Japanese

JP-M:The Guard From Underground DVD 地狱的警备员 地狱的警备员 DVD The Guard From Underground

Code : DVD- ZHW

A pretty young woman named Akiko has recently landed herself a job of Akabone, a typically faceless corporation with big offices and a fairly strong economic presence. On her first day on the job, she takes a cab to the office but unfortunately gets stuck in traffic. While she’s stuck, the erratic cab driver tells her about a news story he heard in which an insane sumo wrestler slaughtered his wife and the man she was having an affair with, and how he got off by pleading insanity instead of having to serve time in prison for his crimes.



Akiko finally gets to work where she meets her lecherous boss Karoume and the rest of the team that she’ll be working with, all of whom seem either depressed or just plain weird, something which is confirmed to her by the head of the HR department, a young man named Hyodo.



After a few days on the job, Akiko notices that a new security guard has started, a rather large man who keeps to himself and spends a lot of time in the shadows. He’s an eerie figure, made all the more frightening by the fact that since he’s started with Akabone, employees have gone missing, never to be seen or heard from again. When Akiko and Hyodo get stuck in the office after hours one day, putting in some over time to complete an important project, the reality of who the new security guard really is and just what he’s capable of sets in and Akiko’s life will never be the same again.



Best known for Pulse (a.k.a. Kairo), Kiyoshi Kurosawa has, over the last decade and a half or so, proven to be a talented and rather unpredictable director. Rather than play by genre rules, his films tend to mix elements of dark humor or almost science fiction like aspects of technology, making for some unique viewing and often times rather startling images. With The Guard From Underground Kiyoshi Kurosawa has taken the basic North American slasher film and given it his unique twist, managing to work in a lot of incredibly morose humor but not sacrificing mood or scares by doing so.



Set almost completely in an office (a rather odd setting for a slasher movie but when you think about how much strange activity can and does go on seemingly on a daily basis in the average office building, maybe no so much), the movie hits at a pretty brisk pace and while the gore isn’t as nasty as other movies of its ilk, there are enough quality kills in here to keep those expecting some bloody death scenes happy enough. What’s more interesting however isn’t the results of the kills or the gore that they produce but rather the unrelenting sadism behind them – the murderer truly hates everyone he gets his hands on and his methods confirm this with sheer brutality and inventive nastiness. Kurosawa also manages to build suspense quite effectively with some subtle and not so subtle foreshadowing. When our heroine discovers an impromptu shrine constructed in her honor within the confines of the office, she’s understandably freaked out and she, as well as the view, know that something bad will come out of it.

While there are a few spots that are just a tad too predictable for their own good and the fact that we know who the killer is more of less from the start hurt the movie a little bit, there’s enough effective black humor, stylish cinematography and decent acting in The Guard From Underground to easily recommend it to those who enjoy slasher films or quirky foreign oddities.

Region Code: All



Picture Format: NTSC

片长：97分钟



地区：日本



年份：1992







影片评价

在电影中，最能显示人脆弱的，莫过于死亡。一种莫名力量下的横死。







　　《回路》中的堕楼少女，《地狱警备员》中的困兽残杀，《蛇道》里的复仇，还有《X圣治》里的暗示杀人，黑泽清仿佛一直在思考人有多少种死法，到底哪一种才能石破天惊。







　　而本片的影响可能来自于John Carpenter1978年的《万圣节》。







　　本片的编导黑泽清是日本知名新锐导演之一，1955年出生于日本兵库县。学生时期就用8MM家庭用的摄像机开始学习摄影，后以助理导演的身份参与了长谷川和彦等导演的影片拍摄工作。1992年，黑泽清以最佳电影原著《CHARISMA》获得圣丹斯协会提供的奖学金，随后赴美国攻读电影制作。







　　1997年由他执导、役所广司主演的《X圣治》在东京国际电影节上夺得最佳男主角奖，并获得国内外一致好评，并为黑泽清赢得了国际声誉。之后他陆续推出了《人间合格》《荒凉幻境》等作品，均在国际知名电影节上获奖。







　　黑泽清是一个擅长将狂放气息灌注于平凡生活中的奇才。他偏好运用小津式的长镜头来拍摄人们日常作息，而再利用该背景建构出他独特的异色世界。从暴力复仇先声《X圣治》，到骇人巅峰的《蛇之道》与《蜘蛛之瞳》二部曲，又转进人性色彩浓厚的《人间合格》，黑泽清在真实人生与虚幻梦魇的游走，每每都教人有无比的惊奇。