Just when you think you’ve seen it all, along comes R100, an oddball creation from director and co-writer Hitoshi Matsumoto.
Seemingly mild-mannered Takafumi (Nao Ômori) has a humdrum life as a furniture salesman. His wife is in a coma; her dad is living with him and his son. He needs to feel alive again—so he joins an elite S&M club that specializes in public humiliation.
Things start innocently enough, with bondage girls kicking him in the head at restaurants and throwing him down large staircases near public fountains. But the club starts following him to work and, eventually, to his home, where he is tortured by the Queen of Saliva. (If you haven’t guessed, she spits on him while dancing to disco music.) There’s also the Queen of Gobbling, who eats Takafumi’s family members. Yes, the action goes well beyond your standard S&M.
I’m not exactly sure what Matsumoto is trying to convey with his strange movie, which is sometimes interrupted by some sort of film crew questioning the film’s validity. I can just tell you that it’s funny, especially when the bondage club’s CEO turns out to be a large blonde American woman who screams “Fuck!” a lot and expresses her anger by belly-flopping in the club’s pool.
I can also tell you that the movie utilizes Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” in the strangest way since Kubrick used it in A Clockwork Orange.
This is a cult movie, for sure. You’ll scratch your head—and you’ll laugh while you are scratching it.
R100 is available on demand and online via sources including iTunes and Amazon.com.