User reviews

I usually find it positive if I can't categorize a movie and Jigoku surely gets the point from that. It's somewhat bizarre combination of drama, horror, film noir and art house where happy moments are more rare than good movies in Hollywood.

While the hell sequences of Jigoku seem to gather most of the attention I think that the story as a whole is what makes this movie good. It proceeds fluently from disaster to another and while some events lead to unexpected results the script never leaves a viewer with a feeling that the twist was added just for the twist's sake (as is the case with many new movies).

Technically the movie is awesome; good acting, great score (especially the haunting vocals) and beautiful cinematography. From modern perspective some of the hell sequences are way outdated (mainly the demons) while some look brilliant even today (settings like the river bank and some of the gore effects like the guy who gets flayed).

I doubt that Jigoku pleases everyone but if you're into bleak and uncompromising movies this is almost a must see. 8/10

I had read about and seen stills from this movie for years. I had heard how freaky and bloody and scary this movie's vision of hell was, but I never got a chance to actually see it. Finally I was able to secure a copy and I sat down to watch the horror.

For the first hour of this film we watch as our hero lives a life that is more or less a living hell. More horrible, terrible things befall him and those around him than anyone outside of a soap opera has a right to expect. Very act is bound to damn someone to hell and it isn't long before our guilt ridden hero crosses over and experiences what true torment is. Its enough to make you want to laugh were it not played so painfully straight.

What we see once we get to Hell itself looks great. Even some 40 years after it first marched across theater some of the shots of flayed flesh and disemboweled intestines are still shocking. The cramped and dark vistas are something out of a nightmare. Many tormented images you'd almost be proud to have on your walls.

Is it scary a bit but its not the be all and end all that some had made it out to be. Then again the films images have been raided by others so it less shocking. I also find that some of the pacing is off and what may have once worked now borders on tedious.

The film seems to be saying that all life, here or in the next world is miserable hellish and that no matter what we do we're doomed simply to suffer. A happy little film if there ever was one.

I like the film but far from love it. The first part is very soapy and over blown, while the second is almost a catalog of horrors. I give it points for trying but I don't think it completely works.

Should you see it?

A coin toss. It really depends on what you're looking for. If you're looking, for gore and guts, its here but not enough to make you walk away happy. Are you looking for a meditation on sin, guilt and existence, you may like it, especially if you can get past the soap. If you want to see a technically well made film that doesn't quite work but influenced later films and which will provide some discussion over dinner, then try it.

I give it 7 out of 10 for the parts more than the whole.

Words can't aptly describe the assault on the senses that is JIGOKU but I'll try anyway: over-used phrases like fascinating, surreal, disturbing and unique instantly come to mind - but the film is all of these and more. By now, I have a fair number of strange Japanese films under my belt - but this one's something else entirely!

From the stylized approach (shooting from odd angles and the occasional adoption of a greenish hue) to its plethora of arresting imagery (especially the gruesome body piercing - sword through neck, eye-gouging, feet stamping on huge needles, torso sawed in half, etc.), director/co-writer Nakagawa's vision of Hell is surely among the most visceral ever depicted on the screen. While its concept of establishing sections (or circles) of punishment for specific crimes goes all the way back to Dante Alighieri - though, as mentioned in the film itself, Buddhism has its own take on the subject - cinematically it anticipates the one seen in the Coffin Joe outing THIS NIGHT I'LL POSSESS YOUR CORPSE (1966). Still, with respect to both the microcosmic viewpoint of the plot and the film's vivid color scheme, it also reminded me of GOKE - BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL (1968), while its essential nihilism (I literally lost count of the number of people killed off during the first hour!) looks forward to BLIND BEAST (1969).

The doppelganger element - in the DVD's main supplement, a 39-minute featurette, it's mentioned that the script was partly inspired by the Faust legend - heightens the film's already disquieting aura: Yoichi Numata as an emissary of Hell in human form (though he's not spared the painful retribution for his sins once the scene shifts to the netherworld) is especially effective; interestingly, the actor was disappointed by his own performance and admits now that he couldn't understand the role! However, I need to point out that - much like I had written of Ingmar Bergman's THE RITE (1969) - the plot reaches a level of implausible melodrama as to feel almost like a parody (even more so when considering the various characters' penchant for bursting into sentimental songs a' la the work of John Ford!).

