NOW IN THEATERS! Ushimitsu no mura (Village of Doom), directed by Noboru Tanaka, was originally released in 1983 and saw a new release on Blu-ray from Unearthed Films this October. It is a punishing, brutal classic of Japanese cinema, a treacle dark slice of depression that thoroughly lives up to its name.
Masato Furuoya plays Tsugio Inumaru, an awkward prize student. His parents are dead, and he lives alone with his grandmother, upon whom he dotes, in the quiet village of Kamocho Kurami. Much like Luke Skywalker, his burning desire is to leave his village and distinguish himself in the war. Unlike Skywalker, he is a kind of rural, Japanese Travis Bickle.
“…a man broken by life and urged to bring death…”
The opening scene shows Tsugio, half delirious with national pride, as a soldier is cheered onto a war bound train by the villagers. Tsugio clearly worships the war effort but falls as he chases the train. This simple accident is a harbinger of the horrors to come. Tsugio keeps falling and falling. He soon learns he has tuberculosis, failing the army medical, and being left to rot in mockery in his sordid village. This, among other things, galvanizes him into a killer who is unafraid of his own now imminent demise.
This is the kind of existential masochism that the Japanese excel at. There really is no light here. We watch a man broken by life and urged to bring death. It is a mark of the supreme bleakness of this film that it works hardest when sympathizing with a monster as he forms. It is the purest funk.
This is one of the hardest viewings I have come across. Tsugio, bright, diligent, and full of hope, comes further undone as he discovers an empty degeneracy to the village. His only friend is a priapic creep in noisy Western tailoring. His only love is his cousin, whose reciprocal ardor he has to reject for the dangers of consanguinity. The village seems to largely feature women cheating while their men are at war and a gang of killers who handily present their victims as suicides for the local geriatric policeman. Crucially and early on, Tsugio suspects this gang will soon target him for knowing of their crimes. He starts to arm himself to the teeth, and the clock really begins to tick.
"…a gut punch and mostly a foul experience."
