Jisatsu saakuru (2002)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Sion Sono

Writer:

Sion Sono (writer)

Genre:

Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Sore de wa minasan, sayonara [Well then, goodbye everybody.]

Plot:

A detective is trying to find the cause of a string of suicides.

Plot Keywords:

Gore | Surrealism | Bizarre | Disturbing | Surreal

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Ryo Ishibashi	...	Detective Kuroda
Akaji Maro	...	Detective Murata
Masatoshi Nagase	...	Detective Shibusawa
Saya Hagiwara	...	Mitsuko
Hideo Sako	...	Detective Hagitani
Takashi Nomura	...	Security Guard Jiro Suzuki
Tamao Satô	...	Nurse Yoko Kawaguchi
Mai Hosho	...	Nurse Sawada
Yoko Kamon	...	Koomori (The Bat)
Rolly	...	Genesis
Kimiko Yo	...	Kiyomi Kuroda
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tomoe Adachi	...	Dessert
Madoka Arai	...	Genesis' Victim (Girl in the Sack)
Kyoko Baba	...	H.S. Girl on the Roof
Hiromi Eguchi	...	H.S. Girl on the Roof
Saon Fujita	...	Dessert
Yasusuke Hamamoto	...	Genesis' Gang
Seiko Hashimoto	...	H.S. Girl on the Roof
Harina Hata	...	H.S. Girl on the Roof
Taihei Hayashiya	...	Rakugo Storyteller
Asami Hidaka	...	Theatre Troupe
Kanako Hiramatsu	...	Mother Slicing Vegetables
Satomi Hisanaga	...	H.S. Girl on the Roof
Noriko Isami	...	Girl With Sign
Joshua	...	Genesis' Henchman
Takatoshi Kaneko	...	H.S. Boy on the Roof
Ryuji Kasahara
Mika Kikuchi	...	Sakura Kuroda
Toshiyuki Kitami	...	Shinakawa
Tomoka Kumagai	...	Dessert
Mitsuru Kuramoto
Himeno Maeda	...	Boy
Toyotomi Maeda	...	Girl
Hajime Matsumoto	...	Toru Kuroda, His Son
Haruna Matsuoka	...	Theatre Troupe
Nobuyuki Mihara	...	H.S. Boy on the Roof
Chieko Misaka	...	Theatre Troupe
Mika Miyagawa	...	H.S. Girl on the Roof
Maiko Mori	...	Koomori's Sister
Tatsuo Moriyasu	...	Komori's Father
Kei Nagase	...	Genesis' Gang
Nahana	...	H.S. Girl on the Roof
Yuna Natsuo	...	Girl By the Stove
Midori Niie	...	Policewoman
Atsushi Numata	...	Comedian
Yuhei Okabe	...	Son
Taiju Okayasu	...	Police
Takamitsu Okubo	...	Father
Kikuko Sakurai
Miyu Sawada	...	Dessert
Kazumi Sekine	...	Dessert
Noriyoshi Shioya	...	Masa (Mitsuko's Boyfriend)
Suzunosuke
Erika Tajima	...	Policewoman
Kazumi Takahashi	...	Masa's Mother
Kei Tanaka	...	H.S. Boy on the Roof
Kenjiro Tsuda	...	Mita
Masato Tsujioka	...	Genesis' Gang
Katsuhiro Watanabe	...	Comedian
Hisako Yamada	...	Daughter
Hiroko Yashiki	...	Theatre Troupe

Also Known As:

Suicide Club (International: English title) (USA) (festival title)
Suicide Circle (International: English title) (literal title)

MPAA:

Rated R for disturbing thematic elements, strong violence/grisly images and some language.

Runtime:

99 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Certification:

New Zealand:R18 | Canada:16+ (Quebec) | Japan:R-15 | Singapore:R21 | Germany:18

Filming Locations:

Tokyo, Japan

Company:

For Peace Co. Ltd.

Trivia:

"Mail Me", the catchy song that can be heard throughout many scenes, is actually a "Dezaato" cover of "Mail Me" by Haruko Momoi.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: When the students jump to their death on the school roof, you can clearly see crew-members throwing buckets of fake blood at the window.

Quotes:

Genesis: I'm Charles Manson of the information age!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Hostel (2005)

A powerful cinematic meditation on suicide.

When trying to make sense of this film one must consider the circumstances under which it was made and what inspired the director to do it in the first place.

Shion Sono started writing the script after a close friend of his killed himself. Nobody had any idea why he did it. He seemed perfectly OK and then one day he was dead by his own hand. There was no suicide not, no explanation, nothing.

SUICIDE CIRCLE, the film, is a cinematic meditation on the theme of suicide. Several times in the film it is mentioned how you have to be "connected" to yourself and not only to your job, your family and your other duties. There's also a reason that happy, laughing, cheerful, young, beautiful people off themselves apparently for no reason at all. Note the shots when the cop is on the subway and he looks at all those people who look dead tired and depressed. Each one of them could kill himself anytime. The end is also about this, the cop character has to give up trying to figure out who will kill himself because ultimately this is something up to the individual and outsiders can only have so much influence on it. In a way Shion Sono excuses himself from not preventing his friend's death with this ending.

The film is ambiguous in many places and does not provide any easy answers. It only gives ideas, offers perspectives, theories and hints. And that's what I like about it. Actually I watched this film for the first time only a few months after getting pretty close to ending my life myself. I thought it was a very intelligent and respectful film about the subject matter and much better than any heavy-handed, whiny, "politically correct" Hollywood film or those horrid movies of the week on TV.