Cold Fish Review

cold-fish reviewOriginal Title:Tsumetai nettaigyo

Year: 2010

Director: Sion Sono

My Short Review: I’m a big fan of f***ed up japanese movies and therefore had heard a lot of good things about Cold Fish and of course its director Sion Sono, most famous for  “Suicide club”. I’m a big Miike fan but was never exposed to Sono’s filmography. He seems to be very busy as well with no less than 25 movies to his credit in the last 15 years.

Cold fish introduces us to two men whose attitude’s towards life and the people around them lead them into opposite direction despite having so much in common.

They both have hot young wives (especially Syamoto’s played by gravure model and Sion Sono’s own wife, Megumi Kagurazaka), but Syamoto’s wife wished she was out of this marriage while Murata’s respects him. They have the exact same business (Exotic fish shops) but one is struglling while the other one is a millionaire. Syamoto’s daughter hates his guts and gave him no respect while Murata has plenty of young girls (including Syamoto’s daught) working with him and enjoying his presence.

What makes them different? Well, for starters Murata is a psycho killer who disposes of his enemies or the people who rubbed  him the wrong way, by making them “invisible” (which consists in chopping them into small pieces of meat and burning the bones). While Syamoto is failing his life by being too passive and reluctant to changes, Murata is bullying people into loving him or being scared of him.

The movie will follow Syamoto in his journey, reluctantly following Murata’s steps and if Cold Fish is too long (I could have done with 30mn less), the end is well worth the wait with Syamoto realising his potential and trying to get his life back on track.

It’s a disturbing ending to an already disturbing movie (and sometimes sick one too) and if Shion’s other movies are similar I am quite looking forward to seeing more of them.

My Rating: 6.5/10