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| Suicide Club (Suicide Circle) | 
 enlarge | Director: Sion Sono
Actor: Ryo Ishibashi; Akaji Maro; Masatoshi Nagase; Saya Hagiwara; Hideo Sako; Takashi Nomura (ii); Tamao Sato; Mai Hosho; Yoko Kamon; Rolly; Kimiko Yo; Yuhei Okabe; Asami Hidaka; Miyu Sawada; Himeno Maeda; Harina Hata; Hiromi Eguchi; Kikuko Sakurai; Tatsuo Moriyasu; Seiko Hashimoto
Studio: TLA Releasing
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.99
Buy New: $7.40
You Save: $7.59 (51%)
New (33) Used (13) from $7.40
Avg. Customer Rating:  115 reviews
Sales Rank: 14023
Format: Color, Dvd-video, Ntsc, Subtitled, Widescreen
Languages: Japanese (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: Unrated
Running Time: 94 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: TLA049
UPC: 807839000580
EAN: 0807839000580
ASIN: B0000CC885
Theatrical Release Date: 2002
Release Date: November 18, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New and Factory Sealed Item Fast Shipping
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Product Description
A wave of unexplainable suicides sweeps across Tokyo after 54 smiling high school girls join hands and throw themselves from a subway platform into an oncoming train. Detective Kuroda (Audition's Ryo Ishibashi) and the rest of the police force are baffled as the bloodbath triggers a wave of suicides across the city. When a cryptic phone call tips off police to a strange website that appears to be tracking the suicides before they happen the question becomes are they really suicides at all? This outrageously bizarre wicked social critique in the form of a creepy and enigmatic detective mystery examines the despair of the disaffected Japanese youth and the influence of pop culture on their lives. From international film festival favorite to cult sensation Suicide Club is a study of contemporary morality that is gruesome darkly comic and vividly original.System Requirements: Running Time 94 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: MYSTERY/SUSPENSE Rating: NR UPC: 807839000580 Manufacturer No: TLA049
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| Customer Reviews: Read 110 more reviews...
 I still don't quite understand...but then again, I wasn't supposed to was I? January 5, 2009
Ok...this movie...I watched it 1 time through, then jumped to several moments that I thought contained meaning to the theory driving it...but I still don't understand. People here have been saying that the movie somehow represents the "disconnection" that people in societies have on towards their human side; we have indulged ourselves into jaded lives, wrapped into other meaningless pursuits such as the media, materialistic possessions, etc. But that theme is still a length away from why these actual sucides occur. The film introduces a variety of vectors that drives this, whether it is those creepy little girl band or that blond haired emo band guy (for lack of a better description...) but I think that it is wrong to assume that any of these forces are directly behind the cause of the suicides. Talk about confusing. Now, the gist of this movie isn't about the physical links present in traditional murder-horror who-dun-it tales. Heck, the director may have not even realized all the possibilities and deep philosophical concepts that may spring up. It's peoples imaginations and their creativity that makes their reasoning come alive. This film is worth a look, o matter what conclusions you may draw in the end. And if you end up totally confused...well...just don't worry about it. And maybe think it over a bit if you think it is worth the time.
 Schoolgirls and the art of "SPLAT!" December 31, 2008
Great. People use to think all us Asian people know Kung-Fu and dry-cleaning. Now add to that the ability to explode like a David Letterman watermelon every time our bodies impact something hard. While, Westerners in other movies merely hit the ground with an unprotesting thud, the sound Asian bodies make when they hit concrete in Sion Sono's Suicide Club is halfway between an ornate Baroque (nee. taco-bell) flatulence and a Jackson Pollack drip painting made inside a mosh pit.
Show offs.
Sion Sono's film Suicide Club, for me, is a film about the erosion of Japanese culture. While it gives a nod in the direction of Robert Bresson (mentioned in the script), it also draws from the work of Michael Haneke (A Bresson disciple). The speculation of cultures that are so steeped in rote repetition they have all but lost sight of their purpose in existence, is a driving theme behind Haneke's 7th Continent (where a family who tries to break free of daily drudgery by suicide ends up applying the identical 9-5 formula to killing themselves).
A film that is not traditionally resolved by "answers" is bound to stumble audiences, but the Suicide Club shows many hints along the way. Consider the discovery of the "skin-scroll," a scroll of human skin stitched together into a continuous riddle without words. The Japanese E-Makimono picture scroll is a tradition that presented storytelling in horizontal scrolls during the Kamakura period (11th-14h century) in Japan. The rich visual allusion to human flesh being incorporated into a scroll depicting recent event serves to illustrate how even the media of a traditional art form has changed. If anything, the Suicide Club is a story of time and the force of change. It's no surprise that the greatest point of tension is a train station, where by definition, a schedule of an arriving train is defined by a clock.
