Organ

A film by Fujiwara Kei
Japan/1996/Color/16mm/102min

Introduction
Organ is the first movie directed by Kei Fujiwara, who has changed name with her different characters. She played the role of the astonishingly original heroine in Tetsuo directed by Shin'ya Tsukamoto and was a leading actress at so-called Red Tent, and has acted in plays such as Jaguar's eyes written and directed by Juro Kaza. After this brilliant record, she leads a troupe called Organ Vital.

Story
On July 1996 in Tokyo, detective Numata played by Kenji Nasa is on watch at night chasing underground human organs dealers. After deceiving his partner detective Tosaka, he sneaks into their hideout witnessing the evil deeds. Numata enters a human organns processing plant filled with the stench of corpses and sees a fatally injured young man, whose internal organs had been removed by a lame "teacher" played by Kimihiko Hasegawa. Numata's partner detective Tosaka comes to the scene and is overwhelmed by what he saw. In the confusion, Numata's identity was known to one-eyed Yoko played by Kei Fujiwara, and bullets from Numata's gun penetrate the wiriing of a dissecting table, causing a fire at the plant. Numata, crawling on hands and knees to escape from the place, hears the piercing shout of Tosaka, left behind.

After a few days, Numata, regardless of being on probation, continues investigation and visits the human organ processing plant in ruins. A vision of detective Tosaka being skinned on a dissecting table makes Numata sick.

Lame biology teacher Saeki is absorbed in making collections of butterlies in the laboratory in the corner of a girls' school ground located in the city. A rumor has it that he has something to do with the missing students. A female teacher played by Reona Hirota is suspicious of his conduct. Inside the mosquito net in the laboratory, Saeki is dissecting the abdomen of a girl student paralyzed by drugs.

After obtaining information, Numata managed to locate the construction workers' shack where the villains' mastermind is supposed to be. There he meets an elderly ex-gang man played by Shun Sugata, who says he raised the one-eyed Yoko and her lame brother.

At the empty girls' school in the summer break, Saeki, addicted to murdering girl students, was crying in pain, and his sister Yoko's eye was crushed while she tried to guard her younger brother. Nearby them was the body of their mother with her abdmen dissected. So bright was the color of the wings of butterlies attracted to the smell of the corpse. Meanwhile in the further end of the room, the eyes of detective Tosaka were glaring with fear and anger. His arms and legs amputated, detective Tosaka is kept in a wooden box like an insect.

Production notes
Ms. Fujiwara, you have been active in the theatrical field for a long time. What was your motivation for making a film at this time?
Kei: I have been playing in the theaters because I like live performance and real-time feedback. Originally, I was interested in the similar appealing nature of movies and TV programs. Before making the movie, we were told by so many people that "it is impossible for a bunch of amateurs to make a film."

Were there no professionals in your crew?
Kei: Froom the start we intended to keep on making movies, and were determined to learn how to make films on our own, to become professional artisans. So, we did everything for shooting ourselves.

(...)

Underground organ transplanting appears in this movie. Why did you want to deal with this subject?
Kei: The name of our company "Organ Vital" means vital human organs necessary to keep a body alive. It means actually organ itself. To me, all the philosophy on life and death, humanistic agenda, and various arguments on the soul are closely connected to the notion that there lies red meat under the thin skin. From this viewpoint, organs transplanting is of great interest to me.