Beautiful, yet sickly, Otsuyu (Setsuko Ogawa) and her
handmaid, Omine (Hidemi Hara), are walking home in the rain. Otsuyu stops to take a rest under a small
shelter, and a handsome samurai named Shinzaburo (Hajime Tanimoto) gives the
pair an umbrella to shield their walk home.
Otsuyu and Shinzaburo are smitten with each other, and Omine aids her
mistress to bring the two together. Otsuyu
is the daughter of a wealthy but widowed samurai, and the head of the
household, Oyone (Yoshie Kitsuda), is plotting to kill her master and his
daughter in order to share his wealth with her lover. Omine eventually brings the two lovers
together, and they consummate their love.
Oyone takes the opportunity to tattle upon her mistress which forces the
young couple’s confrontation with an enraged father. Incensed that the meager samurai (he makes
umbrellas for a living) has seduced his daughter under the roof of his home, he
pulls his sword and strikes down his daughter.
Shinzaburo removes himself to his home, heartbroken, while Oyone is
successful in killing both Omine and her master. On August 13 [a Japanese holiday, Obon, where the living commemorate their
dead ancestors], Otsuyu appears at Shinzaburo’s door for Shinzaburo to keep his
promise: to consummate his eternal love for Otsuyu.
Thomas and Yuko Mihara Weisser write in Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films, “Although a period
film, director Sone’s fairytale
stylings provided the movie a visionary charm which appealed to the college
crowd. Students embraced it as a
cutting-edge movie, turning this venture into Nikkatsu’s first youth-oriented pinku eiga hit. At the same time, Chusei Sone’s camerawork
was hailed for its creativity by numerous tough critics. The film won many industry awards and became
a bonafide hit.” (*)
Indeed there is a true juvenile spirit to Hellish Love. Ogawa and Tanimoto, who play the two lovers,
are young and attractive and their courting reflects this: when Omine is able to get Shinzaburo to
visit, she is unable to get Otsuyu to leave her room: Otsuyu covers herself with her blanket,
afraid that the handsome samurai will not like her. Likewise, brooding Shinzaburo sits alone in
his workshop, afraid to go and visit the young beauty, because how can the
daughter of a wealthy samurai ever be interested in a meager and lowly
one? Of course, adults are the ones who
really fuck things up for the youngsters:
they are the plotters and schemers, like Oyone; the killers, like
Otsuyu’s father; or meddlers, like the couple of dimwits who live next door to
Shinzaburo. The ending of Hellish Love would be a tragedy: however, almost all of the adults in the film
die from nefarious means; and in ironic fashion, the ending for the young
couple actually elevates them above the rest.
Chusei Sone’s camerawork is stellar. In Otsuyu and Shinzaburo’s fateful love
scene, Sone composes the couple behind a dressing screen. With a close-up, his camera focuses on the
curled toes of Otsuyu in an ecstatic moment and pans quickly across the
dressing screen to capture the look of pleasure in her face. Sone’s eroticism is built primarily through
tension: a glance or a naked shoulder captured takes upon a lot of weight. [Indeed, when Otsuyu completely removes her
kimono in her love scene with Shinzaburo, the two bodies are completely
obscured by optical blurring. Little
nudity was shown possibly due to censorship.]
Most of the sets are austere. The
characters and their fetishes stand out:
Otsuyu’s combs and sashes and Shinzaburo’s sword and umbrellas. The settings feel organic which makes Hellish Love focus more upon its
characters, which in turn make the film much more intimate.
Despite the fact that Hellish
Love is a pinku eiga film, it
hardly seems an exploitation film. It is
only an exploitation film, because it has more than one love scene and has
nudity. However, Sone’s eroticism, I
believe, elevates Hellish Love above
the exploitation elk and creates compelling cinema. Hellish
Love is no longer provocative today:
in fact, I would go so far to say that it is shy eroticism. Sone’s direction and the performances by the
actors give Hellish Love from me a
high recommendation.
* Vital Books,
Inc. Asian Cult Cinema
Publications. Miami, Florida. 1998: p.133.
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