Why Don’t You Play in Hell? will easily go down as one of 2014’s most insane movies.
Shion Sono writes and directs this outrageous movie about a crazed film crew that finds itself filming real-life events in pursuit of a masterpiece. Those events mostly center around crime-boss Muto (Jun Kunimura) and his war with Ikegami (Shin’ichi Tsutsumi).
When Ikegami attacks Muto in the film’s opening moments, Muto’s wife, Junko (Megumi Kagurazaka), goes crazy with a knife, leaving the floor of her home flooded with blood. (It’s a surprisingly vivid—and beautiful—visual.) Muto’s young daughter, Mitsuko, a star of TV commercials, witnesses the aftermath, and grows up to be a rebellious actress (Fumi Nikaido), as we see 10 years later.
The film-crew members get tired of making hackneyed Bruce Lee rip-offs over the decade and eventually find themselves in the thick of things, filming massacres as they are occurring; they’re delighted with the originality and authenticity of the material.
Sono is going for wild satire here, making a statement on the ties between violence in society and violence on film. It’s violent, twisted and often very funny.
Why Don’t You Play in Hell? is available on demand, and via online sources including iTunes and Amazon.com.