R100 (2013)

Speaker 1: Hold your ears, folks. It's showtime.

Speaker 2: People pay good money to see this movie. When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas, hot popcorn and no monsters in the projection booth. Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.

Speaker 3: I turn it off. You all club in your car.

Speaker 4: Papa. Don't you understand me? Wait mo it more it. Oh Damn it.

So there's a rule to. MIKE WHITE: In my funding and welcome to the projection booth. I'm your host, Mike White. Joining me once again is Miss Sam Degan.

Hello. Also back in the booth is Mr Jim Viola. Hey, friends. JIM VENDIOLA: It's so great.

MIKE WHITE: To be back. We are kicking off a month dedicated to Japanese Film with a look at Hitoshi Matsumoto's 2013 Film R 100. That's the letter R and the numeral 100. It's the story of a man who makes a contract with a or organization called Bondage for a year.

They will surprise him with appearances from a variety of Dominatrix who will attack and humiliate him at random when they begin to show up where he works and lives, he tries to cancel the contract but finds this impossible. We will be spoiling this film as we go along. So if you don't want anything ruined, please turn off the podcast and come on back after you've seen the film, it's actually pretty easy to find out there. We will still be here.

So, Jim, this was a request of yours. Last time we talked, when was the first time you saw our 100? And what did you think? JIM VENDIOLA: I saw this movie maybe three years ago because I was revisiting Matsumoto's Big Man Japan.

And I happened to see that Sean Baker of Tangerine And Florida Project fame had like made mention of R 100 on Letterbox and at the time it was on Hulu. So I pretty much started watching it without knowing anything about it other than it was the director of Big Man Japan. And I just thought it was really hilarious and irreverent and bizarre and I really didn't know what the hell was gonna happen from one moment to the next. And so yeah, it's been stuck in my head ever since because I feel like at least Stateside, it seems like not that many people have seen it.

So particularly when the topic of B DS M or kink in cinema comes up, I usually end up mentioning it or recommending it and s how about yourself? SAMM DEIGHAN: I watched it purely for this episode beca and because Jim recommended it. So this was a brand new watch for me. MIKE WHITE: This was also a brand new watch for me.

And I'm curious with your first experiences watching this for both of you when the movie started and it's playing along. I was taking it very seriously and I'm trying to remember the moment when I realized that there's a lot of comedy in this movie. But it took a while for me to realize that things are supposed to be funny. I don't feel like I was just completely clueless that they might have been not as forthright with this being a comedy right up front felt pretty serious, but there's at least one moment where things just turned on their head.

And I said, oh, I'm supposed to be laughing at this. All right. And then the movie, I think it's the movie change that me changing. But then the movie just goes fucking crazy and just keeps getting crazier.

Thank you so much, Jim. This was a joy to watch. I had a great time with this movie. JIM VENDIOLA: I'm glad it doesn't seem at least from a critical standpoint that others like it as much.

But yeah, I loved it when I first saw it. SAMM DEIGHAN: So I went in cold not knowing anything about it. But for anyone who hasn't listened to our past episodes together, I feel like we've gotten into this kind of annual habit of doing an episode on something kink related. So I assumed that there was maybe gonna be s and M involved.

But if you read the Letterbox reviews for this movie. It's a journey because it seems like about 40% of the people gave it five stars and are obsessed with it and have never seen anything like it. And then there are a lot of people who I think maybe didn't get that. It was supposed to be as much of a satire or comedy and are mad about the depictions of S and M and Kink, which was also how I felt in the first half an hour.

But then once I realized what was going on, I was like, oh, this is delightful. JIM VENDIOLA: You don't know what to make of it at first. And I think, I don't know Mike when that point was for you or even Sam, you said it was like after the first half hour. But I think I realized it was more of a comedy during the carousel scene where the purveyor of this organization or at least the quote unquote boss was introducing the various women in a carousel.

But yeah, even at that point, knowing that maybe it's funny, you don't know if it, at that point is going to be like a good depiction of B DS M or at least utilized in a way that isn't horribly offensive to that community, especially, it. SAMM DEIGHAN: Doesn't actually depict B DS M at all. What it does is it, which in a way makes it inoffensive because it's there as window dressing on the surface and there's no genuine eroticism really. It starts off with, I think the first kind of B DS M scene, which I am using air quotes even though I know everyone can't see me.

He just gets the shit kicked out of him. Which, well, thinking about it, in retrospect, it is very funny. But watching it, if you think that some sort of scene is about to happen, it's, this isn't what happens. You don't get beaten up on a playground.

MIKE WHITE: There's no safe saying consensual play here. JIM VENDIOLA: Not if it's going well. MIKE WHITE: We should set this up a little bit. We've got Nao Ômori as Takafumi Katayama, we see someone in the bathroom smoking and then we soon are introduced to one of our first Dominatrix who I guess is the kicking queen.

All of these Dominatrix have titles though, I had to say the subtitles and even the onscreen titles. If they were having onscreen titles for all of these people, I wasn't seeing them. And then when they were there, I'd say half the time they weren't being translated, but I could figure out, oh, that must be the whipping queen. That one must be the humiliation queen once we got to the gobble queen.

