Perfectly adorable
Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction
View MoreThis film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
View MoreIt’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
View MoreFreeze Me is primarily a suspense thriller, deriving from rape.Chihiro (Harumi Inoue) moves to Tokyo in the aftermath of being raped by three men. They find her, invade her apartment, and rape her again, making it clear that she will never escape them. One by one she invites them back, under the pretext of having been "converted", murders them, and stores their bodies in freezers. She also murders her boyfriend, and the ending is somewhat non-specific.The film has a number of qualities. Although the rapes are not very explicit, they are nonetheless disturbing and Inoue, who spends some time naked, does an excellent job of conveying the mindset of a rape victim whose actions follow on from having had it made clear to her that she will never escape.Her Tokyo apartment is very claustrophobic, and this adds immeasurably to the suspense which starts to build, particularly following the first murder.There is also humour - the more bodies she freezes, the greater the electricity consumption, and she has to start rotating the electricity supply to her freezers so as not to blow fuses.Overall, a highly unusual, and gripping movie.
View MoreSome kinda warped film from Takashi Ishii which represents female retaliation at it's strangest. Chihiro(Harumi Inoue)has made a warm existence for herself since being horribly raped by three thugs five years prior, including her own Childhood friend, Hirokawa(Kazuki Kitamura). She has a promising future with Nogami(Shunsuke Matsuoka)and works with him. But, Chihiro's life will swing into an unexpected nightmare when Hirokawa finds her and brutalizes her both physically and mentally. He tells her the other two, Baba(Naoto Takenaka, a formidable presence that is quite scary)& Kojima(Shingo Tsurumi)are wanting to re-unite with Chihiro as well. One by one will damage her in one way or another and each will pay the price for their sins because through all the mistreatment creates a monster. Chihiro's comfortable life that was changes when Nogami finds out about Hirokawa and her past rape. She will descend slowly into madness as the awful circumstances shape her into a cold-blooded killer..and then some. The film's main power derives from how she treats those three after exacting revenge for their wrong-doing towards her.Potent, haunting, and unrelenting. In a sense, the film holds a grip on you as you wonder how anyone could ever survive from what Chihiro is put through. She's certainly put through the ringer as Chihiro is pretty much assaulted in every imaginable way..her very humanity taken away as she is forced into difficult positions by cruel men with only one thing in mind. The title provides us with an irony that's all too tragic. One thing Takashi Ishii doesn't do is submerge us into the horrible details of what happens to her. He does it through smoke and mirrors setting the camera up in proper places where we get a general idea of what is taking place without rubbing our nose in it. No doubt, Ishii cares for this character and the tragedy leaves a sadness despite Chihiro getting her retribution.
View MoreWhile similar in plot to a revenge movie, this is actually a survival movie. I liked it for its intensity: it doesn't take long to get going, and keeps nonstop tension for the next hour or so. Although it reaches its emotional climax a full half-hour before the end, there's enough tension built up by then to carry it through. It concerns a young lady who's confronted by a gang of men who had raped her five years before. The second meeting is no accident, they've sought after her to victimize her some more. Rape is not a crime of sexual gratification, it's a crime of humiliating domination over another person. That said, Chihiro is just the kind of timid soul who can easily be dominated: she doesn't have the courage to do the sensible thing, instead simply hoping the whole thing will go away. It doesn't, of course, and she's forced into action out of self-preservation. It often reminds me of Miike's earlier film, "Audition". That is said to have a strong message about the treatment of women in Japanese society, and I see this as another side of the same coin: a woman who has had a disabling stigma of shame placed on her, and has to struggle to overcome it. While the ensuing violence is certainly justified, it is not glorified. There is no real victory in this movie. While the things she is subjected to are revolting, the camera is thankfully restrained. Most of the violence against her is offscreen, and even the original attack is shown only in fragments, as a series of flashbacks. There is a lot of nudity here, but I don't see it as exploitational. First of all, it's very much a sex-themed movie, so nudity is pretty much a given. Most of it occurs in the shower: she spends an awful lot of time trying to wash herself clean. The movie does offer plenty of messages, but they're not uplifting or inspiring ones at all: more indictments of double standards in the treatment of women. I thought this was a terrific movie, and one that sticks with you, marred only by some truly awful English-language dubbing (at least, in the version I saw). A movie like this depends on a strong lead actress to carry it, and the voice actress in the U.S. version is just really not any good at all.
View MoreI like this movie because it will make people think. What society should do for protecting women from abusement? Who will be charge for taking the responsibility for this kind of matter? Or there is nothing we can do about this? A girl who had been raped by a few guys in school could not escape from the past after entering the society. The rapers kept coming to her...... The girl has a bitter life which she can not really control what is happening. That is a shame!!We should do something for women!!!In fact, the girl is not a kind character by which the screenwriter made. But if she is a girlfriend of one of us, what we could do? Just simply give up her? we should really think after seeing this movie!
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