Tsumetai nettaigyo (2010)

Director:

Shion Sono

Writers:

Shion Sono (screenplay) and
Yoshiki Takahashi (screenplay)

Release Date:

6 July 2011 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

How far will you be pushed?

Plot:

When Syamoto's teenage daughter is caught stealing, a generous middle-aged man helps resolve the situation...

Plot Keywords:

Sexual Desire | Confidence | Stepmother Stepdaughter Conflict | Headless Corpse | Sexual Frustration

Awards:

2 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Mitsuru Fukikoshi	...	Nobuyuki Syamoto
Denden	...	Yukio Murata
Asuka Kurosawa	...	Aiko Murata
Megumi Kagurazaka	...	Taeko Syamoto
Hikari Kajiwara	...	Mitsuko Syamoto
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Makoto Ashikawa
Lorena Kotô
Masaki Miura
Jyonmyon Pe		(as Jonmyon Pe)
Suwaru Ryû
Masahiko Sakata
Tarô Suwa
Tetsu Watanabe	...	Takayasu TsuTsui

Directed by
Shion Sono

Writing credits
Shion Sono		(screenplay)
Yoshiki Takahashi		screenplay

Produced by
Yoshinori Chiba	....	producer
Shinya Himeda	....	line producer (as Shin'ya Himeda)
Toshiki Kimura	....	producer
Akifumi Sugihara	....	executive producer

Original Music by
Tomohide Harada

Cinematography by
Shinya Kimura		(as Shin'ya Kimura)

Film Editing by
Jun'ichi Itô

Production Design by
Takashi Matsuzuka

Costume Design by
Satoe Araki

Makeup Department
Yoko Kinebuchi	....	hair stylist (as Yôko Kinebuchi)
Yoko Kinebuchi	....	makeup artist (as Yôko Kinebuchi)
Yoshihiro Nishimura	....	special makeup effects supervisor

Production Management
Kôtarô Miyata	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Satoshi Yoshida	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Hajime Komiya	....	sound

Visual Effects by
Tsuyoshi Kazuno	....	visual effects supervisor

Camera and Electrical Department
Eiji Oshita	....	gaffer

Other crew
Tak Sakaguchi	....	action choreographer (as Taku Sakaguchi)
Yoshiki Takahashi	....	poster designer

Thanks
Marc Walkow	....	thanks: publicity assistance

Production Companies

• Nikkatsu (as Sushi Typhoon)
• Stairway

Distributors

• Collective, The (2011) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Nikkatsu (2010) (Japan) (theatrical)
• Salient Media (2011) (USA) (theatrical)
• Third Window Films (2011) (UK) (theatrical)
• Night Visions Distribution (2011) (Finland) (all media)
• Salient Media (2012) (USA) (DVD)
• Third Window Films (2011) (UK) (DVD)

Special Effects

• Nishimura Motion Picture Model Makers Group (special make-up effects)
• Studio Buckhorn (visual effects)

Other Companies

• T-Basic  publicity

Also Known As:

"Cold Fish" - International (English title)
"Cold Fish" - Argentina (festival title)
"Cold Fish" - Finland (imdb display title)
"Hideghal" - Hungary
"Hladna riba" - Croatia (imdb display title)

Runtime:

144 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

DTS

Certification:

Japan:R18+

Company:

Nikkatsu

Trivia:

This movie was "inspired by true events" known as the "Saitama serial murders of dog lovers"; the convicted killers in the real-life case are Gen Sekine (b. January 2, 1942) and his ex-wife Hiroko Kazama (b. February 19, 1957).

Precocious extremity

I collect films for all sorts of reasons. Some of them I use as cosmologic blueprints for meditation. Others in the form of poems or essays on the art of living and watching. And I collect in particular weird and depraved extremities in the way an 18th century adventurer collected exotic artifacts from around the globe or observed an aboriginal dance around a fire; as totems of man's peculiarity at the farthest ends of the imagination. If we're lucky, there is going to be some purity in madness that goes beyond ordinary sense and transforms. A reach beyond any familiar maps.

Now Miike in particular is a stop you can't afford to miss in this field. He tutored next to the great Shohei Imamura and learned enough about the grunt work of filmmaking to be able to churn several pieces a year. Many of these are a simple artifact, 'what if' ideas: say a musical with zombies or an ordinary yakuza tale recast as the clash of cosmic energies. But now and then we got a Gozu, an extraordinary experience from the edges of primal soul.

And there is Sogo Ishii and Shinya Tsukamoto with the scrapyard maelstrom of their no-wave. Lynch and his designs for dreaming. So exactly because we have currently working all these people, it pains me all the more to see films by this guy.

He is talented and has shown in other films he knows his way with a camera. But this is weirdness polished back into the ordinary. There is nothing rarefied in the expression of madness. No intuitive hallucinatory pull that will zonk us out of comfort zones. Take the business with fish here: the main idea of the film is that we are caught between manipulators who are putting on a show and gradually learn to manipulate from our end to become one, now what better way to posit this in a visual manner than by extrapolating many times over through fish inside acquariums framed for beauty but possibly deadly?

This is like many of those old exploitation films from the 70's, toothless pretending to have some bite. If outrageousness was the sole point, it has nothing on Visitor Q and is more akin to the slick hackworks of Kim-Ji Woon from Korea.