Strange Circus Review

[someguy]

Strange Circus (2005)



For those who know your Japanese horror films, you should be looking forward to seeing Strange Circus. It's directed by Sion Sono, the same person who directed the weird/horrific/funny film Suicide Club. A lot of people liked the movie, but the second half of the film got too bizarre and confusing for what seemed like such a straightforward movie. Luckily, Sion Sono has taken his criticisms and fixed things up a lot, now making him a director I look forward to seeing more of.

The movie begins by showing a girl named Mitsuko. One day she catches her father (the principal of her school) having sex with her mother but quickly runs back into her bedroom. Her dad, the kind of guy who likes watching porn in his office at the elementary school he is principal of, gets an idea. He buys a cello case and drills a peephole into it. He then forces Mitsuko inside and makes her watch him have sex with her mother through the peephole. This is just the beginning of what is probably one of the most horrible childhoods someone could live.

Later on, the story cuts to a woman named Taeko. It turns out that the entire Mitsuko story is from the new novel she is writing. She's wheelchair bound and says that her stories are entirely fiction. She gets a new assistant named Yuji, and her editors tell him about how she's mentally ill and has had sex with all of them. Yuji just ignores it all, but slowly starts to find out that Taeko isn't entirely honest about what she says. Then again, Yuji and everyone else might not be either.

There's a quote I read about this movie where it says that Strange Circus is for those who thought Suicide Club was too normal. I'd have to say that this is almost 100% true. The themes in here are a lot darker and disturbing, the entire thing is on the erotic/sexual side and it is a lot more straightforward for a movie that would most likely go down the mindfuck route.

I should mention that Sion Sono has an amazing eye and ear. His look in the movie constantly changes, it goes from a very beautiful/dark blood red colour being prevalent to a blueish haze to a European feel and a ton of other styles. His score is great too. I liked Suicide Club's catchy J-pop music, and in this movie the score is more towards piano based classical music. It's a really beautiful score that I would want to own.

There was just one major issue I had with the movie and that was the ending. I liked the idea of the ending, but there were plot twists a plenty and it seemed very same old same old. A long monologue explaining everything? Check. Constant flashbacks and redundant points of things we know about? Check. There's plenty more things that are too familiar but they involve some heavy spoilers. My other complaint is that the dude who played Yuji overacted to the extreme. He played it very low key for the most part but then suddenly shifted gears into something really hammy that didn't fit at all with the movie.

All in all, Strange Circus is a really great movie and definitely one of my favourite movies this year. It looks great, it sounds great, there were some great performances save a few, the subject matter was really unnerving, and while the ending was a little too cliched and dumb it didn't detract from the movie too much. It's still a really strong movie and shows that Sion Sono is a new force to reckon with. It's going to be released on the Danger After Dark label on TLA Releasing in 2007 on DVD, definitely hunt it down as soon as possible and see it.

8.5/10