Irezumi

With Kaneto Shindo’s screenplay underlining the themes of social class and women’s oppressed position in Japanese society, Masumura’s tale of a woman (Ayako Wakao) transcending her literal branding (with a spider tattoo) to wreak vengeance on those who wronged her floats between ero guro, rape revenge, female melodrama and something stranger – a primal rage that touches on the existential. Visually sumptuous and desperately violent, it encapsulates the dissonance between the lurid and the majestic that Masumura specialised in creating. Based on the short story “The Tattooer” by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki.