Empire of Passion

At some point Hulu was like, “Here’s a bunch of classic films in Japanese, maybe you’d like to see them.” And I was like, I dunno, because I have a tendency to get really bored with old films, but I put a couple on my queue anyway. Watched this one tonight?

Yeah, augh. Like I find the movies interesting from the cultural perspective of having grown up watching Western feudal-type stories (aka medieval lords and ladies and peasants) and knowing very little about other societies in general, let alone pre-industrialization societies. I know some about modern Japanese culture, but my knowledge of their history is worse than my knowledge of USAmerican history, which isn’t terribly comprehensive either, to be honest. (History: Not a thing that sticks well with me, unfortunately.) So I like getting kind of an overview of at least what sort of stereotypes show up in historical Japanese fiction, the way people talk or dress or what jobs they do.

Spoilers ahead if anyone cares:

But I’ve never been able to stand love stories about forbidden love in general, and it’s even worse when there’s cheating involved. Not to mention Toyama is pretty much a creepy, manipulative rapist anyway, but apparently Seki loves him because when he goes down on her it’s the best fucking orgasm she’s ever had. I guess?

She’s not even sympathetic to me anyway because she doesn’t seem to give a damn about her kids. I mean Shin, okay, is pretty much old enough to take care of herself anyway, but her son can’t even talk yet (somehow? Even at at least four or five, after they kill her husband, he still can’t say anything), and not only does she constantly leave him alone and ignore him, but almost killed him with her when she tried to kill herself in the fire.

I kept checking the time hoping the movie was over, and yet it wasn’t, lulz. And then what even with the whole thing where she was blinded. I mean. I understand. They didn’t have awesome cgi special effects and things, but none of that made sense anyway, since she was blinded by blades of grass falling with such force they impaled her eyes? And then somehow she climbed up out of the well and back home before exclaiming how blind she was.

Not to mention who even knows why they denied killing her husband even after they were arrested. I guess they wanted to be tortured?