Anyway, while I found the DVD transfer somewhat dark, I'm glad to say that the copy I own is the 'Second Pressing' - this means that the problem concerning a 2-minute sequence, which previously got skipped when watching the disc on a DVD player, has now been fixed. Originally intended for Eclipse, Criterion's sub-label - back when it was supposed to release little-known genre/exploitation titles - I feel that the film is important enough to warrant its place in the official Collection.

The bits from GHOST STORY OF YOTSUYA (1959) shown in the featurette were very intriguing and, hopefully, won't be too long in coming; still, I was equally itching to learn more about the various 'B' horror films by Nakagawa and production company Shintoho (which had actually started out by making such masterworks of World Cinema as Akira Kurosawa's STRAY DOG [1949] and Kenji Mizoguchi's THE LIFE OF OHARU [1952]!) whose posters form the extensive still gallery...

Although I have to admit that I'd never heard of the film prior to Criterion's DVD announcement, Chuck Stephens - in his rather pretentious essay in the accompanying booklet (though he perceptively suggests that the pairing of the dead yakuza's mother and girlfriend may well have anticipated the deadly female relatives of ONIBABA [1964]) - believes that JIGOKU ought to be thought of in the same terms as such horror landmarks as EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1959), BLACK Sunday (1960), PEEPING TOM (1960) and PSYCHO (1960), films which collectively brought an unprecedented maturity to the genre. Needless to say, the film's greatest influence can be seen in the gore-drenched Asian exploitation cinema which survives to this day (interestingly enough, JIGOKU was itself remade twice over the years - in 1979 and 1999!).

Certainly not a film for everyone, 'Jigoku' combines visions of Dante, surreal art, nightmarish tortures, and of course, Japanese camp. Director Nobuo Nakagawa presents it all in a dark, dreamlike way, shocking us (mildly) with the death of characters in the first part of the movie, and ramping this up to really shocking us with his vision of the torments of hell. It's in these that the film is at its best. There are the scenes of gore which may have you cringing, but the truly memorable scenes are those which are artistic, such as the field of hands reaching up out of the ground, and the whirling torment of people circling in a frenzy. In Nakagawa's hell, there is both physical pain and mental anguish, as people endlessly seek loved ones or slog through rivers of pus and waste. Where the film is weaker is in providing reasons for why all of the characters end up in hell in the first place. While the initial setup of a hit and run accident is pretty tight, expanding this to a broader set of characters gets a little contrived. Through it all, the character of the dark and sociopathic friend is played well by Yôichi Numata, who stands out in the cast.

The kind of film that sounds really exciting, and is interesting, but you wish it were a bit better than it is. Its reputation is based mostly on the final 40 minutes, where all the characters take a vacation to the bowels of Buddhist Hell (pretty much like Christian Hell, but with more lotus flowers). The first hour or so isn't much less hellish. A college student and his wicked friend mow down a drunk gangster in their car. The student, burdened with guilt (somewhat nonsensical guilt seeing as it wasn't his fault), starts seeing tragedy occur all around him. In just the next several days, all kinds of people with whom he associates die. It's never his fault, per se, but for some reason he always blames himself. That first hour is a little boring and a little confusing – I was wondering if the guy was supposed to already be in hell. The hell part is pretty cool, but also fairly silly. What always works in Jigoku is the cinematography and art direction. This is a damn cool looking movie. I wouldn't particularly recommend it, but it's worth seeing just for the cool parts.

This movie spends half of its time in the real world and half in the afterlife. During the first half you ask "where the hell is hell anyway?". After it goes to the "real" hell, you realize that hell is all the things that went undone in the mortal coil.

You realize that if you don't want to live in hell later, don't live in "hell" now.

A great psychedelic trip without psychedelic trappings.

