Zenka_LT

What would you call an extreme body modification? Full body tattoos? Genital piercings? Although many people thinks that it's pretty extreme, others push these boundaries further and that's what you will see in this documentary. "Flesh & Blood" allows the viewer to see the world of a cult figure, a body modification artist Steve Haworth and his clients/friends. Originally a designer and manufacturer of medical equipment, Steve began making body jewelry and became a piercer in the 1990. In '91 he opened his first piercing studio in Phoenix and it did so well, that Steve opened another one near Arizona. Haworth is a pioneer of 3D body art, he invented the concept of implanting steel under the skin and he is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as "most advanced body modification artist" for over decade now. Those who are bored with traditional tattoos and piercings comes to Steve from all over the world. Have you ever seen a metal mohawk (metal spikes implanted into scalp)? Well, you can see it in this documentary amongst the other precious things related to body modification.

At the beginning of this documentary Steve Haworth explains, that he is an ARTIST and flesh is his medium. He modifies people to be more unique. For a doctor to modify a persons body away from what society calls "normal" is against their code of ethics, so if the doctor do what Steve is doing, he would lose his license. That's why all of Steve's clients has to put up with pain during the procedure, because a non-doctor administering anesthetics can be arrested for the unlicensed practice of medicine. This raises the question about the legality and safety of Haworth's body modification procedures. You see, surgical procedures needs to be done by a licensed professional (Haworth doesn't have any), but Steve explained, that what he is doing is a big difference between practising medicine and doing 3D body modification and he has all legally, ethically and constitutionally rights to do his work, although some people has issues with what Steve is doing (even the Asocciation of Professional Piercers).

I believe that most of ordinary viewers will seek for the answer in this film, like why people are doing such things? Well, if you wonder why, this documentary isn't the best source in this case, simply because it doesn't explore too much, why people are doing this, although you will hear some explanations why they get modified (usually it's 1 of 4 basic reasons). Instead of seeking answers to such questions, Larry Silverman shows us the process of Steve's work, his and his friends life, relationships. Some of these modified persons looks strange indeed, but the director shows us what's inside of these persons and even if they're totally different from the outside, viewers will find the similarities between themselves and the people in this documentary. One girl in this movie even says: "all my entire life I've always wanted to be a housewife, raise a family, cook and clean and take care of my husband", now how strange and different is that? After all, we're all people. The film also contains flesh-hook suspension chapter, where the viewers are introduced to the act of suspending a human body from hooks that have been put through body piercings. Have you ever been invited to the backyard barbecue party, where the main fun is human suspension? Well, here's you chance to see such party in this movie, alongside girls 18th birthday party, where the main present is to be suspended for the first time. Also there is some similar footage from the clubs. For example a tug o'war game, but with hooks! Can you imagine that? At the end of this movie, we will see what happened later (after 1 year at first and after 2 years later) to the Steve and his friends. Someone changed, someone break up, Steve introduced us to his kids and so on. Nothing extraordinary, just simple life.

The director Larry Silverman has made a very good job. He put a few years into this documentary and he touched various sides of body modification, alongside other subjects that do not apply to it. The documentary could do without a little tragic love story in my opinion, because it really drops out of context, but if it was added to please the ordinary audience, than it might be a good step.

Over the past decade the Japanese ghost stories gained much attention and popularity. I believe that it started after Hideo Nakata's "Ringu" was released. No no, I'm not saying that Nakata started the whole "ghost thing", take a look at Japanese folklore - you'll find plenty of ghost stories there, and of course there was a lots of ghost movies before, but only after "Ringu", subject of ghosts in the movies gained so much worldwide popularity. Now we have a huge amount of "Ringu" and "Ju-On" clones and nobody tries to be a little more original. Well actually it's not the problem - it's really hard to make or think of something new these days, because everything is in some way a clone of something, especially when we talk about movies and music, but it doesn't mean bad! It's really possible to make something interesting and pleasurable for the audience. Anyway, this movie isn't actually an another clone of "Ringu" or "Ju-On", but unfortunately "J-Horror Anthology: Legends" isn't something original either.