And of course Saliva Queen, I knew exactly who would those people were. But Takafumi is, he's not single. He's married, his wife is in a coma. She's been in a coma for three years.

I think they say which is odd because he's got a son, Arashi, I believe is his name. And he keeps asking like, when's mom gonna come home? And I don't think the dad has told him that his mom is in the hospital. I think he said that she's on a business trip.

So it's, will she be home in a couple weeks? Oh, yeah. And he must keep doing this for like a whole period of three years. He also is joined by his, I'm thinking it's his father who helps take care of his son.

And Takafumi is a furniture salesman at a department store. So we get a little bit of that life, which is fun as well. And yeah, he just goes to work, goes to the hospital, goes back home some sort of variation of that. And yeah, the first time we see him, he's with this woman and he's mansplaining Beethoven's ninth symphony to her and the ode to joy.

She gets up and kicks him in the head. SAMM DEIGHAN: She gives him his own ode to joy. MIKE WHITE: Oh boy. SAMM DEIGHAN: Oh boy, so good.

MIKE WHITE: We get to see her kick him down some stairs and when he goes down the stairs, he looks up at her, she takes off her trench coat. She's dressed in full Dominatrix garb. And this effect happens and it happens so often in this film and I didn't realize everything that was going on with this because I wasn't familiar with this actor's face. At first, his face gets distorted and it looks like his cheeks fill up like Joe Shishido from Branded to kill.

And he gets these little waves that go out around his head. I don't think it's an orgasm but it's definitely a connection that major around. Yes. JIM VENDIOLA: Yes.

And it's so funny that you mentioned that actor because I think when his cheekbones expand and stretch out, he looks like Song Kang Ho. I can not see Song Kang Ho. MIKE WHITE: He also looks a little bit like a turgid penis when he does that with the big swelling too. But that might just be me.

SAMM DEIGHAN: The reason or I guess the moment I decided I was on board is when I fully saw his face, I love now Omori, he played Ichi in Ichi the Killer. And when I first saw him, I was like, wait, I recognize this guy and I picked up my phone to look him up and then it hit me and I was like, oh my God, I can't believe it's him and he's so good at playing these kind of sad pervert characters. And this character here like, I don't love the CG I effect with that sort of face smooshing his eyes get all black and there's like a wave in the screen behind him that you see later in the film pop up, even when he's not on screen.

Like if he goes in a building and there's a shot of a building. They let you see this sort of like rippling circle letting you know he's in there getting super horny. JIM VENDIOLA: It's like the same quality of effect from Donnie Darko over a decade ago. Right.

It's so bad. SAMM DEIGHAN: It's bad, but it's less offensive, I think because this is so comedic and they're not trying to be profound in any way, like something like Donnie Darko is, it's like they're just trying to be over the top and in that way it works, it is very over the stuff. MIKE WHITE: We get a little bit of voice over from him. We get, I'm guessing that this is a flashback where he goes to the club.

It says Bondage on the door, I'm saying club, but it's basically an office says Bondage on the door and then we'll see. And it took me a while to realize that all of the ladies have this b logo somewhere on them, a necklace, a belt, a suitcase filled with grenades, whatever it happens to be. And yeah, he signs the whole contract. All the rules are laid down.

There's this whole no violence against them, no touching, no initiating. You will never know when they're gonna show up and you are bound by this contract for a year. And that's the whole premise and where they take this thing. Holy shit.

I had no idea at the beginning of the film where this was headed. And I had to say I guess it wasn't the carousel for me that tipped me off and it wasn't even the weird face, any of that kind of stuff. I think it was all the way until he goes in for lunch one day while he's at work, he leaves work and he goes in for lunch and he starts eating sushi and one of the Dominatrix comes in and every time a piece of sushi is put down on his, in front of him, she smashes it and then he eats what's going on and everyone in the restaurant is just what the fuck is going on.

But they keep serving him sushi and she keeps smashing it and I think it was all the smashing and the cuts that went along with, that's when it finally clicked to me. Oh, this is absolutely ridiculous. Ok? This is great.

JIM VENDIOLA: And the silence of that scene, it's just her smashing the sushi. SAMM DEIGHAN: No one says anything and she does such a great job or whoever is actually smashing that sushi, it's squashed. And I love that. They show you it's, it almost seems like he's getting Omakase for lunch because it's a single piece of Nigiri at a time.

And I love that. They just show you every single, like pretty recognizable types of fish smashed all of them and it kind of still looks pretty edible. He makes it work for me. I think I started to guess that something was going on when early in the film, like you said, his father comes to visit for dinner because it's his son's birthday.

And there's a point before his father leaves where nothing is happening. And he pauses very dramatically and says an earthquake like an earthquake is about to start and they look at each other like no, it's nothing. And I was like, all right, something has to be either there's gonna be some crazy earthquake that kills everyone or this is a signifier that something wacky is going on. MIKE WHITE: And that at one point in the movie they introduce, is it five people that are watching the movie that we're watching?

