Hana-Dama: The Origin Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		1.5

Hana-Dama: The Origin Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 19, 2016

One time Missouri congressman Todd Akin saw his quest for a Senate seat disappear virtually overnight when he made his now infamous comments about “legitimate rape”. Akin struggled for days to explain what he had “really” meant with the comment, but it was all for naught, and even other socially conservative Republicans weren’t eager to enter the fray to try to defend Akin. Maybe Akin should have simply said he had been subliminally influenced by the title of a 1987 film by Hisayasu Satō, namely Genuine Rape. In fact, if one looks over Satō’s controversial oeuvre, one will find all sorts of references to involuntary sexual activities. There’s the charmingly titled Lolita: Vibrator Torture, Pervert Ward: Torturing the White Uniform, Pervert Ward: S & M Clinic, Naked Action: College Girl Rape Edition, Serial Rape: Perverted Experiment, Rapist with Handcuffs: Defile! and (just for good measure) Wife in Mourning: Pubic-Shaved Rope Slave. Of course if a straight and narrow type like Akin had admitted to having watched any of these films, he would have been drummed out of whatever “clubs” (political or otherwise) he probably belonged to, and many viewers, even those drawn to the odder corners of Japanese cinema, may feel like Satō’s often provocative approach is not exactly their cup of ginseng tea. In one respect, Hana-Dama: The Origin is actually one of the director’s more restrained outings, if one accepts that the term “restrained” is obviously relative when discussing a filmmaker of these tendencies. While the basic storyline is simply one of unchecked bullying at a Japanese high school, there are a number of other troubling subtexts that inform the plot mechanics, and when the film goes full on surreal (and—not to make too fine a point of it—full frontal surreal) in its closing moments, some lovers of the bizarre may feel that they’ve wandered into a Takashi Miike film rather than one by Hisayasu Satō.

While there are rapes (legitimate and/or genuine and/or otherwise) in Hana-Dama: The Origin, things begin on a somewhat less contentious if ultimately no less disturbing footing, with hapless transfer student Mizuki (Rina Sakuragi) stuffed into a locker which is inexplicably simply sitting (by itself) at the back of a classroom. Mizuki has evidently been there for some time, the victim of bullying by some pretty horrific teen girls, a situation which her clueless teacher (who’s right there in the room) is evidently unaware of. Mizuki has been sequestered in the locker for so long that she ultimately has to relieve herself, leading to the first at least somewhat shocking image of the film, a dribble of yellow liquid emanating from the bottom of the locker.

There is so much unseemly behavior on display throughout Hana-Dama: The Origin that it’s almost hard to know where to begin. There is of course the rampant bullying that a clique of “mean girls” engages in, bullying that affects not just Mizuki but another classmate named Kirie (Maika Shimamura), a perhaps mentally deficient girl who communicates to people “through” her little toy furry rabbit. But as even the first school set sequences reveals, virtually everyone is involved in some kind of bad behavior. A male classmate is busy snapping pictures up girls’ skirts and the teacher, supposedly charged with keeping the kids safe, seems to be more intent on sketching a pair of breasts, in a perhaps “subtle” hint that she’s a lesbian. But even more bizarre behavior is on tap once Mizuki goes home, for it turns out her addled parents are completely dysfunctional as well, with the unbalanced mental state of her mother more than evident. By the time Mizuki retreats to her bedroom, lights a cigarette and begins burning the flesh of her inner thighs, it’s at least possible that some viewers will feel they’ve already seen more than enough and will choose not to continue.

That choice will prevent a number of horrors from unfolding, including several acts of sexual perversion and/or cruelty (some foisted on students at the hands of teachers), but it will prevent those viewers from seeing one of the most patently odd scenes I’ve personally witnessed, a “talk dirty to me” vignette between Mizuki’s parents where they utilize cans linked together with strings a la the old “telephone” game kids used to play. That scene soon devolves into more sexual shenanigans, something that younger viewers will probably find just as “disgusting” (considering the lovemakers are elders) as anything that happens to Mizuki or the other bullying victims.

Hana-Dama: The Origin toys with a quasi-surreal ambience from its first moments, when a recurrent overlay of some sort of organic looking structure affixed to the actual image is seen for the first time. Shortly thereafter, the viewer is greeted with the first sight of what seems to be Mizuki’s brain “opening” up to literally flower, something that ends up with the girl sprouting a giant red blossom out of her head in the film’s climax. It’s never clear if the revenge scenarios that finally push the film over into traditional splatter mode are really happening or simply the fever dreams of various victims. The salient point is most viewers probably won’t care by that point, if, that is, they’re even still watching.

Hana-Dama: The Origin Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Hana-Dama: The Origin is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Despite being of recent vintage and seemingly having been shot digitally, this is a pretty soft and often pallid looking offering. Part of this is due to the fact that director Hisayasu Satô and cinematographer Akiko Ashizawa boost contrast and brightness to the point that whites can bloom pretty radically, sometimes obliterating background and other information (see screenshot 17). While close-ups can provide decent fine detail (see screenshots 2 and 18), nothing ever pops with an incredible immediacy, and the bulk of the film looks kind of hazy and ill defined. Even beyond the boosting, contrast is also problematic at times, adding more murk to some of the darker sequences. Occasional elements pop rather well, including the blue trim of the girls' school uniforms and, later, some deep reds once the "splatter" element starts being more paramount. Some of the special effects are less than convincing (see screenshot 1).

Hana-Dama: The Origin Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As florid as Hana-Dama: The Origin often is in some of its visual offerings, its sound design is rather restrained, even conversative. As such, the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track suffices perfectly well for what is in essence a dialogue driven enterprise. There are no issues with dropouts, distortion or other damage, and fidelity is fine if never anything that will provoke a "wow" response.

Hana-Dama: The Origin Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Backstage and Behind the Scenes (1080i; 14:37) offers some candid footage.


• Interview with Director Sato Hisayasu and Cast (1080p; 20:02) offers some okay interviews, though the (unseen) interviewer asks the same questions of all the participants.


• Trailer (1080p; 2:00)

Hana-Dama: The Origin Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Bullying is an important subject that is certainly fair game for even a horror themed enterprise to explore, but Hana-Dama: The Origin is so distasteful so much of the time, even divorced from any bullying aspect, that it wastes whatever "messaging" it hoped to deliver. Video quality is spotty at times, though audio is fine for those considering a purchase.