Chapter 119 The Madness of "Confession"
Late February.
Haruki Kadokawa kept his promise. The final cut master tape of "Confessions" was packed uncut into a locked box and sent directly to the headquarters of the Japan Film Commission (hereinafter referred to as "Eirin") for rating and review.
Kadokawa Haruki's act of submitting the master tape for review naturally did not escape the notice of the Kasumigaseki bureaucrats.
During this period, the Ministry of Finance suffered a humiliating defeat in the literary world, and was thoroughly humiliated by Kenzaburo Oe and readers from the lower classes. Naturally, it dared not provoke the publishing industry again in the short term.
But when they learned that Kitahara Iwao's work was about to be adapted into a film, these politicians were completely uneasy, as if facing a formidable enemy.
In their eyes, if the power of words to provoke is so deadly, then if those extremely depressing images that directly hit the sore spots of society were to shock the visual nerves of the entire Japanese nation without any embellishment, it would undoubtedly be like throwing a nuclear bomb into the powder keg of the current society.
Since they couldn't silence Kitahara Iwa in the newspapers, they decisively turned their guns on him.
As a result, the bureaucrats attempted to use their public power within the system to exert pressure across boundaries during the film rating and censorship process, trying to completely kill the film in the theater.
Soon, a direct line call, bypassing the Ministry of Education, which is in charge of cultural affairs, went directly to the desk of the chairman of the Eirin Review Committee.
On the other end of the phone, a high-ranking bureau chief from the Ministry of Finance said in a pretentious, bureaucratic tone, "Your Excellency Chairman, I apologize for disturbing you."
"I heard that Kadokawa Pictures' movie called 'Confessions' is currently undergoing rating review at your company."
The chairman leaned back in his leather chair and said calmly, "Yes. However, film censorship has always been under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. When did the Ministry of Finance become interested in the big screen?"
The bureau chief chuckled twice on the phone, his tone carrying a condescending air: "You are well aware of the current national economic situation, and social sentiment is already on the verge of collapse."
"Like Confessions, which is full of crime, Films that depict moral decay or even glorify vigilante justice, if released unedited, will inevitably cause serious harm to the mental health of teenagers and further undermine the stability of current social sentiment.
He then paused, and said in an unquestionable tone, "For the sake of the overall situation, the Ministry of Finance hopes that Eirin can reject the censorship of this film."
"Or at least, demand that the production company make significant cuts and postpone the release indefinitely."
"Ei-Lun is only responsible for assessing the scale and rating of films."
Upon hearing this, the Chairman immediately interrupted him, completely ignoring his bureaucratic tone, and said, "If it meets the standards for R-15, then we will approve it as R-15."
"As for whether social sentiment is stable or not, that's your business as politicians, not the responsibility of the film."
Seeing that appealing to the "big picture" wouldn't work on this stubborn filmmaker, the high-ranking official on the other end of the phone dropped his pretense, his tone instantly turning icy and blatantly threatening: "Your Excellency Chairman, you seem to have misjudged the current situation. We are not discussing art with you."
"As a non-profit foundation, Yinglun's tax-exempt status and accounting records seem to have lacked strict oversight in recent years."
"If this film, which is detrimental to the development of national spirit, is forced to pass censorship, the IRS will probably have to assign specialists to conduct a comprehensive and in-depth 'administrative guidance' on your committee's financial situation, and even the personal assets of each member of the review committee."
Using the revocation of tax exemption status and personal tax investigations to blackmail an independent film censorship body.
This is the most despicable, yet most effective, underhanded trick used by bureaucrats.
But he chose the wrong person and seriously underestimated Yinglun's backbone.
Eirin, an independent self-regulatory organization established after the war to resist interference from public authorities, is comprised of old-school filmmakers who are, at their core, the most ardent defenders of the industry.
What they found most disgusting was that laymen used the swords of politics and money to forcibly emasculate the screen.
What's more, the call came from a finance department that has absolutely nothing to do with culture.
Holding the receiver, the head of the review committee responded without even a change in tone to the threat of a tax audit: "Sir, let me confirm, were you just giving instructions on behalf of the Ministry of Finance, using a tax audit to direct Eirin's independent classification process?"