What are these sensors or what are these people there for? But they are commenting on the movie as we are watching the movie and specifically call out what is it with this whole earthquake thing? Is this supposed to be symbolic? SAMM DEIGHAN: That is such a nice touch because like you said, the title is the letter R 100 which is a rating system.

And so it, what it means is this movie is not suitable for anyone under the age of 100 years old. And so the rating I think having that kind of review board looking really awkward and uncomfortable and very like Japanese bureaucracy makes it even funnier once I think it took me a while to figure out like who are these people and what are they doing? What's so funny? Oh, yeah.

No, that's. JIM VENDIOLA: The kind of thing if you're not familiar with the rating system over there that you either have to look up because they don't explain it to you. I guess one could draw the line between the title and the fact that the director is 100 years old and the director of the film that the censors and we are both simultaneously watching and that he thinks it's not suitable or that you wouldn't understand his film unless you're 100 years old. SAMM DEIGHAN: At one point, doesn't somebody in the in the review board say like how many 100 year olds even are there, let alone ones that go to the cinema.

MIKE WHITE: To me, the director and please tell me I'm, if I'm wrong, he so looks like Sain Suzuki to me. I know it's not him but just the goatee and the hair just, he looked like that. And I'm like, yeah, I could see Sain Suzuki making this movie. SAMM DEIGHAN: Oh, for sure.

MIKE WHITE: At 100 at 100. SAMM DEIGHAN: Yeah, especially this is light in life, comedic phase. MIKE WHITE: Once that sushi scene happened, then it is so balls out because the next Dominatrix that attacks him pops up in a fountain and grabs him. It throws them under the water.

She's basically drowning him. He sinks into a pool that is way too deep for what this fountain could be. And that's when the lines go off and it's almost like a depth charge of him being so happy and he comes back up and he's in a tub with his son. I was curious what you guys thought about the look of this movie because there's so many scenes that just, they almost look like piss yellow.

They're just so, like, oddly colored. And then other times it's, you know, looks very nice. But then other times we go back and it just looks so dingy and I kept trying to figure out is there a pattern to this or is this, is it one of those things where it's like, oh, his day to day is so dreary until the Dominatrix shows up and then color comes in, but I wasn't able to tie those things together at all. JIM VENDIOLA: Yeah, I feel like that when it is not that drab yellow, it doesn't look that much better.

I think the decision to, for that look is the weakest thing for me. It's just not a fun movie to look at, which is unfortunate because it's such a fun movie, like plot wise. Yeah. No.

So, I don't know. And it's the Alamo giraffe house transfer. So I assume it looks pretty close to how it should look. I don't think it's the result of a bad transfer or anything, but I can't be sure.

SAMM DEIGHAN: I found it pretty unappealing to look at in a way that reminds me a lot of those two thousands Japanese horror movies, things like Tokyo Gore that are just really heavy with bad CG I and digital effects and they all have that kind of washed out grayish drab look to them. Unless, yeah, unless there's a scene with a lot of blood and then it's heavily saturated. Yeah. Not, definitely not my favorite looking film, which is a shame because it is a lot of fun.

MIKE WHITE: After he visits his wife and I don't think we ever find out why she's in the coma. I thought that was gonna be another mystery to this. Oh, why is the wife in the coma and all this also? She, I don't know if it's just, he's pretty middle aged, but the wife looked a little bit older, but I could just be like that's her laying down and she doesn't do anything though.

At one point he thinks that he starts, she starts talking to him because he's in the presence of voice queen who can impersonate anybody's voice. There's a scene later on in the film where she comes back and it's so reminding me of Terminator Two.

Speaker 8: What's wrong with Wolfe? I can hear him barking. Is he ok? Wolfe's fine, honey.

Wolf. He's just fine. Where are you? It was the parents that did.

MIKE WHITE: Absolutely. But we have that amazing montage where it's like him getting hauled into a van and you get the waves coming out of the van or him going into construction site and the waves come out from behind the construction site wall and he's waiting in a bowling alley and waiting and then it's just, oh, yeah. No, that's part of the game. Sorry.

We're not gonna tell you every single time these people are gonna show up or when they're not gonna show up. So, good luck with that. And, yeah, once the voice queen shows up at the hospital, he gets so upset because now they have entered into his life, they've crossed that what he considers a barrier, but they never agreed to, you know, won't interfere with my personal life. So yeah, when it's that and then when the woman shows up at his work and just pops out of a stall in the bathroom, it just starts whipping him like crazy.

That was hilarious to me, especially when they are between blows, let's say, and the other bathroom door opens up and one of his coworkers comes out and. JIM VENDIOLA: Again is silent again, just like a trauma response. SAMM DEIGHAN: Well, the use of silence in this is so funny. I think it's one of the funniest elements and I didn't realize that the director Matsumoto is a comedian and pretty much only does comedies, but I'm glad I went in not knowing that.

But he has really good comedic timing for a lot of these scenes. JIM VENDIOLA: That's probably why it's hard to determine as a comedy for a while because it's so fucking deadpan and with the ugly visuals, maybe that part of that decision also was like, you're not gonna know what genre this is until we tell you which is a bold choice. SAMM DEIGHAN: Expecting someone to watch a movie going in blind. Not knowing is this maybe more pink film or a thriller?

