Cold fish.
A meek fish store owner, Syamoto, is living with his busty new wife and his daughter, both of who hate each other. Things are pretty tense at home, especially when his daughter is caught shoplifting. However, things seem to improve when he meets the charismatic Murata, owner of a rival fish store who smooths things over allowing Syamoto to save face. Murata is even kind enough to give Syamoto's daughter a job. However the audience is made aware all is not right when Murata rapes Syamoto's wife. Eventually the meek fish shop owner realises, too late, that Murata is a serial killer with a huge body count whose wife assists in the corpse disposal (and occasional killing for her own sexual thrills) and Syamoto is soon implicated. As things progress the twisted killers begin to unlock repressed things within the mild mannered shop keeper and things then turn especially nasty.
Even by Sion sono's own standards this is one twisted little picture. Especially in its depiction of sexual violence, sadism and corpse disposal. Apparently about two thirds of the film is pretty dead on in its depiction of a real and notorious killer sat on death row. However Sono alters things somewhat in the final third to make his own dark take on Japanese family views, filtered by someone raised as Catholic in Japan. This is something that can be found in quite a few of his pictures drawing a slight comparison with Abel ferrara in my own mind. The film probably classes as a dark comedy, but its depiction of the dysfunctional Japanese family struggling to maintain the stoic traditional depiction of the traditional family unit is perhaps a little close to the bone. Especially when the shit really hits the fan in the final third.
All told this is a great movie from one of my favourite directors and comes highly recommended.
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