"If so, I wouldn't mind sending the recording of this call to the front page of the Asahi Shimbun tomorrow."
The high-ranking official on the other end of the phone caught his breath, realizing that the other party was a tough nut to crack, and quickly tried to smooth things over: "This is just out of comprehensive consideration of the national morale..."
"If we take all factors into consideration, I suggest that the Ministry of Finance should first focus on managing the Nikkei index, which has fallen below its bottom line!"
The chairman interrupted him without hesitation, saying, "How to classify them is clearly written in Yinglun's regulations."
"What happens on the big screen is our business. As for the mess of the people not being able to afford rice, that's none of the business of politicians managing the national treasury worrying about in the movie theater."
After saying that, he didn't give the other party any face at all and hung up the phone with a snap.
Hearing the cold, unresponsive tone from the microphone, the high-ranking official from the Ministry of Finance in the Kasumigaseki office turned ashen-faced, but couldn't muster any anger.
Half an hour later.
Located in the residence of Ichikawa Kun in Setagaya Ward.
The seventy-something-year-old Showa-era director was sitting on the sofa in his study, looking through location scouting photos for his next film.
Just then, the landline on the table rang; it was Chairman Ying Lun calling personally.
"Mr. Ichikawa, those people from the Ministry of Finance have just reached out to me."
Hearing the voice coming from the other end of the phone, Ichikawa Kun took off his reading glasses and frowned in annoyance.
He knew all too well the cowardly, bullying nature of these bureaucrats, and his tone revealed undisguised disgust as he said, "These politicians who only know how to do accounting must have nothing better to do. What do they have to threaten you with? The tax bureau?"
A mocking chuckle came from the other end of the phone: "Mr. Ichikawa, you really know your stuff."
"The first thing they asked me to do was to investigate Ying Lun's tax-free status and my personal assets."
Ichikawa Kun asked, "So, what did you reply?"
"I'll send them back to Xiaguan to settle their scores."
The voice on the other end of the phone became unusually firm: "The big screen is filmmakers' territory. Even MacArthur's censorship board couldn't make us bow down back then, so it's even less of a place for a few political vultures who smell the scent to point fingers!"
At this point, the Chairman paused for a moment, then continued, "The final review result of 'Confession' has been approved."
"R-15 rated, uncut, approved for release. The official approval will be issued tomorrow morning."
Upon hearing this, Ichikawa Kun's tense shoulders relaxed slightly.
The Showa-era director, known for his fiery temper on set, replied to the microphone with an extremely pragmatic three words: "Thank you for your hard work."
With the phone call ended, the Ministry of Finance's last underhanded operation was mercilessly kicked into the gutter by the filmmakers.
After completely clearing away official censorship obstacles, Haruki Kadokawa made an extremely bold decision.
Instead of keeping his near-ban a secret, he directly printed a copy of Ying Lun's conclusion on all the promotional posters.
Overnight, the marketing machine for "Confessions" was like a beast unleashed from its cage, sweeping across Japan with a budget of hundreds of millions of yen poured in by Haruki Kadokawa.
Subway stations, bus stop signs, and prime-time TV commercials were all dominated by Yasuko Sawaguchi's cold face and a line of blood-red text:
[Special approval from Ying Lun: R-15, uncut. A desperate work that even the government tried to cover up.]
This fervent approach of turning political maneuvering into a marketing gimmick directly pushed the curiosity and rebellious spirit of the entire Japanese audience to its peak.
Time flew by and it was early March.
Shibuya, Tokyo.
The Shibuya Tokyu Grand Theater, located on the top floor of Tokyu Department Store, one of the largest theater chains in Japan, was brightly lit tonight for the premiere of "Confessions".
The red carpet stretched from the main entrance of the theater all the way to the sidewalk across the street.
The iron railings on both sides were crowded with movie fans who had rushed over after hearing the news, and the flashes of light illuminated the entire street as if it were daytime.
The lineup was nothing short of extravagant, with half of Japan's top actors and directors in attendance.
In Japan today, any public event that is associated with the name "Kitahara Iwa" automatically becomes a social feast that celebrities cannot afford to miss.
But tonight, what truly made all the media hold their breath were two names in the front row VIP section.