And no, it's a comedy also. JIM VENDIOLA: Back to the hyper specificity of these dams. Not only is it one of the more absurd things in an otherwise already incredibly absurd movie, the fact that it's this year long contract and he sells furniture. What is this an affordable thing?

Because I feel like it would be like am Michael Douglas in the game? You have to be like this very well to do even old money person to have these delights. But this common man is. SAMM DEIGHAN: Maybe there's a sliding scale.

That's right. JIM VENDIOLA: It's like therapy. Yeah. MIKE WHITE: No money down will get you in this contract.

SAMM DEIGHAN: Yeah, definitely therapeutic. It's a type of therapy and one of the things I liked a lot about it, I'm a sucker for melodrama that seems like it shouldn't belong in certain, more obvious or mixed with certain more obvious genres. And so to have this really over the top funny kind of s and M comedy include these sort of heartwarming scenes about this guy who's miserable at work and is trying to raise his kid as a single dad and deal with his wife being in a coma that I think about halfway through. We actually do see her father and he has this whole conversation, a solo conversation with her about how maybe it's time to unplug her because she's not getting any better.

It's I felt like those were pretty effective scenes and they provide such a nice balance in the first half before it gets completely bonkers. JIM VENDIOLA: That reminded me of audition in that way, which also may point to that visual aesthetic as well, even though I think audition is a much better looking movie. But yeah, no, it's that you almost see it going down that road with this sort of sad man trying to find solace in something casual. SAMM DEIGHAN: Trying to find some joy, his very own ode to joy even.

That's right. JIM VENDIOLA: But only getting hints of earthquakes. MIKE WHITE: I keep saying like, oh they crossed the line and so he gets upset and he wants to cancel the contract. And I think the most poignant moment of this movie, it's bizarre to say is he goes after he visits his wife in the hospital.

At one point, he goes and buys his croquettes and as he's walking home, he's crossing over some railroad tracks and this woman comes out, this dominators comes out and just starts kicking him like crazy. And then we get the train goes by, she disappears. He goes home and his son's oh, what happened to the croquettes? They're all screwed up.

And that's you're talking about silence this moment of ethos of oh yeah, they're messed up. And it's just like that seems to be the inciting incident for him to finally say, listen, I'm done with this and of course, no, you're not done with this. We'll tell you when you're done with this a year has not expired yet. So you can't just cancel this out.

And yeah, to me that it totally does remind me of the game when it comes to those kind of things like we're going too far. But no, you are part of this. You've agreed to this, you have to fulfill this contract. SAMM DEIGHAN: I also love that.

The first, it seems like a very Japanese thing to do. The first way he tries to get out of the contract is to go to the police station and report it. They take this incredibly detailed report writing down everything that he said and at the end, I'm sorry, I could, I have now made myself laugh and can barely get this out. But at the end, the cop is ok.

So they're doing exactly what you signed up for. No minors are involved. Nothing illegal. Best of luck, buddy.

Enjoy your situation. It's not for everyone. But again, he basically says, I guess keep us posted if it gets worse. JIM VENDIOLA: And that's Hitoshi himself, I believe the cop.

Yeah. And then he compares it to pro wrestling, which is a funny little hint to the CEO who we have not, who has not been revealed at that point. Who's like, played by a retired pro wrestler. MIKE WHITE: I didn't realize like, like you, Sam, I went in completely cold, not looking up anything about this, anything about the director or the writer, anything.

And so then while I'm watching the movie, I'm just like, what the hell else did this guy do? So I looked up and saw what you said, Jim that he did Big Man Japan. And then it just was like, oh, this makes total sense. The whole thing of how they keep introducing the different Kaiju in Big Man Japan and they've got the stats and all that kind of stuff before each one of the fights.

It's so reminded me of, oh, here's Saliva Queen, here's kicking queen, here's the, and I'm like, basically these women are Kaiju CEO, especially CEO, especially, oh my God. SAMM DEIGHAN: But can we talk about Saliva Queen for, oh my God. MIKE WHITE: So that's when this movie really takes another turn. SAMM DEIGHAN: It takes a wild turn.

But also Saliva Queen is Naomi Watanabe who is a really famous pop star comedian who's known as Japanese Beyonce. So to see her, I think because she did some comedic Beyonce impressions, not because she's like a Beyonce level singer as far as I know, I think it's she's more known for her comedy, but to see her show up and before her, most of the Dominatrix is are very reserved, like they don't express much personality, they don't say very much most of them are silent and she's just so funny. Just spitting Saliva. JIM VENDIOLA: She almost steals the show.

She, and that's probably why they had to kill her. MIKE WHITE: It's the longest scene of dominate. Guess you. Yeah, because he's tied up and getting spit on.

And I know that spitting is very much a thing in the scene and everything. But I love when he's like, hey, you gotta be quiet. My son's here and the next thing you know, he comes in the son and a voice queen is there again or no, he like thinks voice queen is there and he's just like voice queen is there too. Oh God, because he's, that's not him.

