Masters of Horror Season 1 Part 6: Imprint (2006)

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Director: Takashi Miike

Screenplay: Daisuke Tengan

Based on a novel by Shimako Iwai

Cast: Billy Drago as Christopher; Michié as Komomo; Yûki Kudô as the Woman

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows) #14

There's the obvious hypocrisy, openly humorous, how the production of Masters of Horror gave their chosen directors carte blanche to film episodes with adult content, and not only hired Takashi Miike in the first place, considering his career by than included Visitor Q (2001) and Ichi the Killer (2001), but expected him not to create a transgressive story when given the chance out creative control. Miike has done commercial mainstream horror, like One Missed Call (2003), but when he was picked because of films like Audition (1999) which pushed boundaries, it's only the production staff for the series to blame when he brought back Imprint, pulled from US cable television for being too extreme. Even with concessions - all the lines of dialogue spoken in English awkardly by most of the cast, whilst Billy Drago "emotes" as an American named Christopher in period Japan going to a pleasure island looking for a geisha named Komomo (Michié) - Miike managed to pull off a paradox in this creative freedom but going too far.

It also reveals how, when J-horror became a commodity of interest for the US film industry, something was visibly lost in translation about Japanese horror storytelling. Another perfect example of this, within this same year or so, was when Miike inexplicably cameoed in Eli Roth's Hostel (2005); seeing him phonetically say a single line of dialogue about his enjoyment of something nasty and horrible, looking like a badass in his trademark shades whilst disappearing off screen never to be seen again, you could see how off the mark Roth was making immediate mirroring of his film and Japanese horror, regardless of the level of transgression in some of them, and missing the noticeable difference between them. Whilst films have been made that are gore for the sake of gore, there's some many differences in tone and content that makes the meeting between American horror and Japanese horror confused. Japanese horror in any medium beyond the gore and weirdness has a significantly different attitude. For every one that feels like a mainstream crossover in the tone of Hollywood, even mainstream films reflect reality through horror tropes (adultery, gender politics, the plight of hierarchy) that's synonymous in Japanese culture or are far more complex in their transgressive natures by way of the types of films they've been inspired by or clear genres like Ero-guro.

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The irony with Imprint is that, beyond the notorious content that got it kicked off the air, the plot's pretty standard in both Japanese horror cinema and even in the likes of Kenji Mizoguchi melodramas. If this has been an episode of a Japanese horror anthology series, it would've been a solid six out of ten.  A little disappointing from Takashi Miike when you expect better, but perfectly solid and amongst some of the Masters of Horror episodes, standing out by a country mile to many of them in terms of quality. The plot's pretty simple to an advantage, built from well aged but reliable plot threads. Christopher wants to see Kimomo again, only to meet a disfigured geisha (Yûki Kudô) who not only says his love committed suicide, but is suspicious in the exact story she tells of how this came to be as well as in discussing her own life since birth. Mostly it's a chamber piece with a Rashomon like narrative where she's not a reliable narrator, the story changing as it keeps being questioned. Kudô, in an episode which honestly has poor acting throughout it, does actually commit to a good performance, arguably amongst some of the best through the series. I was surprised to discover she's in Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train (1989) as one of the iconic pair of Japanese, rock and roll obsessed tourists in Memphis, pleasantly surprised to see her here fifteen or so years later. That her career has spanned English and Japanese speaking roles means she's actually able to create an interesting performance with nuance to her dialogue, this the first of Miike's ill advised attempts at an all-English language film with non-English speakers (Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)), and with Kudô the most comfortable out of everyone including Billy Drago in acting in English. The story does overstuff the twist ending with unnecessary inclusions, missing the point when the geisha herself is so much more interesting than what's done. Not only is Kudô's performance enough by itself, but the reveal of the level of her deformities is enough for a story without the random additional twists included.

Another factor of worth is knowing Imprint's source material is from a female author Shimako Iwai, complicating potential accusations of misogyny with the content particularly the notorious torture sequence halfway through, more so as Iwai herself plays the torturer trying to gain information from Komomo. Iwai sadly doesn't even have real articles on her in the English interweb let alone any published work in English, more so a disappointment as the little on her Wikipedia page suggests such a fascinating figure. An authoress, pornographic director, television celebrity and essayist, the sort of figure I'd be dying to be able to read any of her work of as, particularly as Imprint is seen usually as Miike at his most nasty and transgressive, realising its from a woman's voice originally does bring more depth to an otherwise adequate entry. A story consisting mainly of the voice of a woman (Kudô's character) telling of how women like herself are sold in sexual slavery and the various plights women in general suffer as a result. Even if her geisha character commits evil acts, she's someone created from a life of misery and having had to become controller of said life to avoid this misery further, a continuation of countless narratives like it in Japanese storytelling. It actually further, in a story where women are the predominant characters and the sole male one is a weak willed listener, that Drago's performance is as ridiculous as it is, unintentionally adding a lot to the powerlessness of Christopher in how wooden and hysterical the performance is.

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Lastly, it's interesting for a series that I've mainly ignored the production side of the episodes, as it rarely stands out, that Imprint does stand out particularly in set and costume design. Costume designer Michiko Kitamura stands out immediately with her work giving a deliberate artificiality and sense of colour found in Japanese horror rare in Western stories, just in differing Yûki Kudô (even in the dyed colour of her hair) with blue against the other actresses playing geishas or the brothel Madame in stark red. Having the cinematographer of Gohatto (1999), Toyomichi Kurita, doesn't hurt either. Nor the general production, (be it art, production or set design), where as a period piece in stands more noticeably out than the other period stories in the series just for little touches which catch the viewer off guard. How, even when the disfigured geisha's childhood is retold with even more taboos on display, the shack she grew up in has colourful paper windmills on sticks in every version nearby in a dirt mound. For all the problems with Imprint, especially in its plot structure, it still manages to be more rewarding than other episodes because of this. Miike, even when he drops the ball, usually still creates a film of interest and only rarely in his insanely prolific career makes something completely unwatchable. This could've been a lot better, which is disappointing as one of the those die-hard fans of his, but it's in a class of its own to other Masters of Horror episodes not just because of it being the only banned from air time. 

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