Japanese Hell (1999) User Reviews

Disappointing remake/rethink of a 1960 semi-classic

[dbborroughs · 4/10 · 18 September 2006]

Not quite as good tale of a girl granted visions of hell in the hopes that she will warn people into being good. Similar to the 1960 film Jigoku (Hell) this film shows us what happens to various bad people once they get to hell. Watch a cult leader kill hundreds, watch a child molester kill young girls then watch them tortured in hell, on and on with little variation.

One of the problems with the film is its so matter of fact. It starts, we are put into the basic situation which is just repeated over and over again. Its so matter of fact that there is no emotional involvement, there is no connection. The effects are just middling with any effect in the viewer borders on laughter since they often are more silly rather than horrifying. If you compare this film to the original you see the opposite. You get an emotional involvement and a sense of horror, despite the quaint effects, because of it. For all its flaws the original is far superior to this film.

Rental the original and skip this remake.

Guilt burns deep.

[lost-in-limbo · 6/10 · 22 August 2018]

"You preached fictitious concepts as if you understood the cosmic principal... became conceited and turned into heinous murderers. I will send you to the burning hell. You shall suffer from ten thousand times the pain of your victims."

Harking back to something more in common from the 80s than late 90s, Japanese Hell can be seen as a modern, darkly humourous and batty reworking of Jigoku. This morality horror tale of what happens if you follow the path of damination. Shows there's no mercy in Japanese hell, no matter how much you beg, your guilt ends up haunting you for eternity. Sinners are mercilessly tortured over and over agin in a manner befitting their sins. An inferno of brimstone and fornication comes alive in this wild, grotesque orgy of insane practical FX, gory dismemberment, vivid costumes, hyperbolic coloured lighting and visual suffering. A bunch of loosely connected vignettes leads to a feverish onslaught and slow descent in its depiction of one's own hell. Makes repenting a number one priority.

The scenes within hell (the most entertaining moments) take up the first and last acts, where imagination is brimming, but what happens in between shows a young lady finding herself mixed up in a cult responsible for the sarin gas attack on Japan's subway. With her soul teetering on the edge of hell. The queen of hell grants her a view of what's in store should she fail to repent. So the dramatised middle segment ( using the controversial subject of an actual case involving the Aum Shinrikyo Cult as its basis) is spent on this cult group and their gloriously loony leader (with really bad dandruff) going about their business and setting their diabolical plans in motion. The tonal shift is noticeable as the comic nature of the hell sequences is dropped for something much sober. Quite grim in presenting the manipulation of such cults, and at times increasingly bizarre having scenes of rubber cockroaches and squeaky muse toys infesting the cult's squalor residence. It does feel like a patchwork of two films stitched together. However I did the find the cult side of the story to be inconsistently muddled and a little plodding, as I had more interest in the tripped out journey/mythology of the Japanese underworld and watching sinners get agonisingly punished. Also loved how the theme score for the late 80s cult TV show "Forever Knight" found its way into the picture.

THERE IS ONLY ONE TRUTH

[nogodnomasters · 2/10 · 11 May 2019]

It seems hell is overcrowded and Ms. Enma wants to ease the crowding by saving the world one person at a time. She has chosen Rika to see hell while still alive and then go save the world. Rika belongs to a cult and the bulk of the film centers on her life in the cult and the cult leader.

The film is cheesy with fake looking props that look like they borrowed them from "Blood Sucking Freaks." Many of the characters in hell wore big masks. Hell is all done on a stage. In order to get into Japanese Hell, you must first cross the Greek river Styx, which has now been taken over by the Japanese. I am sure Zeus got a good deal for it. In order to cross, you must remove you clothes...well only in one scene because nearly all the guys in hell are fully dressed.

The cult leader orders "biological attacks" using the chemical sarin gas. The cult leader also likes the girls and desires to hasten their enlightenment through sex which he graciously performs himself.

The plot is not worth watching. The horror consists of cutting off fake looking rubber limbs/heads.

