'Akai tenshi' is one of those films you see and you suddenly realise where so many strands of modern cinema have their roots. The images on the screen morph into that latest multiplex blockbuster, art-house cult or imported favourite. Here is the ancestor of the recent Japanese horror boom. There is a 'war is hell'/'madness of war' theme of a distinctly Vientnamesque cast. There's drug dependency, gang rape and there's more than a flavour of Tarantino. And this was made in 1966.
The start is where the grotesquerie starts. This is a field hospital in a bloody war. A charnel house with en suite morgue. The doctors struggle to keep up. Buckets fill with amputated limbs, often chopped off with out anaesthetic. Worse still the sounds of a surgical knife going through a thigh followed by a bone saw through femur. And concordant with the obscenities of mass butchery, the emotional detachment of the doctors, nurses, orderlies and soldiers staffing the hospital. This is hell. It's not just the gore either. There is body horror. Multiple amputees struggle to cope with their new status. Bandaged stumps are waggled and examined by their owners. The camera doesn't flinch though the audience might.
The only women at the hospital are the nurses and they are surrounded by large numbers of traumatised, men who've recently been trying to kill other men. Order is poorly maintained, the social structures within the hospital are on the edge of collapse. It seems gang rape of the nurses is the rule rather than the exception, something that the protagonist experience very early on in the film. Rarely is this side of men's nature put on film. Recently I can only think of '28 Days Later'. It is an important question to ask. Will groups of men always act like this? Why? Are all men are rapists, or do all women fear that they are? Unfortunately the film doesn't answer this, but is content to add in as another level of hell that Nurse Nishi must endure. She endures it rather too stoically.
Underlying all of the horror and gore there is a strong undercurrent of sexuality. And the films seems to wear its maleness on it sleeve in this department. There are all sorts of fantasies from dark to pitch black. Cross-dressing, bondage, submission, sex with amputees, gang-rape. There is a rather richer fantasy of the woman bringing a man back to potency purely with the power of her sexuality. Nurse Nishi is a strongly sexual character and largely in charge of her own desires, except in the rape scenes. Ultimately this is an exploitation picture, but a very classy one.
The best part of this film is just how little is shown for the impact that you get. There are one or two gratuitous shots of gore and under lifted skirts. Mostly though the horror and erotic content is implied or shot well. There is no nudity, Nurse Nishi is viewed naked in shadow or through mosquito nets. Most of the horror is in the sound, the writing of the victims on the surgical table, the struggles of a single nurse against large groups of men, or simply the word: 'cholera'. This is a disturbingly erotic and exploitative tale of sex, madness, war that will haunt you in many ways.
The start is where the grotesquerie starts. This is a field hospital in a bloody war. A charnel house with en suite morgue. The doctors struggle to keep up. Buckets fill with amputated limbs, often chopped off with out anaesthetic. Worse still the sounds of a surgical knife going through a thigh followed by a bone saw through femur. And concordant with the obscenities of mass butchery, the emotional detachment of the doctors, nurses, orderlies and soldiers staffing the hospital. This is hell. It's not just the gore either. There is body horror. Multiple amputees struggle to cope with their new status. Bandaged stumps are waggled and examined by their owners. The camera doesn't flinch though the audience might.
The only women at the hospital are the nurses and they are surrounded by large numbers of traumatised, men who've recently been trying to kill other men. Order is poorly maintained, the social structures within the hospital are on the edge of collapse. It seems gang rape of the nurses is the rule rather than the exception, something that the protagonist experience very early on in the film. Rarely is this side of men's nature put on film. Recently I can only think of '28 Days Later'. It is an important question to ask. Will groups of men always act like this? Why? Are all men are rapists, or do all women fear that they are? Unfortunately the film doesn't answer this, but is content to add in as another level of hell that Nurse Nishi must endure. She endures it rather too stoically.
Underlying all of the horror and gore there is a strong undercurrent of sexuality. And the films seems to wear its maleness on it sleeve in this department. There are all sorts of fantasies from dark to pitch black. Cross-dressing, bondage, submission, sex with amputees, gang-rape. There is a rather richer fantasy of the woman bringing a man back to potency purely with the power of her sexuality. Nurse Nishi is a strongly sexual character and largely in charge of her own desires, except in the rape scenes. Ultimately this is an exploitation picture, but a very classy one.
The best part of this film is just how little is shown for the impact that you get. There are one or two gratuitous shots of gore and under lifted skirts. Mostly though the horror and erotic content is implied or shot well. There is no nudity, Nurse Nishi is viewed naked in shadow or through mosquito nets. Most of the horror is in the sound, the writing of the victims on the surgical table, the struggles of a single nurse against large groups of men, or simply the word: 'cholera'. This is a disturbingly erotic and exploitative tale of sex, madness, war that will haunt you in many ways.