Akira Kurosawa and Nagisa Oshima.
These two legendary film masters rarely attend the premieres of commercial films.
But tonight, they both sat down.
Eighty-year-old Akira Kurosawa sat in the center of the first row, wearing his signature dark turtleneck sweater, his hands folded on his cane in front of him, his gaze calm.
Sitting next to him was Nagisa Oshima, who was wearing a gray baseball cap and had his arms crossed over his chest, his posture conveying a sense of scrutiny.
They're sitting here today purely because of their old friend, Ichikawa Kun.
This friend, who was in his seventies and lived in the same era as them, surprisingly abandoned his gentle style in his later years to direct a dark and despairing work that was pushed to the forefront of public opinion.
This is the real reason that attracted two masters of unparalleled stature to come out of seclusion together.
It was exactly 7 p.m.
The theater lights slowly dimmed, the whispers of hundreds of audience members instantly subsided, and the screen lit up.
The film's opening shot is a panoramic view of a group in a junior high school classroom.
A somber gray-blue hue enveloped the entire scene, fluorescent tubes emitted a pale, cold light, and outside the window lay a heavy, leaden-gray sky.
Thirty-odd junior high school students were making a ruckus in their seats. Some were throwing paper balls, and some were reading comics. The noise was annoying.
Then, the classroom door was pushed open.
Yasuko Sawaguchi walked in.
She was wearing a dark suit with no embellishments, and her hair was neatly tied back.
There was no heavy bass music typical of thriller films; only the monotonous sound of her footsteps as she walked onto the podium gradually calmed down the noise from the students below.
She stood on the podium, looked at the thirteen- or fourteen-year-old faces below, and began to speak.
When the words, "I added the blood of an AIDS patient to the milk of those two people," were lightly uttered from her lips, they struck the ears of the entire audience without any background music.
The Shibuya Grand Theatre's enormous screening room, which could hold nearly a thousand people, instantly fell into a vacuum of deathly silence, as if all the air had been sucked out.
On the big screen, there was no heavy bass roaring as is common in thrillers, no violent camera shaking, and even Ichikawa Kun did not immediately give the prisoner students in the audience a close-up of their terror.
He simply used a most unconventional, straightforward, fixed medium shot to coldly gaze at his mother on the podium.
This is Ichikawa Kun's masterful work, and it's also where his spirit resonates with Kitahara Iwao's original work.
For Japanese moviegoers accustomed to the traditional "introduction, development, climax, and conclusion" structure of films, this approach is nothing short of a brutal downgrade of their viewing habits.
Without any build-up or warning, the director unexpectedly detonated the core bomb of the entire story less than twenty minutes into the film, forcefully shoving it into the mouths of hundreds of unsuspecting viewers.
It was like a courtroom trial that should have been a meticulously unraveled mystery, but the judge, with a smile, pulled the lever to execute the death penalty the very first second of the hearing.
The intense audiovisual disorientation was so great that there wasn't even a gasp of surprise from the huge audience.
Because in that instant, the brains of most ordinary viewers were unable to process such overwhelming malice, and they physiologically forgot to breathe.
In the middle of the audience, Nagisa Oshima's arms, which had been tightly clasped to his chest, unconsciously loosened the moment the line was uttered.
His body leaned forward slightly involuntarily, his gaze fixed on the big screen.
Sitting next to him, Akira Kurosawa's withered fingers, which were clasped together on his cane, suddenly tightened by an inch.
Although neither of them exclaimed or made any exaggerated movements, for those in the industry who are familiar with the viewing habits of these two masters, it was remarkable that they were able to force Nagisa Oshima to change his defensive stance and Akira Kurosawa to grip his cane tightly right from the start.
These two tiny physical reactions alone surpass all the praise in the world.
As the film reel turned on the projector, this chilling, bone-deep ache gradually gripped the throats of the entire audience over the next hour and a half.
With his cold, almost cruel, fixed camera, Ichikawa pinned the fate of every character in the story to the big screen like an anatomical specimen.
Driven mad by extreme fear, Shimomura Naoki (Prisoner B) used a kitchen knife to sever the head of his mother, who was trying to drag him down with her, in that dark, foul-smelling bedroom.
