DVD released: June 25, 2000.
Approximate running time: 101 Minutes
Aspect ratio: 2.35.1 Anamorphc Widescreen
Rating: NR
Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
DVD Release: Beam Entertainment
Region Coding: Region 2 NTSC
Retail Price: 4800 YEN

Reviewed by:
Ian Jane on October 3, 2003

The concept of the afterlife, and more specifically Hell (which is what Jigoku translates to in English and is an alternate title for the film, which is also known as The Sinners Of Hell) is a common one that seems to appear in almost every major religion. It’s been explored and discussed in thousands of different ways in films, books, paintings, and probably any other kind of media you can think of. Jigoku manages to remain a fascinating movie regardless of how overdone the subject may be, and despite the fact that the film is over forty years old. 

Shiro (Shigeru Amachi, who went on to appear in a couple of Zatoichi films) is a young Japanese student, who, while out driving with his friend Tamura (Yoichi Numata who played Takashi in Hideo Nakata’s Ring) one night, inadvertently runs over and kills a drunk Yakuza on the way home from visiting his fiancé, Yukiko, who is the daughter of a local professor named Yajima. 

Shiro and Tamura keep mum about the accident, though Shiro’s conscience catches up with him and he decides to tell Yukiko, who has just found out that she is pregnant with Shiro’s baby, about the accident. The two go for a drive but end up in a car accident, and Yukiko is killed by the impact. 

Shiro is then summoned to visit his dying mother at a senior citizen’s home, run by a crooked doctor, and he finds out that his father is having an affair with a younger woman in the very next room to where his mother lays ill. Also living in the rest home is an alcoholic painter, who is at the same time, being visited by his daughter who bares a striking resemblance to the late Yukiko. Unfortunately for Shiro, the mother and daughter of the dead Yakuza are out for vengeance and have found out who he is.

Out of nowhere, Tamura shows up, just in time for the festivities to begin in the celebration of the home’s tenth anniversary. Unfortunately, through a few strange twists, everyone in the home, visitor and tenant alike, end up dead and literally fall into Hell where they are judged for their actions. If the film wasn’t weird enough up to this point, from here on, it spirals into a bizarre fury of imagery, symbolism, bizarre sets and gore effects. 

In one sense, the film reminded me of Jose Mojica Marins’ (a.k.a. Coffin Joe) masterpiece, This Midnight I’ll Possess Your Corpse, but Jigoku predates Marins’ film by almost six years, though the films do share similar themes and a similar narrative. But whereas Marins’ vision of Hell is probably influenced by the Catholic Church and his own bizarre imagination, director Nobuo Nakagawa paints his version of the inferno in colorful hues and fills them with traditional Japanese representations of the demonic. 

The finale through Hell takes up at least the last third of the film, but that’s not to say that the film is only a series of loosely connected scenes of shock value. The gore set pieces are there, and are considerably fiercer than anything that I’ve personally seen from the era (as they predate not only Marins’ work but also Herschel Gordon Lewis’ infamous Blood Feast as well) but there is more to the movie than just sinners suffering for their sins, and the end of the film confirms it for you if you don’t see it coming, but manages to do so without feeling contrived or like a ‘cop out’ ending. 

Maybe it’s because I’ve got a soft spot for religious horror or maybe it’s because surreal films are fascinating to me, but Jigoku stuck in my head and made me think – not so much about fire and brimstone or the eternal suffering of my eternal soul but about how life can spiral out of control despite our best intentions and in that respect, it was a powerful film with an amazing and unique visual style that captivates and disturbs at the same time.

There’s not much here in the way of supplements, but there are cast and crew credits and a text piece that are both in Japanese, as well as chapter selection and a subtitle menu.