end. There is a big climax with some action (finally!) and then it slowly trails off for an eternity of anticlimactic postscripts. Maybe that's why I thought it lasted so long. The postscripts are really tedious.

If you love artsy in-your-face surreal ineptitude by a director who never did anything before or after, this is the movie for you.

And I'm not opposed to Japanese surrealism. I loved Hausu, The Horrors of Deformed Men, and so forth. But this one did not measure up to the mark. Go watch Uzumaki or Tetsuo instead.

Last Frankenstein

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 13 January 2022]

The Last Frankenstein is a Japanese take on the Frankenstein legend, with Professor Sarusawa trying to make a super Adam and Eve who cannot be controlled by their emotions. Meanwhile, the rest of the world has a disease that causes them to commit suicide. Or maybe it's just a death cult not unlike Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese doomsday cult and terrorist organization that unleashed sarin gas on the Tokyo subway a few years after this movie was made.

The key to all of this is the one-eyed Dr. Aryo, who has two bodies that he wants to bring to life.

Directed and written by Takeshi Kawamura, who originally had this as a stage play and continues to work in that milieu, this movie also has a psychic daughter, a family of abnormal humans, a hunchback who drives around collecting nude women, a beach vacation and, well, look - it's absolutely as strange as it gets.

I love Japan because Frankenstein's Monster can be a Toho monster like Frankenstein vs. Baragon and War of the Gargantuas. Or it can be an art movie like this one, one that straddles the line between Andy Warhol's Frankenstein and the gore-drenched excesses of modern Japanese gore films.

Also: the one-eyed scientist can only relate to the aborted pickled punks he keeps in his lab, hugging them when he gets sad.

Visual poetry of horror not seen since "Freaks"

[fertilecelluloid · 9/10 · 9 March 2006]

Also known as "The Last Frankenstein", this is an extraordinary, impeccably produced horror film. Director Takeshi Kawamura uses Mary Shelley's novel as a mere launching pad for an exploration of subjects as diverse and fascinating as the nature of love, desire, suicide, mass hypnosis, sex, alienation and jealousy.

And though the film is dense with subtext, it is also stunningly photographed and rich in atmosphere and detail. The performances are all amazing and Kawamura's sensitive handling of the strange, delicate relationships between the characters results in an emotionally charged, angst-ridden tragedy.

The scenes of the confused, troubled monster hurtling through a fog-shrouded forest at night are memorable and striking, as is a brilliant home movie-style montage of the film's more curious characters enjoying a precious afternoon at the beach. Kawamura creates resonating visual poetry of horror and sadness barely sighted since Todd Browning's classic "Freaks".

Intelligent, emotional, tragic and real, this is an absolute gem.

A Great Film, Period. Certainly One of the Best Re-inventions of Frankenstein

[dbborroughs · 10/10 · 8 October 2004]

This modern tale of an attempt to build a creature is one of the best "horror" films ever made, even if its not a horror film but something else entirely. Certainly its on my short list of all time great films.

This film was introduced to me by someone who told me "I have this film that probably one of the best films you'll ever see. It will move you and touch you and make you think, but if I told you what it is and told you how its done you will think its the stupidest thing on the face of it and you won't watch it." Intrigued I asked what did he mean, and he said, "Well its a Frankenstein story, with a very goofy sort of edge, but which uses it to its advantage." My ears perked up, and I being a trusting soul took the tape and watched it. I was blown away.

The plot concerns a mad scientist attempting to make a new Adam and Eve in the wake of a suicidal plague that is ravaging the world. Locked up in his lab his experiments go differently then either he or we expect. Some of it is silly (The bolts in the neck, the wrestling moves...), all of it is touching and thought provoking.

I can not recommend this movie enough. If you are willing to take the film on its terms and allow it to tell its story then I urge you to seek this film out and see it. This is an undiscovered gem that will stay with you forever.

15 out of 10 and then some.