In what will very likely be the most brutal of the films this year, Sion Sono's latest film Cold Fish purports at the start that it's "based on a true story." Doing a little research one finds that it is based on a story of serial killers, albeit dog breeders instead of fish. But this isn't to say Sono likely doesn't take some liberties in his story, despite (or with the help of) those title cards saying what the date and time is conveniently and then when it comes to the real crunch time of madness in the climax of the film there's even a stop-watch time code on the screen running even milliseconds as to the countdown of events. It's a neat trick, perhaps the only real 'device' that Sono allows himself amid the naked honesty of the emotions of the characters.
It's the story of a two fish store owners, one the timid but 'normal' Shamoto (Mitsuru Fukikoshi) husband to a second wife (beautiful Kagurazaka) and father of a daughter who is not hers. His daughter is caught one night shoplifting but comes to the attention at the store of a loud-but-seemingly-cheery other fish store owner, Murata (Denden). He seems a little too brash to be warm, but is friendly enough to invite them over to his store, which has five times the fish and exotic ones than Shamoto's. The dynamic on the surface appears to be like out of one of those mob stories where the little shop clerk meets the Big Guy in town. Turns out it's not too far off an assumption.
After Murata somehow convinces Shamoto's daughter to become one of his 'girls' who works at the fish store (and in the midst of his 'gettin-to- know-you-family' stuff has his way with Shamoto's wife), he drags the meek guy further into his darker pastime: he kills people, he and his wife Aiko (bubbly Kurosawa), who take a body from a guy who basically looks at Murata the wrong way to chop him up into little pieces and spill the parts into the nearby river. All the while Murata seems to be enjoying himself, maniacally, along with Aiko just as messed up and giggling as the older-richer-psychopath fish-store owner bosses around his "apprentice". Shamoto doesn't know what to do. He thinks back to the Earth being 4.6 billion years old, and will end in another 4.6 billion years, staring at the stars in the planetarium...
If you're familiar with any of Sono's previous efforts- Suicide Club, Love Exposure chiefly for worse and better- you may know what to expect. Then again, maybe not. Unlike those films, Sono, in a rather wise move, doesn't sensationalize the violence and gore, and believe you me there is plenty of it to go around, since he's trying to stick to a somewhat more realistic aesthetic than the sensationalism of the epic Love Exposure. He draws out his characters more naturally, and the acting is sometimes over the top (certainly from Denden, who chews up scenery faster than Sono can dish out lines for him to bark), but not to the point where we're drawn out of the film's weirder moments... that is until the last half hour, when it goes into total Gonzo-mode. This is especially helpful as Sono is dealing with some highly dramatic things on screen: abuse, rape, insanity, the works.
It might be telling that the poster image of the film is almost identical (and probably not by accident) to the one for Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, also a film about a man bottling up everything inside and then it exploding when pushed to the edge. For the Japanese, and for a character as emotionally bottled up as Shamoto, who's only release is looking at the stars, a guy like Murata is both the best and worst thing that's ever happened to him (best as in he does finally open up emotionally, worst in that his life will forever be in misery and madness). Cold Weather is extreme in violence and subject matter, but it has strong points about human responsibility and familial dysfunction.
It's the story of a two fish store owners, one the timid but 'normal' Shamoto (Mitsuru Fukikoshi) husband to a second wife (beautiful Kagurazaka) and father of a daughter who is not hers. His daughter is caught one night shoplifting but comes to the attention at the store of a loud-but-seemingly-cheery other fish store owner, Murata (Denden). He seems a little too brash to be warm, but is friendly enough to invite them over to his store, which has five times the fish and exotic ones than Shamoto's. The dynamic on the surface appears to be like out of one of those mob stories where the little shop clerk meets the Big Guy in town. Turns out it's not too far off an assumption.
After Murata somehow convinces Shamoto's daughter to become one of his 'girls' who works at the fish store (and in the midst of his 'gettin-to- know-you-family' stuff has his way with Shamoto's wife), he drags the meek guy further into his darker pastime: he kills people, he and his wife Aiko (bubbly Kurosawa), who take a body from a guy who basically looks at Murata the wrong way to chop him up into little pieces and spill the parts into the nearby river. All the while Murata seems to be enjoying himself, maniacally, along with Aiko just as messed up and giggling as the older-richer-psychopath fish-store owner bosses around his "apprentice". Shamoto doesn't know what to do. He thinks back to the Earth being 4.6 billion years old, and will end in another 4.6 billion years, staring at the stars in the planetarium...
If you're familiar with any of Sono's previous efforts- Suicide Club, Love Exposure chiefly for worse and better- you may know what to expect. Then again, maybe not. Unlike those films, Sono, in a rather wise move, doesn't sensationalize the violence and gore, and believe you me there is plenty of it to go around, since he's trying to stick to a somewhat more realistic aesthetic than the sensationalism of the epic Love Exposure. He draws out his characters more naturally, and the acting is sometimes over the top (certainly from Denden, who chews up scenery faster than Sono can dish out lines for him to bark), but not to the point where we're drawn out of the film's weirder moments... that is until the last half hour, when it goes into total Gonzo-mode. This is especially helpful as Sono is dealing with some highly dramatic things on screen: abuse, rape, insanity, the works.
It might be telling that the poster image of the film is almost identical (and probably not by accident) to the one for Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, also a film about a man bottling up everything inside and then it exploding when pushed to the edge. For the Japanese, and for a character as emotionally bottled up as Shamoto, who's only release is looking at the stars, a guy like Murata is both the best and worst thing that's ever happened to him (best as in he does finally open up emotionally, worst in that his life will forever be in misery and madness). Cold Weather is extreme in violence and subject matter, but it has strong points about human responsibility and familial dysfunction.