Why Don't You Play in Hell?

Why Don't You Play in Hell?
Why Don't You Play in Hell?
Directed by	Sion Sono
Written by	Sion Sono
Starring	Jun Kunimura; Shinichi Tsutsumi; Fumi Nikaidō; Tomochika; Hiroki Hasegawa; Gen Hoshino
Cinematography
Edited by
Music by	Sion Sono
Production; companies	Bitters End; ; ;
Distributed by	Drafthouse Films (United States)
Release date	September 2013;
Running time	129 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Box office	$1,200,000

Why Don't You Play in Hell? (地獄でなぜ悪い, Jigoku de naze warui, literally What's so bad about hell?) is a 2013 Japanese film directed, written and scored by Sion Sono.^[2]^[3]

The film is an action film based on a screenplay written by Sono fifteen years earlier. North American distributor Drafthouse Films announced its acquisition before it made its world premiere at the 2013 Venice Film Festival, planning a 2014 release in theatres and VOD after its premiere at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.^[4] At Toronto the film won the People's Choice Award in the Midnight Madness section.^[5]

Plot[]

Three boys who are passionate about cinema, led by director Hirata, meet a young thug named Sasaki who becomes, for them, an icon of a possible Japanese "Bruce Lee"; so they form the group "Fuck Bombers" with the blessing of an elderly projectionist specialized in 35mm film. In the meantime, a yakuza war rages, which sees the boss Muto grappling with the assassins of a rival gang who invaded his home to attack his wife; who, to defend himself, killed almost all of them, ending up in prison. The only survivor, Ikegami, has a brief encounter with Mitsuko, the infant daughter of Muto, a star of a toothbrush commercial. Escaping, covered in blood, from the crime scene, he is warned and filmed by the enthusiastic Fuck Bombers. The yakuza led by Muto defeats the rival group by killing the boss. The new boss becomes Ikegami, who proposes a truce. In the meantime, however, he also decides to turn his gang headquarters into a castle inspired by samurai films, with all the criminals walking around wearing kimono. Meanwhile, the Fuck Bombers leave a prayer to the God of cinema, in a small temple: they must be able to make, sooner or later, a good movie.

10 years pass and their mission seems to have failed. The Fuck Bombers film club was abandoned and the projectionist died. Sasaki in particular feels a deep unease and no longer believes in cinema, which is why he abandons friends. Meanwhile, the war between Muto's yakuza and Ikegami's yakuza has continued, and Muto is desperate as Mitsuko, who has since become an actress, has run away from the set of the musical she was starring in, a film whose production began to impress. Muto's wife, who is about to be released from prison. Mitsuko begins to take with him the clumsy Koji, in love with her since he saw her on TV as a child in her commercial, dragging him into violent adventures that only involve him more. In desperation, when he realizes from the director of the musical that the film with Mitsuko can no longer be done, Muto decides to rent equipment and build a set with his subordinates; one of them suggests that, to kill two birds with one stone, the film could be built around the inevitable confrontation with Ikegami.

When Muto's men manage to find Mitsuko, they mistakenly think that Koji convinced her to escape and that he is her boyfriend. They beat him up and bring him in front of the boss, but Mitsuko saves him by saying that he is a director and that he can be useful. Finding himself in an even more difficult situation, Koji escapes and finds himself in front of the temple, where he takes an illness that causes him a copious rejection. In doing so, he humidifies the temple and causes the Fuck Bombers to escape the prayer. He decides to contact Hirata, and while giving him few details about the project they immediately manage to involve him as soon as they say they have the money and the 35mm film. Hirata recovers his friendship with Sasaki and meets the rest of Muto's yakuza, which have now become a semi-professional crew. They have the idea of trying to convince Ikegami, also lost in an irrational love for Mitsuko, to approve this cinematic operation and he, remembering when he met the Fuck Bombers 10 years ago, accepts, but on the condition that all men are armed only with katanas.

The fight begins. In the massacre, Koji and Mitsuko confess their mutual love, but he dies, and Muto dies soon too. Shortly after, in revenge for the death of the boss, one of his men shoots Ikegami with a gun, and the massacre goes out of control: even the steadycam operator and the trolley operator begin to shoot anyone without distinction, but they both die behind the camera. Suddenly the police arrive, and they kill first Ikegami and Mitsuko, then Sasaki and Hirata. While slaughtering all the survivors, Hirata gets up from the pile of corpses and begins to retrieve all the rolls of film shot from the cameras scattered here and there around Ikegami's castle. He runs away, hysterical, covered in blood, screaming and running through the rainy streets, shouting "Fuck Bombers!" and "We have the movie!" while he imagines the cine-club being opened again and everyone resurrecting to present the film shot, which is called Why don't you play in hell?, to an audience that applauds them with emotion. Back in reality Hirata runs through the streets shouting the Fuck Bombers' victory until a voice (presumably Sion Sono's) yells to cut, and some crew members can be seen in the background.

Cast[]

Reception[]

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 70, based on 10 reviews.^[6]