That's not my son. And when they take off the blindfold, there's his son standing there, got to the son bound up with the same blindfold like the mini version of his blindfold. This whole I can't remember Japanese Bondage Shibari scene of him in the background just hanging there. JIM VENDIOLA: Hang in the closet.

MIKE WHITE: Never makes a peep at all. Yeah. With the ball gag. JIM VENDIOLA: And again with the silence, like I thought I was gonna pass out like when I first saw the scene, like I could not stop laughing.

I was like, I cannot believe what I'm looking at right now watching a child in a Bondage sign and that it's actually funny and they're like pulling it off. SAMM DEIGHAN: I had a moment where it took me a second to register that the kid was tied up in the corner and I was like, holy shit. What dark turn is this about to take? Yeah.

JIM VENDIOLA: And then he gets a new nickname. MIKE WHITE: Yes. JIM VENDIOLA: Slobber boy. MIKE WHITE: Slobber boy because when he finally gets in the car and drives away leaving a trail of slobber because his son's head sticking out the window.

Haven't you seen Hereditary? You need to get that kid's head back inside. SAMM DEIGHAN: But I love that what they wind up doing with the kid is like the kid is scared but he's not like realistically scared. Like I think that sort of grounds this in comedy more.

But then the son starts having his own like euphoria CG I moments right after the woman says he's, they're going to run him over. Yes. Please tell me more because he uses. JIM VENDIOLA: The word like hit or something otherwise we'll hit you and then he has Yeah, he's a little moment.

SAMM DEIGHAN: I'm probably already on a lot of watch lists. I feel like I shouldn't say this, but it's like endearing. JIM VENDIOLA: They really pull it off. I'm like, yeah, I should not be dramatically moved in any way or at least feel like they got it right.

But here we are here, we are fucking talking about it and laughing about it and laughing about it. MIKE WHITE: Fucking Saliva makes all of these drinks that and she's just there, here's one with, I don't know, avocado and all it's like, it's such a wide variety of flight of different things to spit at this guy. And then she, unfortunately, she, it's a little too cocky. SAMM DEIGHAN: She winds up for a really big launch of Saliva.

And that's all she wrote. MIKE WHITE: After he said because like his euphoria moment in that is I can't, I, it can't be the real people because it's the father spits on him. I guess it's in his head. Like the father spits on him.

The wife spits on him. His boss spits on him. The cop that we just saw spits on him and then the waves come out again. But yeah, she winds up to spit from the farthest distance and just falls right off.

And we have, I think our first death in this movie, but don't worry, we're gonna get a lot more like. JIM VENDIOLA: And then instead of blood coming out of her mouth in true genre fashion, it's just all the Saliva. Oh my God. Yes.

It's, it's another magical moment so much. SAMM DEIGHAN: When the Saliva just gushes out of her mouth. That was the moment I was like, OK, I'm in, oh yeah. MIKE WHITE: There's a, there's a musical sequence she's dancing.

I love the thing how they keep like showing her coming into frame from left to right. And I'm like, oh my God, it's so good. And yeah, she's just having a great time. She seems to be having the best time in this movie.

SAMM DEIGHAN: And I love it 100%. Yeah, I like her scene is absolutely perfect, especially at the beginning when the other Dominatrix in, I think it's the queen of voices introduces her and reprimands her for not being polite enough. And time she apologizes, she just spits. JIM VENDIOLA: And she took a cab there.

MIKE WHITE: Oh, yeah. The cab driver just waiting with her big Victrola that she has, has to wind it up and of course it's got the big B on there and everything. And then after she dies, we get a documentary about the queen of Saliva suddenly and we have all these interviews with her coworkers who now are at this big pool and they have the yoga balls that you sit on or whatever those things are, but they're playing with those in the pool and of course they're black and all the floaties are black and they, it's all matching the Bondage gear and stuff.

Oh my God, it is so good. SAMM DEIGHAN: That's the set piece that I think looks the best and is the most carefully designed. I wish that there were more scenes that took place there because it is just a perfect set piece. JIM VENDIOLA: But again, they're juxtaposing the UL with the giraffes, but I do wish it looks better.

MIKE WHITE: And now he's on the run, he's got to get away because now he's got two women that are dressed like di alik or diabolic after him. I didn't expect a car chase in this film, but suddenly we have it. SAMM DEIGHAN: And yeah, we got slobber boy just leading the path, leaving a trail for me where it starts to come off the rails is in that last half an hour because they introduced some plot elements that I think don't get followed up on this guy who shows up a couple times. The first, like a guy shows up to help him and to say, or investigating this Bondage Club and you need to get out of it before they target your family and ruin your life.

But the first, the first time the guy shows up, he's pretending that he wants to buy a mattress and he makes him lay down next to him on the bed to make sure it's big enough for two people. MIKE WHITE: And when he rolls over and falls off the bed, I laughed out loud again. So did I, we don't know what this guy's deal is. SAMM DEIGHAN: Am I wrong?