Blood splattered on the pristine white sliding door, yet he let out a hysterical laugh from within the pool of blood.
Class president Kitahara Mizuki, who tried to save the murderer with saintly compassion and called herself an "understanding person," was ruthlessly strangled by Watanabe Shuya (the culprit) after exposing his pathetic Oedipus complex.
She was stuffed into the cold freezer of the laboratory like a discarded rag doll.
The oppressive atmosphere throughout the film culminates in a powerful explosion at the final graduation ceremony.
Standing on the rooftop, Watanabe Shuya, who considered himself a genius, with the morbid fervor of a victor, pressed the remote control on his phone that was powerful enough to blow up the entire school auditorium.
He closed his eyes, opened his arms, and looked forward to the flames and cries of agony, hoping that his mother, far away in the university research institute, would see his name in the news of the massacre.
However, nothing happened.
The auditorium in the distance was unharmed, with only the early spring breeze blowing across the rooftop.
To his astonishment, Yuko Moriguchi, dressed in black mourning clothes, walked calmly onto the rooftop like a ghost returning from hell.
In that same gentle, hollow voice, as if she were reading a weather forecast, she softly told the trembling boy in front of her that she had defused the bomb. Then, as a "gift," she personally placed the bomb in his mother's office at the research institute.
"Bang."
Yuko Moriguchi looked at the distant sky, her lips slightly parted, and she softly added an explosion sound effect.
There were no grand explosions or flames on the big screen, only the face of Watanabe Shuya, distorted and twisted by extreme despair and pain.
His pride in his intelligence, all his cruelty and ruthlessness, were shattered in that moment by the remote control he himself pressed—he killed the only person in the world he cared about.
Yuko Moriguchi walked up to the kneeling, wailing boy and slowly squatted down. She reached out and grabbed his hair, forcing him to lift his tear-streaked face, and brought her close to his ear.
On that dignified and gentle face, the first and only genuine smile in the entire film finally appeared.
"This is the first step in your rebirth."
Yuko Moriguchi uttered those words softly. Then she tilted her head slightly, her eyes instantly turning into a deathly stillness that could freeze one's very bones: "...Just kidding."
The moment the words fell.
With a sharp snap, the video abruptly cut off.
Without a somber end credits song or a smooth transition to blackout, Ichikawa Kun used the most brutal audiovisual editing to plunge the entire big screen into suffocating darkness in an instant.
The movie has ended.
A long, seemingly endless silence fell over the massive Shibuya Grand Theatre.
No one was the first to applaud.
It's not because it's bad, but because everyone needs time to process what's been crammed into their brains over the past two hours.
Applause began after about ten seconds.
At first, the thunder was scattered, then it became more and more concentrated, and finally it coalesced into a thunderous roar that lasted for a full three minutes and almost lifted the roof off.
Late at night after the premiere, the izakayas in Shibuya were packed with people who had just come out of the theater.
Their faces bore the same expression, as if they had just come off an extremely violent operating table, and the anesthesia had not yet completely worn off.
the next day.
The culture sections of all major Sunday newspapers in Japan have witnessed an unprecedented united front. All the headlines point to the same movie.
Asahi Shimbun: "A masterpiece that tears apart the hypocritical mask of the Heisei era. With his seventy-year-old hands, Ichikawa Kun has sculpted a cold monument for this desperate society."
Yomiuri Shimbun: "Yasuko Sawaguchi buried 'purity' with her own hands. From today onwards, that face will no longer be synonymous with 'white moonlight,' but rather an abyss for an entire generation of Japanese people."
Nikkan Sports went even further, publishing a full-page double-page spread featuring a still of Yasuko Sawaguchi with a faint smile on the podium, without any film review, only adding a small note at the bottom: "The first day of gazing into the abyss."
Film critics were engrossed in a near-frenzied debate and effusive praise, each afraid of being the last to voice their opinion.
But among all the overwhelming lengthy discussions, what the industry regards as the golden rule is a single sentence uttered at the end of the premiere.
At that time, Akira Kurosawa walked slowly out of the theater, leaning on his cane.
The aisle was packed with reporters holding cameras, but under the powerful aura of this movie emperor, not a single person dared to shove a microphone directly into his face.
