Direction/Screen Story/Editing by Shozin Fukui
Screenplay by Shozin Fukui, Makoto Hamaguchi, Naoshi Goda
Cinematography by Kazunori Hirasawa
Music by Hiroyuki Nagashima
Starring
Haji Suzuki as 964 Pinocchio
Onn-chan as Himiko
. . .
“After we complete this map, people like us will have a better life. Then we won’t need a memory to live in this town.”
. . .
Review by William D. Tucker.
Once upon a time in 1990s Japan you have a psychosurgically brainwashed sex slave named/labelled/numbered 964 Pinocchio. For mysterious reasons, Pinocchio ran away from his owner, a woman with an insatiable sexual appetite. This horny woman contacts the criminal organization who created Pinocchio, perhaps hoping for a replacement or, failing that, a refund, but these sinister entrepreneurs threaten her life. The horny lady’s out her costs, but as long as she stays quiet she gets to live. Meanwhile, a trio of flunkies of the sex slavers take to the streets to attempt to hunt down the missing living product. This depraved operation is so out of touch with mainstream society that the flunkies don’t really know how to approach folks. It doesn’t help that they dress like cult members while acting like total creeps.
Pinocchio wanders the street, grunting, and flailing, and wailing inarticulately. He’s pale, skinny, twitchy, and has a tuft of goofy orange hair near his widow’s peak. He’s a sight. We see him shambling and freaking out among huge crowds of early 1990s shoppers and salarymen in a large city in Japan. Throughout 964 Pinocchio we get scenes of science fantasy hysteria played against real world commercial locations that create the sensation of underground fetish sex club people bursting out among normie consumers like supernatural intrusions of poltergeists or demons or yokai. You sort of expect the Ghostbusters to get called on the scene.
We are introduced to a homeless, unemployed woman named Himiko, who passes the time by sitting on a sidewalk drawing maps of the city. She is frequently approached by salarymen on lunch breaks who think she’s a sex worker. Himiko has lost her memory, and so she draws maps for herself and to help out other amnesiacs. One day, she sees Pinocchio freaking out in the street. He sees her back, and dives into her lap. There’s a spark between these two. Himiko, as it happens, is all too happy to adopt a stray sex slave. At first, she seems to be a source of hope in Pinocchio’s cursed existence. But we soon enough discover that Himiko, despite her also being an outsider, gets off on abusing him. Somehow, her relationship with Pinocchio awakens her buried memories of working as a nurse at the evil sex slave company. Ultimately, we are left with the implication that both Himiko and Pinocchio were victims and products of hideous psychosurgical experiments.
Pinocchio’s inexpressible rage and trauma cause slimy, low budget mutational effects, that are greatly enhanced by actor Haji Suzuki’s wild physical performance. Himiko’s buried sadist identity expresses itself when she constructs a steel leash, shackles, and weight to torment Pinocchio. There’s an impressively filmed and edited sequence where Pinocchio gains super speed powers and races out of the city, into a rural area, and to a factory which seems to conceal the sex slave operation which is strongly reminiscent of a sequence in Tetsuo the Iron Man. Another standout scene involves Himiko freaking out and copiously vomiting while wandering underground pedestrian tunnels that is obviously inspired by Isabelle Adjani’s memorable meltdown in Possession.
A less successful sequence involves the sex slaver flunkies attacking Pinocchio with an experimental weapon. It’s too dark, and too frenetic to follow the action, but this is the one dud in an otherwise sharp and propulsive low budget production.
By the end of it all, I found myself wondering who wasn’t a product of brainwashing in 964 Pinocchio. The mad scientist who runs the sex slave business is a total nut-he seems to have brainwashed himself. Himiko says she draws maps for other amnesiacs-so it isn’t just Pinocchio, it could be lots of malfunctioning sex slaves who have crossed her path. And when you consider the recurring images of normie crowds observing these crazy characters but staying the hell back . . . well, it left me with the sense of a society with a howling open secret. This is also a clever move for a low budget film which can only afford to spend so much time shooting in malls and department stores and train stations before overstaying their welcome. Just use the detachment and impatience of anonymous passersby to further alienate the weirdo outsider protagonists.
964 Pinocchio is a purposeful blast of Japanese cyberpunk hysteria. You get a doomed sadomasochistic Romeo and Juliet raising hell among clueless, checked-out shoppers who both mutate towards a grotesque final coupling. Yes, it’s mostly about the vibe, but there’s more story and characterization than I expected. It even has a touch of that Blade Runner ambiguity about who is and who isn’t a manufactured being. 964 Pinocchio suggests that in a hyperconsumerist society even people will become product components if such markets become attractive to capital. Mutants freaking out in the department store are the canaries in the coal mine.
So stay alert!
BONUS: Stick around for the mid-credits scene. It’s fun.