Does he not? He doesn't show back up, right? MIKE WHITE: He's, he's the one that shows up and calls him slobber boy. SAMM DEIGHAN: I thought yes.

And he says he's going to help him. He lets him take his motorcycle and then I think he just disappears. MIKE WHITE: Yeah, I wanna say he answers the phone at some point when they're trying to find him trying to find our main character. But I could be wrong about that.

SAMM DEIGHAN: But they never, it like my impression was, oh, we're going to meet some sort of rival organization trying to take down the Bondage Club. But then that never happens. MIKE WHITE: That he takes Arashi the son away. And I don't know if we ever see Arashi.

We do see Arashi again in the final sequence of the movie. So he must be all right. And we'll get there with the final sequence of the movie. But yeah, we don't really see him, hand the kid back over again.

There's a lot of stuff happening in this last bit is I'm on a mission to fight antisocial elements. No time to explain. JIM VENDIOLA: I wonder if it was cut down. It could be in meadow fashion because the censors did want to cut it down or do something to it.

SAMM DEIGHAN: That would really make sense. And I almost feel this movie's tagline should be like it got too kinky and now you're upset. What's the to him? MIKE WHITE: Yeah, Aashi runs away that the government guy gives our main character his motorcycle and while that's going on, Aashi runs past this gate and does he go to the hospital or does our main character go to the hospital?

I think he goes to the hospital after he has his euphoria moment when the woman is yelling at him on the street about how he almost hit him. SAMM DEIGHAN: I think you're right. I think Arashi goes to the hospital. MIKE WHITE: Because there's his story going on though.

Not as much. There's our main character story and then back at the pool, our guy who we thought was representing the Bondage Club finds out that the CEO is going to come and take care of business and of course he just panics to hell and we get to see her plane come in and holy shit. I was unfamiliar with this actress before. I am not a big wrestling guy but Lindsay Hayward.

How tall is she? She's got to be over 7 ft tall. 69. JIM VENDIOLA: She's supposed to be character is supposed to be 7 ft 7 ft tall, 7 ft tall.

She's 69 and she's actually the Guinness world record holder for tallest woman in a leading role. SAMM DEIGHAN: But apparently it's George Eastman. MIKE WHITE: Yeah, it makes sense because she's wearing heels and also she's surrounded by and this is not supposed to be offensive, but she is surrounded by Japanese women. So when she comes in and inspects the troops at one point, she's walking past all of these women dressed in that same diabolic ninja mask type stuff.

It's just, oh my God, she towers over everyone. JIM VENDIOLA: It's like the totally Yeah. No, it's like the visual site gag from fucking Mr Baseball and lost in translation where you like put a tall white dude among a bunch of Japanese people. And in this case, it's obviously like Hayward.

But no, it's so fun. Also. Apparently she is three quarters of an inch shorter now because of a slip disc oh, poor thing. SAMM DEIGHAN: Probably from the explosive ending of this film.

It could be. Although I don't, I don't know if either of you will remember this, but there's this amazing nineties sketch comedy show called The State. MIKE WHITE: Oh God, yes. SAMM DEIGHAN: Her arrival reminded me so much and I haven't seen this in over a decade, if not more.

But there's this hilarious episode of the State where there's this whole thing, they're working in this fast food restaurant and everyone is terrified of the owner showing up. It's like first the manager comes and they're scared of the manager. But when the owner shows up, that's when shit gets real. And it reminded me so much of when she shows up and everyone's just running in terror only to, only for her to jump in the pool several times so many times.

What the fuck at first I thought because so I watched this on Toby, which I don't understand how they have every single film. Like, how do they pay licensing fees? Let's not ask. But I thought that maybe for a second, there was some sort of glitch because it just keeps repeating.

But it's just when you realize what they're doing, it just gets funnier and funnier. It's like she's raged face diving in the pool. MIKE WHITE: I believe it's when Arashi comes to the hospital and it goes in and I'm guessing it's the hospital where his mom is at. Maybe question Mark.

I think it's him going in and she is the Queen Of Gobbling bitch is the funniest special effect. It looks like like a Yokai type thing. Like the, I'm trying to remember the Takashi Mike Film War was like the all of monsters Yokai monsters. Yeah.

And she looks like one of those. She has this huge face and it's just like feet sticking out of her mouth and trying to fight and everything and I'm just like, I didn't expect Vor to be in this movie. There you go. Another, there it is.

Yeah. JIM VENDIOLA: Another kink hashtag representation. SAMM DEIGHAN: I would say typically in any erotic or B DS film, if I heard that there's a character named the Queen Of Gobbling. This is not what I would have imagined, but it's, that's so funny.

MIKE WHITE: And yeah, also I think she shows up at one point and eats our main character's father before he then has perfect headshots to her and the queen of voices because yeah, that's the whole Terminator two sequence, the pool jumping the CEO calling him up to scream at him. And at first I was like, is she a terrible actress or is this just, we're playing it over the top and I think we're just playing it over the top. I don't know, I haven't seen her in anything else, but I think she just is screaming and yelling on purpose and really just every time she's on screen, she just gets louder and.