Okay, it does have plenty of nudity and an ending that pleasantly caught me off guard.

Don't mind the spoilers, not much plot anyway

[UncleBobMartin · 7/10 · 21 May 2005]

I like amateurish, crowd-pleasing weirdness, so take that into consideration when contemplating the 7 "stars" I'm granting.

Contrary to what other reviewers have stated, none of the three "Jigoku" films in IMDb have anything to do with the others. None are remakes, they just all happen to be called Jigoku, or "Hell." I'm also taken aback by someone else's description of this film as "pornographic." Okay, so the gate to hell looks like a vagina, but it's hardly prurient; otherwise, a few bared breasts linger before the cameras at regular intervals. Not what I'd call porn, though the lengthy view of a very young girl's underpants is in highly questionable taste, especially since the girl is a child molester's target.

(Those familiar with Japanese comics, cartoons and movies will know that underage pantie shots are a staple in Japanese exploitation; some strange schizophrenia allows the Japanese to both exploit and condemn child sexuality. Here, the molester is punished with an eternity of repeated dismemberment. But I guess there's nothing wrong with the camera lingering on an 8-year-old's white cotton briefs.)

The "old lady" other reviewers refer to is Enma, the Queen of Hell (King Enma is, in Buddhist tradition, the judge who determines where the wheel of karma will take your soul). Enma's decision to grant young Rika a glimpse of hell is reminiscent of the Roman Catholic myth of the young girls who were granted a vision of hell by "Our Lady of Fatima," and certainly Dante's Inferno has had an influence here (sinners sinking into their own excrement is a direct lift).

Hell is quite the fun place; Enma's bestial minions (actors wearing bizarre masks, fright wigs and boar-tusk dental appliances) detest the sins of their charges, and take great delight in executing divine justice.

The movie shifts gears considerably when, about a third of the way through, it becomes a soap-operatic docudrama about life within the Aum Shinriku cult, the religious conspiracy responsible for the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995. It helps here to know that Jigoku is the combination of two films that were begun before financing collapsed, combined through a bit of extra filming and a lot of creative editing. The tone here is much like the exploitation gem "The Ebola Syndrome," exaggerating a true-life evil to play upon the fears of the audience. This is nowhere near the gross-out fest that "Ebola" is, but is similarly preposterous in the extremes of demonization it uses to amuse.

For the third act we return to hell, and Enma helps young Rika realize that to pray to an eternal being with a pure mind will bring about her salvation. She and a bunch of other girls then have a naked prayer session.

I think both of these movies would be quite enjoyable had they been finished. 80 year old director Teruo Ishii has been amusing international audiences for half a century; his best known film in the states is probably "Attack of the Flying Saucers" in 1964. The old guy probably doesn't have a lot of films left in him, but I do hope his next backers let him finish one.

Demons in hell torturing wrong doers!

[shredfeak · 7/10 · 21 January 2005]

This is a rare low budget gem that fans of Asian splatter will likely get a kick out of. Gory eye candy is on display for much of the running time, and includes some great graphic dismemberment as well as other forms of mutilation. Like another reviewer pointed out, the middle portion of the film goes on too long and could have been shortened to make for a better paced and more enjoyable watch. The whole cult angle is a bit over played but the movie pretty much redeems itself.

Bottom line: If you like stuff such as the guinea pig movies or Story of Ricky then this will be an entertaining flick. There is tons of weird imagery, extreme gore, and the monsters are cool to watch. You may have a hard time finding it, but there's usually one or two available on ebay.

hell-arious, bizarre amateur theatre style re-make of dark cinema classic

[pixelperfect · 8/10 · 10 August 2004]

First up, I haven't yet got round to seeing the original 1960 Jigoku, but I imagine it's something like The Holy Mountain crossed with Kaidan, which sounds great to me, and I'll be picking it up as soon as I can. What I did get was this freakish thing, the 1999 remake, which you will adore if a lightly pornographic old-testament remix of Monkey Magic sounds in any way appealing. I don't think there is a plot spoiler in this, as there isn't a great deal of plot to spoil, but just in case i do, I excuse myself here. It loosely follows what I understand to be the story of the first Jigoku : sinners go to hell and are tormented and tortured for their crimes on earth. In this version, the sinners are based on real-life criminals from Japan's recent past, most prominently the cult behind the Tokyo subway gas attack in 1995. Also, the woman who poisoned her family with curry !

