MOVIE REVIEW: RUBBER'S LOVER (1996)

Written/Directed by Shozin Fukui

Music by Tanizaki Tetora

Starring

Yota Kawase as Shimika

Nao as Kiku

Norimitsu Ameya as Hitotsubashi

Sasuke Saito as Motomiya

Mika Kunihiro as Akari

Ziko Uchiyama as Tanizaki

. . .

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. . .

Review by William D. Tucker.

Rubber’s Lover begins with cold-blooded reptilian machinations. We proceed to indulge hot-blooded mammalian hysteria. We shall end in a higher state of consciousness that merely costs us our place in mainstream employable society.

Sinister businessmen coolly discuss forbidden human experimentation. Basically, they’ve been bankrolling a secret research project that’s trying to use extreme sound amplification to unlock psychic powers in the human brain. The mad scientists in charge of this endeavor have set up shop in one of those abandoned yet meticulously art directed industrial warehouse type of places that countless low budget genre pictures depend upon for hideouts, shootouts, martial arts battles, and shadowy horror scenarios. Rubber’s Lover is an unusually ambitious demonstration of how low budget filmmakers can conjure tension, dread, and production value by precisely framing, lighting, and dressing existing locations. Everything you see exists. No computer graphics. Pay special attention to how this movie exploits the big freight elevator whenever it’s on screen. 

But let’s not forget the human element. The early passages include scenes of mostly men and one woman in business attire delivering perfunctory dialogue about mundane responsibilities: project oversight, plans for marriage, scheduling stuff. Even the mad scientists are sensibly dressed, and speak calmly. In the fullness of time, everyone is gibbering madly, ripping their clothes off, and manifesting X-Men levels of psychic powers. All of this is brilliantly played by committed actors, who infuse much of the running time with a building sense of hysterical agitation. Something is constantly bubbling beneath the surface which the mad science gimmicks exist to catalyze into bursting forth from some howlingly repressed id. Much of Rubber’s Lover is about people locked inside a terrible place losing their minds. Two of the scenes are so violent and awful you may decide to stop watching. I wouldn’t blame you if you did even though I do admire this film.

Ultimately, the depravity spirals beyond the control of business and politics. If there’s a lesson here it seems to have to do with desire and power. Those who desire power the most are also the most likely to abuse it and be consumed by it. The only character of consequence who survives is the one who wanted nothing to do with the results of the sonic experiments. But none are left unaffected by the power that is unleashed. 

I should also mention that Rubber’s Lover is a thematic sequel to 964 Pinocchio, a film exploring abandoned sex slaves adrift in train stations and shopping districts in early 1990s Tokyo. Both are written and directed by Shozin Fukui, however they are not related in terms of literal plot points or shared cinematic universe continuity minutiae. 964 Pinocchio’s most memorable scenes contrast antisocial outsider characters against crowds of clueless consumers and employees creating tension around how long the weirdos will be tolerated before getting swept under the rug. Rubber’s Lover is a more conventional genre film in its use of a contained, claustrophobic setting but the intensity of the characters’ hysteria is dialed up to eleven. 964 Pinocchio has some rough technical aspects, but its core pair of protagonists are endearingly strange. Rubber’s Lover is a technical masterwork of low budget filmmaking, but we are kept at an emotional distance from the characters. I think this distancing works for the harsh scenario, but it did make it somewhat less memorable for me than 964 Pinocchio. I was amused that Rubber’s Lover had scenes in which people inexplicably explode into powder which may have been an homage to 1986’s Death Powder, another example of what people have come to think of as Japanese cyberpunk. Rubber’s Lover even has a few scenes suggesting psychic transference of consciousness from one brain to another which also evokes the theme of newly innovated upon life cycles in Death Powder.

Rubber’s Lover isn’t especially convinced by the proverbial thin veneer of civilization. This is one of those movies that glories in perverse and shocking behavior well past the limits of contemporary Hollywood horror movies. Rubber’s Lover is an actual horror movie, expertly filmed, edited, scored, acted, and directed, not ersatz streaming crap. It may not be for everyone, but it is exactly what it wants to be.

MOVIE REVIEW: 964 PINOCCHIO (1991)

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.