SAMM DEIGHAN: Louder I think maybe Jim said this earlier. She's not a person, she's like the Kaiju final boss and she, all she does is scream and do rage related things. JIM VENDIOLA: And now it's perfect for her character perfectly performed. And she's like, in a few other things which I haven't seen.

So she can't be like that consistently in like five different things. Maybe she can, maybe that's her thing. MIKE WHITE: And it's so nice that I believe it was the queen of voices or maybe it was the goblin queen left a whole case of grenades at the house. So our hero so convenient, our hero gets to lob grenades at all of the ninjas that are about to attack all to the strains of Beethoven.

And when our final boss faces off with our hero and he, as he's flinging the grenades, that's when he has his euphoria moment. And we get like a flashback to the guy who runs the whole Bondage organization. And I don't remember him saying this whole thing about in the end, a masochist becomes a sadist because when he faces off with the CEO, we don't see what happens, but we see those marks, those euphoria marks and then they all start to get timed out to the fourth movement of the ninth. And suddenly it's the ode to joy with those little beep, beep, beep.

SAMM DEIGHAN: It's so good. I really wish that they would have shown what was going on inside the cabin if only to have a little homage to Ichi The killer where he is, of course, this violent, unpredictable sadist who just can't help himself. JIM VENDIOLA: No, totally. I love the montage cut to ode to joy.

I wish it was like, I wish it was better. Like, when I watched it again I was just, there doesn't really seem to be a logic to the way that they're assembling these images. But it's fun nonetheless. And it's a satisfying enough culmination what's been going on in this movie.

But I'm like this, I remember this movie being a little more bonkers than the montage right now. SAMM DEIGHAN: I didn't love it, but it's way funnier than I was prepared for. I think it just comes apart at the end because it does go into that kind of Tokyo Gore police territory where there's a lot of CG I and the violence is so over the top as to be cartoonish, maybe in a sloppy way, but still very funny. MIKE WHITE: I guess he has such a good time with the CEO that he gets pregnant because the guy who runs Bondage, I'm trying to remember what he says, but it almost sounds like the masochist gives birth to the superior sadist.

And I'm like, oh, does he literally mean give birth? Because I thought our main character was turning from a masochist to a sadist in that scene like the, what's happening behind that those walls where the lights are glowing and the euphoria is coming out and we're hearing ode to joy. Is this what's happening? But I'm thinking it's more literal that he is going to give birth to the superior sadist now and now he's pregnant with the superior sadist.

JIM VENDIOLA: Yeah. It's like a fucking prophecy. Which is like, what else are they gonna do for the end of this movie? Let's just listen.

Big supernatural element. SAMM DEIGHAN: Have some adorable family photos. MIKE WHITE: The music's all jaunty, crazy, happy. You know, I'm like, whoa, this music is nuts.

Then we get a shot inside of the movie theater where our director smiles, his eyes turn black, his cheeks get all puffy and he has his little moment of ecstasy right there. But there is a nice stinger scene after the credits where it's the five people that have been watching this movie that we've been watching standing around still and just angry that they had to put up with this whole thing. JIM VENDIOLA: Not us, not us. SAMM DEIGHAN: No, we're laughing.

MIKE WHITE: I had a great time. This was so much fun, Jim. Thank you so much for this. JIM VENDIOLA: I'm so glad and I'm glad we were able to Yeah, continue.

I think with the exception of last year at Marion be every other time we've recorded, it's been some like ink related or B DS M related thing. MIKE WHITE: To Sam's Point. Yeah, it's kinky. They're dressed as dominatrices and everything, but it's not what we have been playing with.

This isn't like a duke of burgundy. This isn't real B DS M, it's like all the trappings of it. And I think at first it's supposed to be like, isn't this outrageous? But then it becomes outrageous in a different way.

It becomes outrageous rather than, oh, this is shocking or something. It becomes outrageously funny and using some of these trappings of B DS M, oh, you're not supposed to ask questions. The guy is just supposed to be passive and let this happen and it just takes it and plays with that theme to me. At least that's how I'm seeing stuff.

SAMM DEIGHAN: Yeah, I definitely saw it the same way. And it's funny because a lot of the negative critiques that I saw when I glanced at the Letterbox reviews were basically, it made me feel like maybe some of them didn't actually finish the film because it was very, what is with this weird use of S and M and why is this film trying to be so shocking just for the sake of being shocking? And it's, it's not trying to be shocking at all. It's trying to be hilarious.

MIKE WHITE: Right? At first I was expecting another, what was that movie? Tokyo Decadence? Remember that one?

And where it was like, oh this woman she's doing this and da da, da da da. And it was like so controversial when that was showing back in the early nineties I wanna say and I was like, oh boy. Is this gonna be another thing? Is he gonna eat out of a dog bowl and all this kind of stuff or is it going to be getting to your point, Jim is gonna turn into audition?