I guess this doesn't really belong with my more extreme reviews but for all it's stunningly beautiful scenes, it's heavily symbolic imagery and symbolism this still, even over 40 years, has a punch or two to unleash. It is for the most part a tragic tale that involves an almost laughable number of deaths and other misfortunes but hell always beckons. The last half hour or so is a considerably finely worked series of hellish landscapes with not a little graphic violence that could certainly not have been shown in the UK in 1960. Along the way there are many delights and a cool jazzy score. Fascinating, groundbreaking and most enjoyable.

I read about this movie when I was a kid. Never thought that much about it since I would probably never see it. Recently rented it off Netflix and WOW! Nakagawa's message comes through loud and clear across 46 years and the even wider cultural gap between US and Japan. Unusual stylization (truly hope to see this on a theater screen someday) is incredibly effective as a purely aesthetic experience (meaning you could turn off the subtitles and still be enthralled by the visuals and the music) AND as an elegy for the Japanese traditions of beauty and honor. You can read the various summaries in other posts. Suffice it to say this movie qualifies as a masterpiece if you don't go into it with "horror movie" expectations. See it!

I picked this one up on a lark and I was pretty underwhelmed. The opening is both stylish and genuinely creepy with its laments, wrapped corpses, and surreal hellscapes, and it segués cleverly into a college lecture hall where our protagonist, a young theology student it seems, is listening to a lecture on concepts of hell. It's by no means fair to say that it's all down hill from there, but the movie only intermittently reaches the same heights. There are deeply unsettling and scary moments, but they're balanced by lot of ho hum bits and few others that almost set one to giggling. The plot is a complete mess it pulls credulity to bits and keeps on ripping and its all so rushed that there's neither time to build any real suspense or develop the characters. This is another problem: The female lead is a stereotypical picture of what I take to be a traditional Japanese idea of womanly virtue and the protagonist is just kind of wishy washy and uninteresting. His demonic friend and tormentor Tamura steals every scene he's in; the actor was clearly having a blast chewing up the scenery. And he succeeds wonderfully in what (I presume) he's supposed to do, which is making evil look a lot more fun than our hero's imperfect handwringing sort of virtue. But of course all the plot and real world stuff is just to set up hell right? Well the hell doesn't redeem it. It's often beautiful in a sick sort of way (Brueghel has a run for his money here) and viscerally repulsive, but while it might shock and perhaps even awe the viewer at points it's more gory and repulsive than unsettling. I suppose my reaction might be culturally conditioned, perhaps it would get under the skin of a Buddhist much more than it did a (somewhat lapsed) Christian like myself, but this brings me to another point: The theology is harsh as well you know. Almost everyone's evil and even the people who've committed fairly understandable and, I'd think, forgivable sins end up in hell. I grew up in an avowedly evangelical church and their theology was much more forgiving and understanding of human weakness. Sometimes we seem to have landed in the world of those terror tracts some churches in my home town used to pass out; there's a definite air of grim disapproval (whether affected or genuine I can't tell) for the sinful modern world hanging over the thing that's so stodgy it's more than a little funny. I'll give it high marks for the visual style and for the cool jazz that floats through and most of the actors acquit themselves quite well (though some don't have too much to work with). But to say that makes a complete mess of plot, pacing, and characterization is, if anything, kind.

I must say that I was pretty disappointed with this one. I expected something much more polished and sure of itself. Instead I got a jumbled mess of what could have been a great Japanese horror film. Everything seemed kind of rushed. There is a scene when the people are mourning the loss of a loved one and people are crying, but I felt no emotion. It jumped too quickly from the last scene and for that much emotion for someone we didn't really know was too much. There are parts that are good, particularly once we are in Hell. Certain shots are set up nicely and the atmosphere in Hell is spot on yet unique. How they all get to Hell is kind of ridiculous and that kind of ruined it for me. I also didn't like the ending. There is obviously a metaphor there but I don't see it. There is a big green wheel and the main character just keeps yelling for his baby. It's not believable or pleasant really. This wasn't what I expected, and this time that is a bad thing.

Horror film about the "Buddhist Hells"(an important distinction from Christian Hell. 1. You don't go to Buddhist Hell because of any kind of God, you go because of past Karma, and you stay just as long as is necessary, for the pound of flesh to be rendered so to speak. "Naraka" the Buddhist word for Hell, we are told when the film opens means roughly "abdonimal" or "excrusiating", and though it's concept is more abstract than the Wests, it's torture's are much more specific, and would make Eli Roth blush.