In a reverent silence, the closest media outlets clearly heard Akira Kurosawa whisper a sentence to Nagisa Oshima beside him.
"Kitahara Iwao's writing is good, and Ichikawa's camera work is quite steady. These two have really hit it off."
There were no lengthy praises, nor any pretentious flattery.
However, in the hierarchical Japanese film industry, this seemingly plain comment from Akira Kurosawa was the highest level of recognition he could offer.
With this medal, "Confessions" officially entered theaters nationwide.
What followed was a box office curve that sent chills down the spines of the entire Japanese film and television industry.
It did not follow the market pattern of "explosive opening weekend followed by declining week by week" that is common in commercial films.
Its curve is rising against the trend.
After topping the box office in its first week, the film not only did not drop in its second week, but instead surged by 15%.
The third week saw continued explosive growth.
The price continued to rise in the fourth week.
This phenomenon, which defies common economic sense, is known in the industry as a "reverse decline."
However, the magnitude and duration of the decline in "Confessions" have exceeded the limits that conventional data models can explain.
In an interview with Kinema Junpo, a veteran theater manager with 20 years of experience gave a blunt definition of this trend in a trembling voice: "The trend of this movie is abnormal."
"In all my years in film distribution, I've never seen an R-15 tragedy, so depressing it's almost devoid of music, generate such a massive audience that they line up to watch it two or three times. It's practically 'revenge viewing'—it goes against the human instinct to seek pleasure and avoid pain!"
The reason lies in the film's extremely unique narrative structure and social attributes.
In the past, no matter how shocking a movie was, it was essentially a "one-way output"—the audience watched it, were moved or scared, and then went home, and the consumption was over.
But "Confessions" is not.
The cold, Rashomon-like multi-perspective structure of Kitahara Iwa's original work was perfectly brought to the screen by Ichikawa Kon, giving the film a terrifying "interactive puzzle-solving quality".
On the first viewing, most viewers will be stunned by Yasuko Sawaguchi's shocking 30-minute monologue at the beginning, leaving them completely overwhelmed by the intense sensory impact and carried to the end.
On the first viewing, most viewers will be stunned by Yasuko Sawaguchi's shocking 30-minute monologue at the beginning, leaving them completely overwhelmed by the intense sensory impact and carried to the end.
But after the movie ends, when they come to their senses, they will suddenly realize that the film is full of chilling details, metaphors and audiovisual foreshadowing hidden in the different perspectives of the criminal A (Shuya), the criminal B (Naoki) and the class monitor Mizuki.
The first viewing is about being "shocking," but the second and third viewings are like looking at "details" with a magnifying glass.
They are searching for the micro-expressions that were missed on the first viewing due to fear, looking for the logical puzzle hidden beneath Kitahara Iwa's cruel appearance.
Even more terrifying is that, in a very short time, "Confessions" transformed from a movie into a nationwide "moral obedience test".
It poses a trolley problem that has no standard answer but is extremely painful to human nature: If you were that mother, should those two minors have died?
This topic has spread like a virus throughout izakayas, university campuses, and company break rooms across Japan.
Couples use it to test each other's values, and colleagues use it to take sides and argue.
In contemporary Japanese society, if a person hasn't seen "Confessions," they don't even have the right to chime in on daily social interactions and will be completely excluded from all mainstream topics.
It is no longer just a movie; it has become a mandatory "social admission ticket."
In order to understand what others are arguing about, and in order to prove their own moral stance, countless people who originally did not watch suspense films were forced into the cinema by this powerful social interaction.
Driven by both "detailed mystery-solving" and "social manipulation," the box office performance of "Confessions" defied gravity.
In its sixth week of release, "Confessions" ruthlessly crushed well-received Hollywood blockbusters such as "Dead Poets Society" and "Land of Dreams," which were also showing in theaters across Japan at the same time, forcing foreign distributors to repeatedly bow to theaters and reduce the number of screenings.
In its eighth week of release, it defied expectations and broke through the all-time box office ceiling for live-action films in Japan.
Without any sequel halo or the support of a family-friendly release, this film created a miracle purely by relying on Kitahara Iwao's solid original work and Ichikawa Kun's shockingly daring and gritty visual portrayal.