Tomato Kecchappu Kôtei

I had read this was an experimental, controversial and interesting movie so I decided to watch it. What I found was a sick movie probably made by and for sick people. It's literally a torture. I don't mind about the nude children, but this was a bunch of stupid and random sequences put together. No writing, no direction... At some point I chose to put the x2 fast forward. At least I could get some laughs that way. Do film makers know movies are made for entertainment? And I don't mean comedy, I mean entertainment! And don't give me that "you didn't get the depth message" crap. I am sure even children in YouTube make better films.

Don't waste your time. If you want a good experimental surrealist film go and watch Eraserhead.

I recently saw the short b&w version of the movie, the accusation of child pornography is irrelevant. It is obvious it's not Terayama's intention: the nude scenes aren't so much erotic than somehow grotesque and touching. The children appear helpless and clumsy with their power. I saw something of a fable about this vanity: the children unable to understand why they should even HAVE the power, yet wanting it... I didn't know there was a long version of the movie so i imagined Terayama chose an elliptic, poetic, surrealist way of expressing things. He uses images for the power that is inherent to their nature, and not as mere substitute to words. Now i would like to see it in its full length to be sure about all this. Nevertheless, another of his movies, the 1977 20 min. long "Film de l'ombre" ("Movie of the shadow" (?)) definitely demonstrates that his cinematographic language may well be non-direct and poetic. I definitely recommend it to those who like poetry in the cinema (somewhat difficult to stumble upon though). Cheers, Boyan

I found this at the West Coast Video in Pittsburg in the middle of a shelf marked "Five Seconds To Live." The synopsis on the back seemed interesting and the guy behind the counter highly recommended it. If I ever see him again, I will shoot him in the throat for saying that.

SUMMARY: This cult B&W Japanese film from the 1970s analyzes the result of a colony in which children overthrow the control of their parents and attempt to form a new society. Their plan spirals out of control and they are soon lost in a web of sexual deviation and violence.

At least that's what I'd like to think it was about.

OKAY NOW, forget what you've seen on Mystery Science Theater 3000; this is quite simply the worst movie I have ever seen. If you have ever wondered what it would look like if you took a bunch of random video clips of absolutely ANYTHING, put them together in an editing program, and pressed a button called "Create Movie," you would get something along the lines of Emperor Tomato Ketchup.

I do not mean to say that this movie is not interesting, by all means it absolutely is. I mean, if you consider the dancing old woman in the field who has about 20 minutes of uninterrupted screen time from a single camera shot, the naked children stuffed into closets, a midget decapitating a chicken, two men playing Rock-Paper-Scissors and physically injuring the loser in various ways over the course of another 20 minutes, and the disgusting abundance of child pornography, it is quite possibly the most interesting video I've seen in a while. But bear in mind that "interesting" and "good" are not synonymous. On many levels, the directors, actors, and all involved, regardless of whatever socio-political significance this movie attempted to create, should be physically abused for making this movie.

If you have the patience, enjoy it in whatever way "enjoy" applies to anything involved in the viewing of this bizarre film, though I recommend making use of your DVDs scan rate to watch this in AT LEAST 8x speed for maximum enjoyment. If not, then you're probably better off that way.

Note: For the record, there are two versions: only black-and-white which is under 30 minutes, another just under 60 in poor-quality sepia tone. They are both equally bad, though it's best to watch them back-to-back starting with the B&W one.

Interesting quirk though: my friend's West Coast Video account got revoked shortly afterward for returning this and another video late, in addition to renting this movie which was marked "Over 21 only" on the cover, despite how one of the clerks recommended it. Unfortunately, the "Who cares if you're 21? Child pornography's illegal for everyone!" argument didn't work.

I have seen both versions of this film and I would have to say that the primary feeling I get afterwards is ambivalence. Now maybe the director was trying to say something and then again maybe he wasn't; ambiguity is often a sign of an artist trying to force the viewer to think, but it is even more often a sign of a lazy and pretentious CON-artist with nothing particularly cohesive to say and no particular idea on how to say it.

Not all that is Ambiguous is art; in just the same way that not everything that is yellow is cheese.

And then there's the whole child porn / not child porn argument, now whether you get turned on or not by watching badly acted scenes of children having sex with adults remains to be seen, and it doesn't alter the fact that there's a hell of a lot of people out there who do.

Now whether the director is trying to say something with full frontal child nudity and sex is up to others to argue about at length rather than me, but nothing makes a cult movie better that questionable content and there is nothing to say that the director wasn't simply being shocking to gain attention.

But I would also point out that we've only got the directors word for it that child porn wasn't his intent.

And for me that is just another reason to be turned off by this movie.

In the post-war period Japan there was a new constitution which guaranteed new rights in terms of freedom of expression similar to those in the US, even arguably more "free". As a result experimental cinema blossomed and decreasing financial boundaries for entry into film-making allowed a renaissance in artistic and experimental cinema. Far from offensive, Emperor Tomato Ketchup uses the canvas of the moving image to explore political (anarchist movements), social issues, and sexual issues but at no point are the scenes intended for sexual stimulation. In fact the scenes which contain nudity do include a mature woman and young teenage boy, but what take place is not actual sex but more a nudist/naturalist depiction of humanity and playfulness. This film is not a depiction of reality but rather, befitting an avant garde film, the creation of another world where extremes and strangeness exist to point out issues in own own reality. Without experimental film there is no new film.