The story, begins with young man, who get's in the wrong car with the wrong guy(Tamura, who just appears out of nowhere, and then usually just to cause trouble or point out others sins), who has a hit and run, with a drunken Yakuza. The two drive off, though our hero wants to go back, and from them on, everything in his life goes wrong. Girlfriend dies, mother becomes terminally ill, father revealed as an unrepentant adulterer and reprobate, a doppleganger of his girlfriend re-appears, and the girlfriend and mother of the man he killed are on his tail too, which all come together in one hellish night of murder, revenge, and accidental death that takes them all.

The next half hour to forty minutes takes place in Hell. We watch a series of spectacles from the outer depths of purgatory to the inner rings of the vortex of torment, where our Hero after meeting his wife again (who may have been his sister, it's revealed, at least one of the dopplegangers was), goes on a quest to find the soul of his brother/son, who is shown on screen as a baby riding a leaf down a river of blood.

Severed heads, flailing, a field of faces half buried (images I recognize from "What Dreams May Come" Hell sequence), and much, much, more.

Jigoku, is one of the few horror movies I've seen, that has no pre-cursors, nothing has ever looked this, though plenty have tried since. There's elements of theater, b-movie conventions, theology, sharp editing and directing, and some of the best set design I've ever seen.

Though over 60 years old, it feels surprisingly not too dated, and though bleak as any film about "Hell" could be, it's important to note that Buddhist Hell is more like a place for shedding psychic skin, than an eternal prison, as the last frame of our hero and his child on opposite ends of the wheel of torment, followed by a distant light shimmering in the darkness, would suggest.

So...not to scary, but Brilliant. One of the best horror movies ever.

Half Film Noir and half Surrealist Cinema this was an excellent film for it's time. Inovative cinematography and effective surreal imagery take us from modern 1960's Japan to the bowels of "Hell". The film is a true work of art.

Jigoku weaves the story of a young man who has a devil of a friend. He has a happy life as a good student, obedient son and beautiful, loving fiancé'. His devilish best friend has other plans for him though and takes his life into a turn for the worse in true Film Noir fashion. As the story progresses our hero is the hapless victim of a string of bad luck as his enemies and those closest to him meet their fate. Don't rue their loss however as we meet them again in the afterlife as they each fulfill their eternal destinies in the varying realms of hell. Can he save those he loves? Can he save himself? Only way to find out is to watch the film.

Jigoku is a very strange and disturbing 1960 Japanese horror film whose title literally means "Hell". The film opens with student Shiro (Shigeru Amachi) who reluctantly falls in with another student named Tamura (Yoichi Numata), despite Shiro feeling very uncomfortable with this morally void young man. When driving together one night, Tamura runs over a drunken Yakuza and kills him. Shiro, now racked with guilt, starts to see his life spinning out of control as his fiancé' (Utako Mitsuya) is killed in a car accident and his mother takes ill. Even worse, the drunk Yakuza's mother and girlfriend seek revenge and Shiro becomes surrounded with a group of people who, like him, all have sins to hide. Are Shiro and those around him truly on a path to pay for their sins? Director Nobuo Nakagawa boldly answers this question as the final act of the film literally takes place in Hell and eternal punishment is brutally given out to Shiro and the sinful individuals that came to surround him. The film takes a surreal turn as Nobuo gives us a visually haunting portrayal of hell and the diverse punishments suffered by those who find themselves there. Shiro might have been able to avoid this fate had he gone to the authorities and confessed but, now must not only suffer himself but, watch his fiancé' and their unborn child suffer as well. The other characters are also punished according to their sins and Nobuo takes us along for their suffering unflinchingly with some very disturbing sequences, some with unexpected gore. As this is 1960, most of the visuals are done in camera with just a few composite shots thus making this film even more effective. Jigoku may not be for everyone. It is a slow paced film but, that serves the story as we experience Shiro's guilt and the lack of morality by those around him, then are taken to Hell with them to see them receive their punishment. And it is a visually stunning and very unsettling trip if you're up to it. A bold and haunting example of 60s Japanese Horror cinema. 7/10

