Page 67 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema

54 Nightmare Japan

censorship body which rules on ‘decency’ in film), nevertheless allows
2
for the possibility of a critique of dominant cultural power relations. Sato
Hisayasu, however, stands out among his fellow pinku eiga directors in
both his detached, almost ambivalent cinematic vision of postmodern
alienation (what Paula Felix-Didier calls the ‘exposition of the existential
emptiness of modern life’ [2000: para 21]) and the extent to which the
splattered bodies in his texts function as subjects for political and cultural
inquiry. In Naked Blood, Sato questions not only the politics of
censorship in Japan and the cinematic tradition within, and against which,
he toils, but also the impact of changing gender roles and the emergence
of virtual technologies in late capitalist Japanese society.

Image 5: Extreme piercing in Naked Blood (Courtesy: beyondhollywood.com)
.

2
Paula Felix-Didier argues that such erotic and pornographic cinema can frequently function
as a weapon for interrogating traditional cultural values. See Felix-Didier, P. (2000) ‘Cine y
sexo en Japón’, in Film: On Line, 15 April 2000, para. 3. <www.filmonline.com.ar/40/dossier/
40dossier3.htm>.