Imprint

In Director Takashi Miike's IMPRINT, Christopher (Billy Drago) returns to a remote island brothel in search of a woman whom he believes is the love of his life. Instead of his dream girl, he meets a seemingly shy prostitute with an incredibly disturbing story to tell.

Simply put, this is a movie about agony. The agony of loss, torture, and death. There is no hope in this film, so, if you're looking for something uplifting with a happy ending, you're doomed.

Miike has created a gruesome, demented abomination that shows us things we were probably not meant to see. He's so damned good at this sort of material that we watch it in spite of ourselves.

Highly recommended, but certainly NOT for the queasy or easily offended. This one leaves a mark...

IMPRINT is Takashi Miike's entry into the cable TV series MASTERS OF HORROR, and the one entry to be banned from transmission (in the US that is). Its certainly an impressive entry. The story follows an American man as he travels to Japan to find the prostitute who he fell in love with and whom he made a promise to, to take back to America and marry. He meets another prostitute who recounts the story of the women he is looking for and what happened to her fate. Told in flashback the story takes a rashomon-like approach as the womens story becomes steadily unreliable, until she reveals the true side to her tale. Cue scenes of torture, abortion and also hints of incest and child abuse and general weirdness, that those familiar to Miike will expect. Its a generally well made, and beautifully filmed tale, though at times it felt like a sumnation of the best bits of Miikes work, mainly the excessive extreme films, such as ICHI, DEAD OR ALIVE and AUDITION. Though Miike is always an interesting director to watch and his entry into this otherwise excellent series, stands out as one of the best. In some ways you can see why it was banned from television!

In the Nineteenth Century, in Japan, the American journalist Christopher (Billy Drago) is traveling through the country searching Komomo (Michie), the missing love of his life that he had abandoned years ago promising to come back to her later. He arrives in a shadowy island inhabited by whores and caftans, where he has an encounter with a deformed prostitute that tells that his beloved Komomo had passed away. He drinks sake with her and later he asks the woman to tell the story of her life. The prostitute discloses a dark and cruel story about her life and the sad fate of Komomo.

The macabre "Imprint" is another disturbing and brutal movie of Takashi Miike. Using magnificent camera-work and impressive make-up in an awesome atmosphere, "Imprint" approaches gruesome and gore theme like abortion, fetus, incest, torture, perversions and abuse along 63 minutes running time of pure and sick horror with many twists. I confess that I felt uncomfortable and disturbed with the sadistic sequence of the torture of Komomo. Takashi Miike really honors the title of this series, being a Master of Horror. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Marcas do Terror" ("Marks of the Terror")

OK just a quick little comment from me. This short film, imprint is based on a Japanese book. I haven't read the book but it seems like a good thing for Miike to direct as it includes familiar Miike themes such as prostitution, hints of pedophilia and torture. The story is quite good, told in flashbacks mainly it is about a beautiful prostitute who died. The story is revealed nicely and keeps you guessing and misleads you to maintain the intrigue.

Their are some very disturbing scenes such as some torture and abortion bits. Its shot quite nicely with some nice lighting and camera movement. The story ends up surprising you and disgusting you at the same time.

This is the best Miike film for a while, graphic, intense, shocking, true horror.

Its easy to see why it didn't play on showtime.

I spend way too many hours reading reviews on movies (and shows) on this site. Yet, I am addicted to it and thus continue on. Normally, I feel that good, bad or indifferent, any review is a good review as long as the reviewer actually watched the film. This short film was pretty good in my opinion, and enough has been written about it where I don't feel I can contribute any more on that level. however, I am disappointed that more of us are not outraged that Showtime commissioned Miike to make a show, then ban it. Showtime is a paid premium network (read ADULT) I could understand if it were broadcast television, which has strict guidelines because children shouldn't see graphic stuff like this. But as an adult in an adult situation, I am absolutely anti censorship and think it is total BS that Showtime could lame out... Nobody should watch any of the Masters of Horror series at all if you can't handle disturbing imagery!!! For the sake of movie fans that are responsible adults, let us make our own decisions regarding censorship, I am absolutely certain that plenty of people out there who are unfamiliar with Miike films shut off this story before the half way point, nice, neat and tidy self censoring. Thank you for not bowing to the interests of lame corporate sponsors.