However, in this dayglo remix, the hell they go to is, frankly, hilarious and looks like a hugely endearing place to be. Populated by naked interpretive dance girls (!?), puppets of dragons, living He-man figures, a likable matriarch representing Satan and a cute winking guide in a shimmering dress. The backdrop looks like something you might see at a local drama group version of the Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe, which this also somehow reminds me of. Having spent all the minuscule budget on the costumes, the gore in the punishments are highly amusing in a DIY "Story Of Ricky" kind of way rather than at all disturbing. This is no Itchi The Killer, so if you're looking for something extreme this isn't your chap, but it is great fun (main criticism is that the Cult's story goes on way too long), silly, inventive, sexy and completely bargain basement. The more I think about it, them more I love it to bits !

A man can escape justice, but he can never escape punishment

[lordzedd-3 · 7/10 · 3 March 2007]

Okay, let's see? Where to begin, the demons in this movie is wicked cool, I didn't know this was a remake when I saw it on Netflix, but now that I do I want to see the original. The acting is cool, the subtitles are easy to read. The moral makes sense, no matter what, if you commit a horrible crime like murder then you will never escape punishment. A good moral to all would be killers out there. Now for the bad part, I think they didn't do enough in Hell. That's right I would have loved to have seen more of Hell and less of the cult. Even though the cult part was based on a real event that I remember too well, I think that could have been told in a whole movie by itself. But that's my only major complaint. The effects were incredible and if you like movies like "SAW" then you'll love taking a trip to Japanese HELL. 7 STARS.

In hell, everyone can hear you scream...

[MercurioKnight · 7/10 · 11 July 2005]

Part satire, part cautionary tale, and part exploitation that's destined to become a cult classic if it isn't already. The film follows Rika who, because of her path leading to possible damnation, is chosen to have a chance at salvation by carrying a message from the Queen of Hell, Enma. Rika is allowed passage into hell to witness firsthand the punishment of the wicked and pass that knowledge on. A child molester, for instance, is treated to a course of forever dismemberment and resurrection for the rest of eternity.

She is then shown her own life, where we enter into a satirical look at a cult she's involved with that has elements on par with scientology. The leader is worshipped without question, and every part of the leader's life is sold to his followers, from the bath water he bathes in, to his book on enlightenment. Even a device that puts his followers 'intune' with his own brainwaves much like the 'E-Meter' devices Scientology uses to bring people to enlightenment. The cult soon shows its real colors when an attorney refuses to back down in a case against them and they make him vanish. It was like watching Scientology mixed with the Manson Family.

After that, we are shown what will happen to the lawyers who defended the cult in a later murder trial (along with the eventual demise of the cult leaders in a different manner). They are lined up in hell, and their tongues pulled out, being stretched past their limits. One tongue rips out, another lies on the ground overly extended and worthless.

The hell parts of the film exist in the air of low budget effects, but that doesn't stop them from being fun to watch. The creature effects/masks/make-ups are neat, there's dismemberment, being eaten alive, tongue stretching, and much much more. I don't want to spoil too much. Not only that, but throughout the film there is a healthy dosage of breasts and ass shots, especially in hell where people are required to strip down to their underwear without any kind of braw support before they can proceed across the river Styxx where their eternal torment awaits.

The cult parts of the film give a nice, creepy vibe, with the leader being a long haired Christ figure who never seems to open his eyes and who turns into the biggest creep of them all. And topping it all off with an out of nowhere Samurai fight against demons of hell and an end credit sequence of a bunch of women praying to the sun in the nude.

The overall effect of the film is one that shouldn't be taken too seriously, but instead as a very fun low budget film.