Organ

Toronto International Film Festival Program Guide
1996

Organ
Kei Fujiwara
JAPAN, 1996
110 minutes Colour/35mm
Production Company: Organ Vital
Executive Producer: Kei Fujiwara
Producer: Binbun Furusawa, Koichi Toda
Screenplay: Kei Fujiwara
Cinematographer: Kei Fujiwara
Editor: Kenji Nasa
Production Designer: Kei Fujiwara
Sound: Eiko
Music: Video Rodeo
Principal Cast: Kimihiko Hasegawa, Kenji Nasa, Kei Fujiwara, Ryo Okubo, Shozo Tojima, Yosiaki Maekawa

From Kei Fujiwara, the legendary robot-handed woman from Tetsuo: Iron Man, comes a directorial debut that may well be the strangest Midnight Madness film ever.

Detectives Numata and Tosaka go under cover to investigate a shadowy gang of underground organ dealers. Numata infiltrates their filthy surgical grotto, complete with a fatally injured young man in the midst of being “harvested.” Tosaka fights his way in, but is overwhelmed when he sees the lame teacher Saeki, assisted by his one-eyed sister Yoko (Fujiwara), ripping out the young man’s liver. In the confusion, a gas leak and gunshots ignite a terrible blaze. Numata escapes, pursued by Tosaka’s screams.

Saeki, it turns out, is a teacher at a city girls’ school, and is known for his obsession with butterflies. Students have gone missing lately—often those with lower marks, seeking “private” interviews—and one of Saeki’s fellow teachers suspects him of foul play. One-eyed Yoko, his more outgoing sister, is involved with the yakuza, who help support their organ-running business.

Meanwhile, Numata’s investigation leads him to an elderly yakuza who raised the evil siblings, and who tells their horrible story. It seems their mother bit off Saeki’s genitals and poked out Yoko’s eye as Yoko tried to defend him. This information leads Numata through a swirl of mutilated corpses, yakuza battles and butterflies to the horrifying remains of Detective Tosaka.

Organ is the brainchild of Fujiwara’s drama troupe, Organ Vital, currently a cult sensation in Japan. Their performances are described as “a cartoon-like cult world in the form of modern horror,” especially popular with teenage girls and “bookish- type paranoids.”

Shot in sensuous and violent tones, Organ is a surprising and deeply creepy assault on the senses. Kei has quickly established herself as a new goddess in the pantheon of the bizarre and grotesque.
—Noah Cowan