| Plot: Years later after getting raped by three men, Chihiro has put her life back together by getting a nice office job and a boyfriend in Tokyo. Her life is turned upside down once again as one of the rapists comes to her home saying that they're going to shoot a "sequel" to the raping. Chihiro turns the tables on them and before you know it she's making rapist popsicles out of them. Review: The simplest way to describe Freeze Me is to say it's a social commentary on Japan's treatment of rape victims. In that aspect, you'd be right, but you could also call it a horror movie, a revenge movie, a dark comedy, an exploitation movie, and a love story. It really depends on your point of view, but I believe that all of these parts were blended together. First off, let's just say that even though there's barely any blood in this movie, it is fairly disturbing. The rape sequences are just plain brutal, but in a sense are done tastefully well. We never actually see anything really disgusting, but it's all implied pretty convincingly. The sequences never really linger on, just told to us in fractured bits and pieces. We don't get the whole picture of the raping incident until the very end. The story starts off with Chihiro just going through her average work day while occasionally seeing her boyfriend and all of a sudden Hirokawa (Kazuki Kitamura), one of the three rapists, shows up in front of her apartment. It's a shock to her and Hirokawa forces his way in there. He tells her that the others will be there to shoot a sequel to their raping film since it sold well. Let me just say that Kitamura rocks as Hirokawa. On the outside, he looks like your average, good-looking, nice frat guy, but on the inside he's a total bastard. He mercilessly beats her, orders her around, and acts so casually as if he's just going about a daily routine. Chihiro just does what he says since Hirokawa's blackmailing her with photos of the raping. I don't see why Chihiro just doesn't go to the police, but that seems to be the entire message of the film: if we keep our secrets to ourselves, don't be surprised when they get too big for us to handle. Chihiro's relationship with all of the rapists is interesting and at times comical to watch. She swings from treating them as house guests, to vile criminals, and in the case of Hirokawa, a lover. At one point Chihiro is drunk and has consensual sex with Hirokawa ("It's okay, we're old fuck-buddies!") and she treats him like a boyfriend. It takes a while, but the wait is worth it to see the kills. Chihiro realizes that the rapists will just continue to mess up her life and she decides to kill Hirokawa with...a water bottle! Wow, that's one heavy water bottle. She panics and stuffs his body in her freezer...and that's where the fun begins. While the kills are relatively bloodless, they are fairly brutal. The movie plays out like a twisted version of "The Three Little Pigs" with each rapist getting killed because of some weakness in their tendencies. The next rapist to come at her door is Baba (Naoto Takenaka) who at first glance appears to be sorry for what he did to her, but after getting a few (dozen) beers, reveals that he's just as heartless and horny as the rest of the rapists. Takenaka doesn't have that hard of a role to play: just act like he's drunk. 'Nuff said. Baba reaches for another cold one and sees Hirokawa's frozen corpse, he turns around only to see Chihiro bashing him in the skull with yet another blunt instrument. She now develops a fixation on both frozen corpses. Chihiro does a juggling act with balancing her job, her boyfriend, and her secrets. Her boyfriend Nogami (Shunsuke Matsuoka) just got on my nerves more than anything. He's a dimwit and doesn't know about Chihiro's problems. Matsuoka plays him as the "nice guy", and if you know me by now, I hate the nice guy roles. And that haircut! I'd be willing to bet my entire manga collection that's a wig. The third rapist Kojima (Shingo Tsurumi) is the most violent and impatient of the three. He beats her worse than any of the other rapists, but he just loves playing her Playstation. In fact, he loves it so much that whenever he plays it, he has to yell at the game like a jackass. Chihiro takes that opportunity to bash him in the head and stick him in another freezer (where does she get the money for those freezers?). She just can't get enough of those blunt objects. All seems fine until Nogami comes to her apartment for forgiveness and they both have sex. By the way, the woman who plays Chihiro does have a VERY nice body. The freezers have lost power and now the bodies are rotting and Nogami finds them. Chihiro kills Nogami and the ending is left open to speculation. Did she kill herself, did she leave the country, or is she just going to keep her secrets to herself? The problem with Freeze Me is that while it's interesting to see her reaction to each of the rapists, it did get a bit predictable. Rapist comes to her apartment, abuses her, gets killed, rinse and repeat for another two times. Chihiro is a character I wanted to like, but in the end didn't. She could've gone to the police and no one would've been the wiser, but she didn't. While Freeze Me tries to act like a social commentary on the treatment of rape victims in Japan, it ultimately fails and has us all saying "she should've gone to the police." Its main strengths is in seeing Chihiro's reaction to each wacky rapist. You should go into Freeze Me expecting your typical revenge story (with an icy twist) and a nice bit of dark comedy, but not much else. |
| Review by Jim |
| Rating: **1/2 |
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