Like, what's gonna happen with this thing and that they went so far away from my expectations and I honestly hope that people haven't listened to this podcast without seeing the movie because it is such a treat to have that comedy exposed and just to be like, whoa, I didn't expect this whether they're, whether somebody is as stupid as I am and it takes him like 30 40 minutes to figure it out or catch on a lot quicker. I still think that it's such a great ride to be on to have that exposed to you. SAMM DEIGHAN: Yes. So I honestly, I feel bad because any time I tried to say something about a scene during this episode, I just wound up making myself laugh.

JIM VENDIOLA: That should be an endorsement enough. You don't even need to listen to what we're saying. Turn the episode off, watch the fucking. SAMM DEIGHAN: Movie and then listen to the episode and then make you laugh all over again.

JIM VENDIOLA: No, it is the type of movie where you just recall it and you're like, I can't believe like my eyeballs like looked at that and I have to laugh again like the slobber boy thing, him dangling in that fucking closet. I kid you not like I just did not know when I was gonna stop like laughing from that. The first time I saw that unbelievable. MIKE WHITE: The blindfold that they have on both of them has like the big goofy eyes on it.

So at first is this is funny that they're putting this blindfold on our main character. But then when they have the miniature version for Rashi, they just have it, they have it in their kit and he doesn't even take the blindfold and ball gag out when he throws the kid in the car to believe some doesn't put any clothes on the kid because Arashi is walking around for the rest of the movie in his underwear. Yeah, like you said Sam at first I was like, oh yeah, this could be like a, like an Ozu or Mizuguchi film with like family drama and all this kind of stuff.

The wife's been away for three years. This guy's only outlet is this club. And what happens when the family finds out? Or will they find out?

And we have to keep this secret? Yeah, it's not that, it's not that movie. SAMM DEIGHAN: And you know what, I'm happy about that right now. I think I definitely needed a movie that made me laugh as hard as this one does.

MIKE WHITE: I've seen Big Man Japan. I haven't seen the director's other two films, Symbol and I'm trying to remember the name of the other one. Scabbard Samurai. So one of the old I've seen.

Yeah, I gotta check those out because I, if I had that much fun with this and I remember liking Big Man Japan. I don't remember loving it, but I remember liking it quite a bit and also just that idea of because it's like the Big Man Japan people hate him. Right? Because he keeps destroying stuff.

I think so. It's been a while since I've seen the movie, but I'd like to check that out and I didn't realize it's the director as big man himself. SAMM DEIGHAN: I feel like that's typical Steven Chow fashion is if you're gonna helm something, you also need to be front and center, 100%. MIKE WHITE: We're going to take a break and play a preview for next week's show right after these brief messages.

Speaker 9: Had you been mash who you at this? So see.

Speaker 10: St I know ST ID, you give us, you give it's a ah I see you the night. MIKE WHITE: See, that's right. We'll be back next week with a look at Satoshi Khan's Millennium actress where we will have a lot more earthquakes, real ones this time. Until then.

I want to thank my co-host Jim and Sam. So Sam, what is the latest with. SAMM DEIGHAN: You we recently did for my podcast Twitch of The Death Nerve. An episode.

That's a total change of pace opposite from this one about solo that I am very proud of. And our next episode, I don't know if it will be live by the time this goes live. But a certain projection booth host will be on our next episode. So pay attention to both of those.

And I guess the only other thing is a book that I co-wrote and co edited that Mike also contributed to called Revolution In 35 millimeter is up for preorder and will be out in the fall. So I will be annoyingly plugging that heavily for most of this year. MIKE WHITE: Hell yeah, I'll be sure to add a link to the show notes for that one. And Jim, what's happening in your world a.

JIM VENDIOLA: Little while back. I produced a short that was a, it's a body horror short about kombucha. And so that's starting to make the festival rounds and we just got news of a pretty special premiere which I can't talk about. So that's cool.

That's directed by Jake Myers. And as far as my stuff, I just got into talks with a producer about doing like a horror anthology. And so that is to be discussed further, but it has a really fun theme which I can't mention now, unfortunately, but it's gonna be fun. I'm excited about that.

A TV show that I have in development that had some support from Warner Brothers a few years back is still making the rounds and we're having fun conversations about that. So maybe that's a TV show people will get to watch at some point and I can stop taking meetings about it endlessly over the course of years. Just like the two feature films I have that I've been working on forever. But the feature I'm most excited about that I might be able to shoot this year is Queer body horror.

Thing that's Catan meets seconds. A lot of slow burn things. MIKE WHITE: So nice. How's your pickle?

JIM VENDIOLA: Pickle is like out in the world? It's been online since last summer and it just had the little one off screening in New York. When was that Sam? In January?

That's when Sam and I met for the first time. Cool. SAMM DEIGHAN: Seems like it was six months ago. But yes, January, you know, it was only two months ago.

Jesus 2024 a hell of a year so far. MIKE WHITE: What a ride. Thank you so much folks for being on the show. Thanks to everybody for listening.

If you want to hear more of me shooting off my mouth, check out some of the other shows that I work on. They're all available at Weirding Way Media.com. Thanks especially to our Patreon community. If you want to join the community visit patreon.com/projection booth.

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Speaker 8: Is the I like it.