The student Shirô Shimizu (Shigeru Amachi) is in love with his girlfriend Yukiko (Utako Mitsuya) and they want to get married. While returning home with his evil friend Tamura (Yôichi Numata) driving their car, they hit and run the Yakuza Kyôichi (Hiroshi Izumida). Kyôichi's mother and wife seek them out to revenge the death of Kyôichi. Meanwhile Shirô decides to turn himself in to the police and he takes a taxi with Yukiko but there is a car crash and Yukiko dies, in the beginning of the bizarre journey to hell of Shirô.

"Jigoku" is a weird and insane Japanese horror cult movie from the 60's. The story begins with a great jinx and crisis of conscience of Shirô, but out of the blue the screenplay becomes bizarre and messy. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Inferno" ("Hell")

A sinner goes to hell and suffers. He see thousands of people drown in blood, skulls and snakes everywhere, and most disgusting of all a man sawed in half while his guts spill out. This is one of the grossest movies I've ever seen. The scenes in hell are most intense.

Have you ever watched a film so horrible that you simply could not reconcile its atrociousness with its glowing IMDb rating? I had this experience after watching Jigoku earlier today. The IMDb reviews were raving harder than a teenager after midnight – with terms like "masterpiece" being thrown around, apparently on a whim. I was expecting this film to be pretty good. Nothing prepared me for the absolute disaster I was about to see.

Where to begin? Let's start with the single worst aspect of Jigoku – the acting. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the acting consists of some of the most systematically awful performances I've seen in any movie . . . ever. A typical bad film will have various moments of deficient acting, but Jigoku is systematically deficient, meaning that there are extremely long periods of time where just about everyone on screen is stinking the place out. For example, the latter half of the film – which takes place in Japanese Hell – is basically a 45-minute trainwreck that is the epitome of quintessential artificiality. The centerpiece of which is perhaps the scene with the lead character falling awkwardly after someone disappears near the river. But there are so many badly-acted moments that it would require booklength treatment to cover it all. However, the viewer should look forward to the food poisoning scene, which makes a Sci-Fi Channel Original Film look Oscar worthy.

What else is wrong with Jigoku? Everything – storyline, character development, etc. – can be summarily described as unintentionally hilarious.

Cheap, ineffective scares and downright stupid deaths are used. One such scene occurs midway thru when two people trip on a rope bridge. The movie then cuts to their stunt-dummies falling onto some hard rocks below. It was probably meant to be horrifying, but it came off as exceedingly funny. The character who runs over the Yakuza drunk was so damn slow in applying the brakes that it was reminiscent of Austin Powers when the steamroller was slowly approaching the screaming baddie from fifty yards away. The subsequent death of the girl in another car accident was also stupifying, especially considering how her boyfriend was sitting right next to her yet suffered no injuries whatsoever. Perhaps the funniest series of deaths take place during the punishment of random dudes in hell. Just look for the dude who gets "flayed", which will undoubtedly have the viewer rolling hysterically.

At one point the movie shows extreme closeups of random people screaming at the camera, which gets very annoying.

The finale has the lead character run in ultra cheesy fashion (in slow-motion) after his baby, which is strapped onto a big, turning wheel. I saw the baby on the wheel the first time, but the filmmakers inexplicably found it necessary to repeat the same exact scene over a dozen times. Imagine a 3-second scene being repeated over and over and over again every few seconds. It's almost as if the filmmakers weren't so much intending on depicting hell as they were attempting to INFLICT hell on the viewer with this pathetic attempt at film-making.

To supplement the horrible finale with the spinning baby, the lead character jumps in an attempt to save the child, but mis-times it so badly that he ends up on the OPPOSITE SIDE of the giant wheel. I knew this guy was stupid, but it doesn't get any more moronic than that.

Some gore (that was a ahead of its time) and a few scenes with fantastic imagery could have saved this one from the cinema sewer, but everything else is of such an unbelievably low quality that this film easily steamrolls to the bottom of the barrel.