Page 123 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema

110 Nightmare Japan

pretending that he sees Lily greeting some of her fans, Yuichi walks up
behind Hoshino and stabs his tormentor in the back with a knife.
Hoshino’s (and Yuichi’s) tragic fall brings Iwai’s film to a close and,
according to Lily’s fans, corrupts ‘The Ether’. In addition, although the
film’s final scene depicts a troubled Yuichi listening to the piano stylings
of Kuno Yoko (who, earlier in the narrative, reacts to the nightmarish
gang rape at her classmate’s hands by personally butchering her beautiful
raven tresses), spectators are left with little reason for believing that
Yuichi and Kuno will connect in a meaningful way. Nor does Iwai’s film
close with the suggestion that the practice of ijime, which has resulted in
so much anguish, will end any time soon.

Image 10: Hoshino Shusuke screams in abject despair in Iwaii Shunji’s All about Lily
Chou-Chou (© Home Vision)

Atrocity Exhibitions: ‘Dove Style Violence’ and Corporeal
Corruption in Matsumura Katsuya’s All Night Long Series

Thomas and Yuko Mihara Weisser’s term, ‘dove style violence’, is
particularly appropriate in its realisation of a quasi-Darwinian thematic