Red Room 2 is a film that was shot without means, without
flair, and without any compromise to good taste. It looks absolutely dismal by
North American standards. But somehow, it manages to grab you, if only through its
near infantile candor and involving story structure. As for the gore, it is
actually a step down from what I had expected, not in terms of execution mind
you, but in terms of sheer brutality. It will certainly pale in comparison with
what you might find in other Unearthed Films releases such as the Guinea Pig series. But as a whole, the
film itself surpasses those purely exploitative quickies by probing Japanese angst
with far greater insight, not unlike the superior All Night Long and Evil Dead
Trap series. It is quite decent in
fact, for those who can appreciate that kind of stuff…
Red Room is quite literal a title, and it accurately
sums up the lack of means involved in the production.
Being
confronted with such a film gives me the opportunity to reflect on the bowels
from whence it came, and thus make a tentative correlation between the Japanese
predilection for crude melodrama (such as the original Gojira, by the way) and their attraction toward unbridled gore,
both of which are often featured side by side in various genre offerings. There
is a certain repressed passion in Japanese society, and it seems to find its
quintessential expression in the country’s bulky pop cultural output. Here, it
spews unfocused like the water from an unclogged pipe, like the puke, blood and
semen that gushes profusely within the narrative. In that regard, Red Room 2 might be understood as both
an implicit and explicit depiction of that visceral undercurrent of passion
that runs deep beneath the national veneer. And while that could be said of
virtually every cheap gore job or other digitally-shot B film that Japan has
ever produced, the present work does boast a slightly superior dramatic
structure, one that greatly emphasizes the cathartic operation at work in its
structure while ultimately insuring its long-term sustainability.
The premise
of the film is quite simple, and so is the execution. Four people are selected
to partake in a competitive game of “King”, the last of which is a mysterious
female substitute who seems to have been “programmed” to win the game (get
it?). The rules are quite simple: every round, each of the four contestants
must draw a card on which a crown appears, or a number ranging from 1 to 3. The
person who draws the crown is King for the round, which means that he or she
must issue an order that two random contestants will have to follow. For
example, the King might decide that Number 1 will disrobe while Number 2
masturbates to her/his naked body. But there is also a variable time limit. In
the previous example, contestant Number 2 would have to cum within the allotted
time frame, lest he/she be disqualified. This might look like harmless fun, but
the orders actually become increasingly damaging to the contestants as time
elapses, until only one of them is left standing. The whole thing takes place
in two barren, contiguous rooms featuring red spots and a box full of random
items that the contestants are to use at their discretion. Oh, and there’s an
unseen film crew shooting the whole thing, scarcely intervening by way of an intercom.
A pressing question, which will find an answer
in the darkest reaches of the human soul.
With nearly
non-existent production values, and an apparent absence of direction, it first
seems like there should be little more than the anticipation of atrocities to
keep us interested in the film. Luckily, the screenplay is smart enough to generate
interest on its own by constantly playing on our expectations and providing a
non-linear plotline that highlights the dramatic tension between the
characters. Opening in media res, with a gross close-up of an old man’s fat ass
as he pleasures himself to a kneeling woman licking a lightbulb, the film
slowly pieces together a narrative that constantly picks up speed until the
ludicrously amusing finale. Following an obligatory money shot, which looks as
fake as any bloodshed or gore effect in Japanese cinema, each of the three
human contestants are introduced by way of a crimson-lit interview-style
close-up wherein they explain their motivations for playing the game. After
that, the contestants are left to fend for themselves in a dark, dreary
basement with concrete walls and a steel cage wherein the two active
participants of any given round are left to carry on with their dirty business.
Luckily,
the plot is non-linear, jumping back and forth between introductory scenes and
actual “game time” to better delineate, and highlight the dramatic issues
unfolding during that time. The increasing animosity between the protagonists
is actually crucial to the unfolding of the game, as things are settled within
the cage, which have started outside thereof. This adds a great deal of
relevance to the film as a character study and not simply a succession of
sordid torture scenes. The “game” format also helps the narrative by constantly
subverting our expectations, and making the very unfolding of the plot entirely
unpredictable. Don’t expect a simple alternation of Kings here, as card drawing
is also engineered to heighten the dramatic potency of the film. Even the
contents of the box is made to challenge our expectations as each spectator
will surely have his own interpretation of how the items can, and will be used
within the context of the film, almost all of which find usefulness outside of
these expectations.
Luckily, there is more to the gore here,
than the spectacle thereof.
Despite its
lack of pretension, Red Room 2 is far
more than a crude attempt at pleasing indiscriminate gorehounds. It is a
genuine dramatic effort meant to probe the depth (or shallowness) of the human
psyche. More to the point, it does not merely involve throwing the viewer a
bone, but engaging him and his expectations in a cruel game of wits. I would be
tempted to say that you won’t come out of the experience unscathed, but that
would be a lie, considering how full of peachy sentimentalism the finale is,
sort of a reminder of what humanity is really about: compassion and
understanding. And although the film eventually falls into the realm of sci-fi,
it only does so to better highlight the redeeming qualities of humanity. Which
is a nice lesson that helps dissipate the bleak cloud of brutal selfishness
that has engulfed us over the course of the narrative, dragging us upwards into
the higher levels of existence from the squalor and darkness of those lower,
most visceral levels. Hence, humanity is revealed in all its contradictory
nature by a final push that is equally uplifting as it is improbable. A true
testament to Japanese humanism, hidden under a veil of ruthless conservatism.
Red Room 2 was better than I expected. Its narrative
structure and the relevance of its social discourse were far superior than what
is usually found in such drivel. Unfortunately, this doesn’t change the fact
that the film is technically inept, with nearly non-existent art direction,
boring photography and some really plain mise-en-scène. As a Westerner
breastfeed with lush Hollywood productions featuring A-list casts and costly set
design for even the poorest of genre films, I hesitate to render a definitive
verdict. But seeing how I am mostly catering to other Westerners such as
myself, I will go with the following total score:
**1/2: Behind the guise of a cheap gore job, Red Room 2 is a film that actually
contains some decent characterization and an intriguing screenplay that
skillfully juggles with our expectations.
