Kurutta Butokai

My week-long Hisayasu Sato bender kicked off on August 15th, the man's birthday, and among the films I revisited was the much-hyped Muscle. I remember liking it back then, thinking it was like a deranged, punk version of In the Realm of the Senses. Man, was I wrong. On this rewatch, it just felt... empty. I still appreciate the sheer audacity of it, but I'm kind of hating it for its lack of substance, and I'm no longer convinced it deserves all the high praise it gets from die-hard fans.

The concept is pure Sato madness: a magazine editor named Ryuzaki gets completely obsessed with a sadistic dude, Kitami, which kicks off a violent S&M nightmare. It all culminates with Ryuzaki chopping off Kitami's arm, a moment that still hits hard. Ryuzaki then goes to jail but keeps the severed arm in a jar, an uncomfortably poetic symbol of his fixation. When he gets out, he goes on this bizarre, obsessive hunt for Kitami, with the arm still in tow, because of course he does.

The movie just feels hollow despite its provocative setup. The characters are lifeless, and their motives are a total mystery. The supposed love between them, this sick mixture of desire and pain, just never feels real. There's a subplot about Ryuzaki obsessively looking for a copy of Pasolini's Salò, and honestly, that whole side quest is way more interesting than the main story. That's a fatal flaw, especially for a film that's already so short. The constant stylistic jumps, from quiet voyeuristic shots to full-on S&M chaos, feel confused rather than intentional. It's like Sato was trying to do too many things at once and just ended up with a rushed, unfocused project.

The climactic scenes in the theater, where reality and fantasy are supposed to collide, just fall completely flat and fail to deliver the emotional gut-punch the film needed. The body horror, a staple in Sato's work, is hinted at but never fully committed to, leaving you feeling cheated. And while the film has some genuinely messed-up moments-like the sound of Ryuzaki gnawing on another guy's testicles-the shock value wears off fast. Muscle has a beautiful visual style and a brilliant concept, but its lack of clarity and emotional depth leaves me with absolutely nothing to chew on. It's all style and no substance, an empty shell of an idea that just falls apart on a second look.

Like Sato's best-known and probably most widely seen pink film, THE BEDROOM aka AN ARIA ON GAZES, this movie deals with obsessions, both sexual and otherwise (but mostly sexual), only now from a gay point of view and relatively straightforward and accessible unlike the convoluted BEDROOM. The male editor and photographer of a muscle magazine (which his boss readily admits is 'a good excuse for looking at hard bodies') falls in love with a beautiful young man who performs in a fascinating experimental play. Their relationship starts off tenderly but soon turns sour when the younger man reveals sadistic tendencies his partner cannot contend with. Following a particularly grueling sex session involving involuntary bloodletting, the photographer lops off his boyfriend's arm with a samurai sword ! After a year in prison, he's still obsessing over his lost love (whose arm he's still keeping in a jar by his bed !) and tries to track him down. Considering he's a one-armed hustler, this is not as easy as you might think. The final masked ball sequence where the lovers are reunited is both incredibly shocking and bizarrely touching in a very Japanese way. You'll understand once you see the film, and indeed you should as this is a true masterpiece of warped cinema, consistently diverting audience expectations, stunningly shot in hauntingly beautiful widescreen compositions. Whether you're gay or not (though, granted, it'll work better for you if you are) the sex scenes are incredibly hot stuff, even though they're a lot less explicit than they seem at first glance. Sato's a true master of suggestion in this respect. References to the work of Pier Paolo Passolini (TEOREMA and SALO especially) could've made the film end up looking pretentious and awkward yet it's anything but. Get hold of your copy today ! This is a must-own modern classic.

This is another of Hisayasu Satõ's gay themed pink films. It has several gay sex scenes that are better left to others to say whether they are erotic or not. It also has one straight, man and woman sex scene but they don't even get naked.

The story and characters are interesting. Especially that the main one keeps the other man's arm he cut off preserved in a jar. But the last 20 minutes of the film gets very avant-garde. It just lost me completely. I also didn't like the main character so didn't really care of his quest.

The cast was good so can't complain about the acting. Was a bit surprised that other than a few bodybuilders flexing during the opening credits, there was no muscles after that. You'd think based on the movie title there should be.

Maybe I'm just not the target audience. Unfortunately, I just can't recommend this movie.