Masters of Horror
Season 1/Episode 13 - Imprint
Starring: Billy Drago, Youki Kudoh, Toshie Negishi
Writers: Daisuke Tengan (teleplay), Shimako Iwai (novel)
Director: Takashi Miike
****Spoilers****
Christopher is an American journalist touring through 19th century Japan in search of Komomo, the love of his life that he left long ago with promises of returning. His travels take him to a brothel located on an island filled with grime and dark secrets. Here, he meets a disfigured prostitute that says she knows what has become of Komomo. After serving up copious amounts of sake to Christopher, the woman begins spinning yarns that detail several variations of her own past, as well as what happened to his lover -think the finale of Clue, only way more fucked up-. It becomes quickly obvious that there's more to what she's telling, and it throws Christopher into confusion, hilarious sorrow -I'll explain later- and drunken anger, which lead to the unraveling of his own secrets.
I did a bit of reading up on this sick puppy before deciding to do a write up on it. I'll admit, I had no knowledge of Japanese folklore or the story Imprint is based on, so I spent quite a bit of time trying to wrap my brain about what the ending meant. It's still kinda confusing to me, but I've always thought of Miike as a David Lynch type anyway, so I don't really have any problem with enjoying his work for style more than anything else. Anyway you wanna spin it, this is a fucked up brutally violent story, and I hate to sound pussy but I can understand why Showtime decided not to air it. Now this doesn't mean I am against it; I'm just saying the amount of backlash -even after cuts- would probably have been largely severe. This beast is definitely not for everyone, speaking to horror fans, too.
****Big Spoilers****
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Imprint gets straight up nasty, I'd say more than most all of Miike's previous efforts. Sure, I winced through Ichi the Killer, Dead or Alive, Audition, even parts of Gozu made my skin crawl; nothing like this. The disfigured prostitute pours one seriously insane tale of anguish into Christopher's mind, a back-story of what's became of his love, Komomo. This shit is not for the faint of heart, folks. Unrelentingly, we get thrown into a torture scene that reaches every bit of 5 minutes; burning incense shoved into Komomo's armpits, needles stuck under each and every finger nail -and the camera doesn't cut away for a few of them, even going as far as wiggling back and forth underneath the nail-, more needles lodged into the top and bottom of her gums... and finally, these bastards string her upside down in seriously awkward positioning where she pisses all over herself. It's rough, I can't stress that enough. And this isn't all; Imprint displays abortion, incest, hints of pedophilia, 'holy fuck' rough beatings, and more.
****Bog Spoilers Over****
As per usual in a Takashi Miike film, production value is mesmerizing. There's brilliant long shot cinematography with dreamlike backgrounds, especially the opening scene in the boat and when Christopher first shows up at the brothel. We get great camera work of him in an out of focus shot while he's talking to someone from a prostitute's point of view behind wooden bars. He moves in and is blocked out for a moment, then the camera focuses in on him blurring out one of the said wooden bars, giving it a transparent appearance... it's fucking epic. There's also amazing color scheming and costume design. All around, it looks beautiful, which makes the graphic content that much more hard hitting.
****Big Spoilers****
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While I said that Imprint is intense, I'm not hating on that aspect. But one thing that drove me nuts was Billy Drago's performance. While reading up I came across a few people in his defense, saying the overacting was Miike's intention to correctly display a man who has built up a lot of the story in his mind and not knowing how to react to the pain of it all. His portrayal of Christopher is supposed to be that of a man slipping into madness. If I found Drago to be a good actor in anything else, I would buy into this, but no. No way. He's great for creepiness in terms of appearance, but 95% of the time the dude is so hammy it hurts. Here, he is that times infinity. His reactions to what has happened to his beloved Komomo totally took me out of the story. I fucking laughed out loud, and Drago gets worse after every word he spits out. If this really was Miike's intentions, then I must sadly call it an epic fail.
****Big Spoilers Over****
Youki Kudoh is pretty solid as the disfigured woman, and she tells the stories well. She gets even better as it progresses. Everyone else is pretty minor, they all do their job good enough. Maybe not giving it their all, but the story is mostly focused on the characters of Christopher, the prostitute and Komomo, so it's forgivable.
Yuichi Matsui delivers some damn good makeup and Gore FX, and the torture scenes displaying all of it were realistic enough for me to hide my fingernails under clinched fists. Later on he seems to get all Henenlotter inspired, and the more tongue in cheek stuff was happily welcomed after a hefty amount of cruelty. The job on the disfigured prostitute's face is great, a bit joker-like on one side. Makeup fans will be pleased with all of it.
****Big Spoilers****
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The character of the disfigured woman goes back to Japanese folklore; Futakuchi-onna is a yokai -aka Japanese monster- with two mouths, one on the face like any person, the other hidden beneath hair on the head. What I read was that the second mouth comes out during hunger, making things unbearable if it isn't fed and the hair can become snake like and steal food from the woman. In Imprint, it's a hand-mouth hybrid that rips from the scalp whenever it wants anything, and will not stop inflicting displeasure until it receives what it demands. As for the ending, I'm still debating. Was it all in Christopher's head due to repressed guilt? Was the real culprit a demon? I've either burnt out my best braincells a long time ago or I'm just not supposed to figure it out. Though, I am leaning more toward the "it was all in his head" theory. Either way I was enthralled, despite not being able to recommend this to everyone.
P.S.- pay attention to the pinwheels.