The Suicide Club reminds me of Chan is Missing in that it tries to solve a mystery by inspecting peripheral evidence. It goes down many wrong leads, but those wrong leads inevitably turns up new insights into the problem at hand. Look at the first suspect: People with tattoos. The police first saw a suspect in people with tattoos. In airports in Japan, passengers with tattoos are often associated with the Yakuza (Japanese mafia) and consequently denied entry into the country. That lead - much like the tendency to blame all of society's ills on the most convenient culprit: gangs- led nowhere. Next, a mysterious internet user by the name of "the bat" was traced down. But when the bat gets kidnapped by a bunch of rock-and-rollers, despite all their posturing of sporting blond hair, acting like a cross between David Bowie, Dr. Frank-n-Furter, and Mad Max's Toecutter, they get caught, and it appears that neither the cultural imperialism from the West, nor the pervasive internet (the reduction of lives into mere dots, an allusion to the pixelated representation of the modern self online) had anything to do with the murders. (An observation here: Japanese guerilla films have a tendency to use Western motifs during tremendous acts of violence: witness opera and the music of Bach being utilized during execution style scenes in Battle Royale, blond-haired Asian villains in the films of Takashi Miike, and Gaelic jigs sounded right before the Suicide Club's 54 students hop onto the oncoming train in the opening scene, no doubt a legacy of associating all things West with...*cough* Hiroshima... violence)
So who is killing the kids of Japan? I think all signs point to the youth of today. It eventually becomes apparent that the children, the up-and-coming generation, are the ones who are destroying culture as Japanese people have known it to be. The children are the gallery of peers even the heroine has to answer to in the climactic moment of self-realization. The child band "Dessart" separates Detective Kuroda's family's attention when he calls for a kitchen table meeting with wife and kids. A poster of the prepubescent pop group reveals an abstract code of numbers imparted by hand signs. The school kids egg each other on to suicide during a school lunch break.
Ironically, (and like Haneke's 7th Continent) the model of traditional Japanese conformism is being outmoded not by individuality; it is being replaced by *another* form of conformism. So the route of escape presented by the new generation is nothing but a repackaged brand of group allegiance.
The utterance of "how much one is connected to oneself"- for example- is the moral of the story. Combining Japanese Kata (the correct and only way to do something") and Japanese etiquette (hospitality consisting of sparing others inconvenience) one immediately sees how these traditional ways are rendered obsolete when the modern man selfishly considers his connection to himself (before his traditional Japanese consideration to his fellow man) and randomly jumps to his death from a balcony. Because he didn't take the trouble to see if anyone was below, he lands on a girl, who, instead of being concerned about a dying friend in the street, rushes into a bar, gloating over how she may have been physically deformed from someone landing on her. The focus of the phrase "connection to oneself" is played out repeatedly in how the folks of present day are so self-absorbed, they have lost touch with the tradition of the Japanese Kata.
In the final scene, when detective Shibusawa runs to the train station to "save" Mitsuko. She rejects his hand and instead -on her own volition- steps into a train that takes her away (into the future). For me, the Suicide Club is both a critique of the conformity in Japanese culture, and an ethnographic inspection of how that culture is attempting to break away from the traditional codes.
However, is it really breaking away? After all, every train's destination eventually leads to the station it departed from.
Good and creepy October 10, 2008
Suicide Club was a good ride. Some parts very random and creepy but very different than any American flick I can think of.
Absolutely Superb August 5, 2008
This movie in itself is not only one of the most original movies I have seen in a very long time but it is one of my favorite films period. Beautifully shot, great acting and a story line you may have to sit through a few viewings to get it all. Do yourself a favor and get this movie I suggest the unrated version to really get the full effect of this film. I'm not going to keep writing about this movie because i just don't want to give anything away .. just watch it
One of the Best Japanese Films I have seen in a Long time!!!! July 14, 2008
This film suprised me greatly being that it was one of the first Japanese films i have watched where the acting, the story and the entire presentation were up to par if not exceeding that of American film. I had seen a lot of other films from Japan and am pleased to say that if you love Japan, a good horror movie with plenty of both blood, guts, and a meaty story line that will have you thinking for years to come, this is a film for you!
One of the most iconic opening sequences i have ever seen in a film; 54 Japanese school girls jump in front of an oncomming train only to have blood, body parts, and just plain gross launched at Everything and Everyone in the station. After getting over the vast amount of shock one feels after seeing the opening scene, the story picks up and sucks you in, always making want more. The basic story synopsis is a slew of mysterious suisides rave Tokyo and the surrounding areas of Japan, and a lone group of detectives devote their lives and sanity to try and solve the case. Time and Time again, its seems the "club" is always one step ahead of the police, always leading to yet another horribly bloody and enjoyable (and even sometimes completly unexpected) suicide. While this film may not be for everyone, if you love everything Japan, J-horror, almost laughable and over the top blood effects, as well as one of the most contraversial plots to ever hit the big screen, you will most deffinately LOVE this picture. Please Enjoy. also, if you liked this one, i highly reccommend Noriko's Dinner Table, the second in Sion Sono's Suicide Club series.
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