Thoughts
on the film: Demon City Shinjuku (1988)
First scene, pre-credits:
a battle upon a rooftop. The evil Rebi Ra has sided with the demon world to
become all-powerful. In attempting to open a portal that will unleash the demon
world into that of our own, Rebi Ra is challenged by a former associate, Genichirō
Izayoi. From the first images, the presence of Rebi Ra - and by extension, the
demon world itself - is linked to the colour red. The presence of Genichirō and
the side of good is linked to the colour blue.
In these first frames we can
already see an obvious polarity between these saturated colours: red, with its
connotations of heat - equating to hell, violence and "sin" - and
blue, with its connotations of cold - equating to logic, introspection and the natural
world. In a sense, these are the colours of dawn and dusk, falling at either
end of a chromatic spectrum. Red also suggests fire, but in a way so does blue.
The blue flame burns brighter, and perhaps that's the point.
Throughout the film the
colours will be at war with one another: their battle for dominance over the cinematic
frame mirroring that of the battle between characters on-screen.
Demon City Shinjuku [Yoshiaki
Kawajiri, 1988]:
As a visual aesthetic, this
same contrasting colour palette was used previously in Yoshiaki Kawajiri's earlier
film, Wicked City (1987). As in this film, Wicked City concerns itself with the
battle between a demon world and our own. Though both films are unrelated and
based on individual source materials, there are parallels that go beyond simple
auteurism to suggest an actual lineage. In Wicked City, a human agent and a
demon agent must join forces to attempt to stop the "black world"
from encroaching on reality. Their relationship again defined by this same
contrast between a red and blue lighting strategy. The colours there were redolent
of that of a police siren: an invocation of law and order?
Wicked City [Yoshiaki
Kawajiri, 1987]:
The same connotations
apply there as they do here, but the aesthetic was used much more sparingly in
Wicked City than it is in this subsequent work. From the outset, the interplay
between the two colours is made a defining feature of Demon City Shinjuku,
obvious even in the on-screen presentation of its title. The text is repeated
twice, once in red, and again in blue, as both colours re-enact a version of
the rooftops battle that we've previously seen. Here, it's the colour blue that
remains dominant: a telling sign perhaps of which side of this cosmic battle
its filmmakers have taken.
[NOTE: One could argue from the screen-captures included that black is
also a dominant colour. However, I tend to think of black, in this context, as
a neutral backdrop, like the white of a piece of paper. The blank canvas or
arena of a medieval darkness on to which these colours, as a personification, interact.]
Demon City Shinjuku [Yoshiaki
Kawajiri, 1988]:
Let's cut back to that
opening fight for a second. In narrative terms, this scene is pure exposition.
It establishes a context and back-story, but also gives purpose to our as-yet
to be introduced central character, Kyoya Izayoi: Genichirō's son. One of the
defining characteristics of the anime films of this period is their ability to
marry exposition to scenes of action and spectacle. In conventional terms, it's
unrealistic to assume that these characters would be sharing necessary
background information so freely during the midst of battle, but then there is very
little in the film that is realistic,
or that aims to reflect reality in the literal sense. As such it's something we
either embrace and go along with, or reject and move on.
Demon City Shinjuku [Yoshiaki
Kawajiri, 1988]:
As the battle here
progresses, Kawajiri and his animators push the saturation of the colours even
further, abstracting the reality of the (human) world as it might ordinarily
appear and showing instead how it is destroyed (or reclaimed) by the shadowy
supernatural forces of the demon world. There are broader social and political
implications to this scene, specific to the destruction of Japan by the allies
during the Second World War, which I'll return to in more detail in a
subsequent post, however, there's also something more subconscious to this
relationship between man and "world" that is worth remarking on.
At this point, it's probably
not a massive spoiler to suggest that the noble Genichirō loses his battle. It's
often a cliché in such films that the early death of a character is used to
provide purpose to the subsequent protagonist, and especially if the deceased
character is a parent, as is the case here. However, there is also a symbiotic
relationship between the characters and the worlds that they inhabit. For
example, if Genichirō is wounded, then the world is wounded. If Genichirō dies
then the world dies too. Each physical wound against the human body causes a
corporeal "wound" upon the landscape itself.
Demon City Shinjuku [Yoshiaki
Kawajiri, 1988]:
This subsequent shot,
depicting the bruised and bloodied figure of Genichirō, makes the point
somewhat clear. As the character approaches death he must look on, hopelessly,
as the city he was fighting to protect falls into rubble and disarray. The
colour red, now the colour of blood, suggests the severity of his wounds and
the visualisation of life escaping into the shadowy depths: further clarifying
the role that red, as a colour, will play in signifying death.
Demon City Shinjuku [Yoshiaki
Kawajiri, 1988]:
After the defeat of Genichirō,
the subsequent shot of the city as it's reduced to rubble is entirely saturated
in the colour red. In this timeline, blue has been removed from the palette.
I'll return to this image in a subsequent post as I find its significance goes far
beyond the level of mere aesthetics and opens up on an interesting thread that
runs throughout many Japanese genre films of this period (and especially in
OAV/anime movies.)
Demon City Shinjuku is in
no way a masterwork. It's anticlimactic - feeling more like a series of
set-pieces than a coherent narrative - and is marred by many of the
shortcomings of other Kawajiri films, specifically his fondness for obnoxious
characters and scenes of sexual violence against women. However, it stands out
in part due to its bold imagery, its nightmares of body horror mutation and the
atmosphere of its ruined world.