Right from the start I knew that this will be a compilation of low budget ghost stories. Yes, not horror, but ghost stories. That's probably because that "J-Horror" in the title - most of people likes to use "J-Horror" as the description for the Japanese movies with ghosts. And don't get me wrong, because I've said low budget. I have nothing against low budget movies, in fact I love low budget movies much more than high budget films. Anyway, lets get to the point: "J-Horror Anthology: Legends" is a movie, which contains six short ghost stories, or you can call it a compilation of six short movies, it doesn't matter. All stories starts from introduction of a storyteller Junji Inagawa. The endings are the same - with Junji's conclusion. Inagawa's role here is to speak as a philosopher, but he'll rather put a smile on your face than impress you with his "philosophy". First of all I'll describe the plots of these shorties. Let's go.

"HEARTBROKEN TRIP" is a story about the girl named Chiharu. Her boyfriend dumped her right before her vacation, so she planned to go there with her friend Yoshiko instead of him. On the trip day Yoshiko called Chiharu and said that she have some business to take care of, so Chiharu should go there now and Yoshiko will be right there after she'll finish her business. When Chiharu arrives there she hears about some ghost rumors. The rest... Well, you'll see.

"YAMAMBA" starts from two journalists - they go for a report on mysterious creature Yamamba, in some small village. Nobody wants to talk there about it, because there is an old saying in the village: "The one who talks about Yamamba, will be eaten by Yamamba", but like always, there is one kind man, who tells where to keep digging and journalists head on to deep woods, to face the mysterious Yamamba.

"LOST SOULS" is a story about the couple. They are heading back to Tokyo through the night and decide to stop somewhere to eat. When they find the place, they noticed a strange smell after the mysterious family walks in. The restaurant cook tells the couple that they should not look at the family if they want to get home alive and the horror starts here.

"NURARIHYON" is the shortest story and thanks god for that, because it's also the worst story of all six. It's a story about Nurarihyon - a friendly ghost with a deformed form of head. The story in the movie doesn't give any explanation why he has such strange form of his head, so it's just probably because he's a ghost. Anyway, one little boy gets friendly with Nurarihyon. What will happen and why Nurarihyon is a friendly ghost - you'll see after watching this tale.

"PEONY LAMP" is one of the Japan's famous ghost tales. Well that's what the storyteller at the beginning says. It is a love story between a samurai and a ghost - daughter of shogun, who committed suicide after her father said that he'll never permit her wedding with a samurai.

"SHE-BEAR" is the story about a woman who's carrying a teddy bear and tearing the human body parts off. It isn't that fun, like it sounds. Believe me.

So... The really good thing about the whole movie itself is that these six stories are pretty short. You can sit through all of them till the end even if you don't like the story. But probably this is the only good thing. It looks like every story was filmed in a few days, in a rush, and that the directors of these short ghost tales just wanted to finish them as soon as possible. The stories that have to be scary in this film isn't scary / spooky / creepy and stories that have to be more dramatic fails too. It seems that nobody realized, the main goals of these tales, while filming this. From the technical side of this film - everything seems to be fine, but everything else isn't...

So if you're a die hard fan of the ghost tales - give this a try. Also I think that these stories could be interesting for the kids. There is a sequels from the same "J-Horror Anthology" series, but after watching this, I've preferred to skip watching them. Maybe I'm just too old for all these "ghost things"?

After I watched "Girl Student" (this is the official English DVD title of this movie) and the end credits start rolling, the first thing that I've thought was where the director Hiroyuki Kawasaki missed the point and went wrong? From the beginning this movie had a great potential, but towards the end it was pretty disappointing actually. It wasn't a bad movie. It was disappointing because there could be much more things and ideas in this film that could have been used to make it better, but it wasn't. But there was a simple reason for that - "Girl Student" is an film adaptation of one of the most famous SM writers Oniroku Dan's novella "Jogakusei". Oniroku Dan is an Japanese SM novelist that has been called "the most celebrated writer of popular SM novels in Japan". Many of his stories have been filmed. Probably the most famous Oniroku Dan's novel is "Hana to hebi" ("Flower and Snake"). This is the work which made him famous. The first "Hana to hebi" movie based on Oniroku Dan's novel, was filmed back in 1974 and not so long time ago, in 2004, Takashi Ishii filmed newer version of "Hana to hebi". Second part of "Flower and Snake" followed in 2005. So, as in other Oniroku Dan's novels, the main "Girl Student" subject is SM.

The story of "Girl Student" starts in the bar, where two men are sitting and waiting for a girl. One of them was an talented AV film director, other is a popular SM novelist. They haven't seen each other for a three years. The film director faded into obscurity after the accident which blocked his way to success - his wife was acting in his AV movies, so one day he couldn't bear it anymore and he run away with his wife right from the movie set. After all these years the film director decided to return to this business to earn money, because one rich boss of the big property company want to film a movie that is based on his favourite SM book titled "Female Slave", which was written by the novelist who is sitting in the bar with the film director. The girl they are waiting is the actress of the movie. When the girl arrives, the director introduces her as 19 years old student of music university. She needs a big sum of money (5 million yen), because of her family business, which is nearly closed because of owing a lot of money. The next day all three of them arrives at the house of the boss who finance movie to show him the actress. He likes her very much and he invites them all to a table to celebrate it. During the conversation at the table the actress only now knows, that this will be an AV movie. She says that she've never thought about doing such thing and rejects the role, but the director of the movie and the boss strip her and throw the girl at the cell. The boss tells her that before the movie will be finished, she'll have to live in the cell and be his slave. Meanwhile the other actor arrives at this apartment - it's a good looking young guy. After he've been told to take away all of his clothes, they lock him up in the cellar with the actress girl. Two actors prisoners have been told that now they have to build up their relationship. To let them obey their masters they will be treated as a cat or a dog. That's where the main SM fun starts. To reach this moment Hiroyuki Kawasaki needed more than a half time of total runtime of this film, but I can't say that it was wasted.

So what are the good and the bad things about "Girl Student"? Well there is a plenty of good things actually! First of all interesting storyline - it holds you up in attention all the time. Second thing is the actors. Especially the appearance of Shô Nishino (she plays the actress-prisoner girl) in this movie. Her role is to be kind and shy and she've done it perfectly! Also Kiichirô Wakayama (he was playing a novelist) had done a pretty good work with his character. The novelist in this movie is kind of a mysterious character - he seemed to be a nice person almost whole movie, but viewers feels the whole time that it isn't the real face of the character and somewhere in the end he'll show his real face. The other actors also was pretty good. Talking about the SM scenes - there aren't many of them (although the main subject of the "Girl Student" is SM). There are few SM scenes, but I would say that they are more erotic, typical scenes like in most of "pinku" movies. But this film has many other good things that are related to SM. For example how the two actors-prisoners are forced to surrender their dignities - they are treated like an animals, thrown naked in the cell without toilet or any other thing and they're forced to make love to each other. The only disappointing thing was the ending. I won't spoil it, but it was kinda disappointment to me. But as I've said before - it could have been better if it wouldn't be a film adaptation. I don't think that the director Hiroyuki Kawasaki or the screenplay writer Kôsuke Komatsu had done something wrong. I believe that they strictly followed Oniroku Dan's novel and that's why the ending was dull...

P.S. - totally unnecessary thing in "Girl Student" DVD was an replacement in English subtitles of original character names by such names as Justin, Sally, Mr Sam, John, so instead of Yoshimoto we get Justin, instead of Morita-san we get Mr Sam and so on. Totally unnecessary thing in my opinion.