Inferno of Torture (1969)

Overrated

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

WARNING: This review might have some spoilers, but feel free to read this as it doesn't give away an ending spoiler. Also this is my first review after getting signed up on IMDb ;-) "Inferno of Torture" is a Horror movie, directed by Teruo Ishii 1969. It was produced by the great Toei Company.Telling short about this 94-minute long film, it takes place in the Edo-period, and centers around a bounce of geisha-like ladies who gets tattooed, only to find out later in the film that they are to be sold as sex slaves for foreigners. Will these ladies ever get to be saved at the end...? Find out by yourself...:-P This film isn't as fully brutal and gory as "The Joy of Torture" which Teruo Ishii and Toei made one year earlier, being 1968. But still "Inferno of torture" is very strong in content as it contains some whipping, several fight scenes, and not at least a nude cat-fight on a boat.As I said earlier, I'm not gonna give away the ending. But I can tell you that this ending is very spectacular, and very different from most of the old Japanese movies I have seen, and thus one of the BEST endings I have seen in this type of films.After all I totally liked this movie, together with other works like "The Joy of Torture", "Yakuza's Law" and "Orgies of Edo". Liked the plot in it, as well as the strong content itself. Also I have watched this two times online.Sadly, this film is not available in Norway where I live, where it would have guaranteed have gotten an 18 rating. I mean, if this film is/were to be released here, I would guaranteed have got it on DVD for a long time ago...Trust me, I world promise you that...!

Inferno of Torture (1969)Beautiful and perfect example of a supreme "exploitation" movie!-I want to mention as first, this is one of the most weird and beautiful DVD menus I have seen. The menu to select from consists out interactive persons. Depending on which one you choose they will get hanged, cooked or burned. Cool interactive DVD menu. Also the movie is just of a super quality. The print is awesome.-The movie starts straight away with a couple of pictures, revealing the bizarre stuff you're in for. The cooking of a woman who betrayed her husband. The hanging and cutting in 2 of a betrayer of the 'Koga' clan, who also served at that same moment as test object (on his body) to try out some new swords. The burning of a woman and we keep continuing on this kinda level... So in other words the movie cuts to the chase from the first second. The film continues with the story of the 'Tokugawa Sjogoen' clan, which had a severe punishment system to protect her own feudal system as the torture they used against Christians that consists, up to a serious gruesome level.-This movie works onto 2 levels right in opposite of each other, and it works pretty well. On one side you have the cruelty of the pain, suffering and torture. While on the other side the director puts a very charming picture, on how beautiful love is. The love scenes in this movie/documentary are nice gentle and subtle. And all in atmosphere of happiness accompanied with joyful music (Emanuelle alike sound). At one moment you have a shot of a young happy couple madly in love followed by the next second shot of the burning of a man in some special kind of cook-sarcophagus. Also the way they carry out an abortion, I wouldn't call it customary! As many other stuff I don't even mention, this movie will pull your mouth wide open.-This flick is at some points pretty disturbing, as for the moment they beat the hell out a little girl as a few moments later they burn her eyes out. So the movie is certainly for a mature audience and for sure not for the young commencing exploitation freak!!!-This movie shows some cruel ways on how a human being with power and a certain believe/religion can display onto others. It will take you in a sphere of the 'voyeur'. And indeed ask yourself the Q? Why for god sake do I have interest in seeing this kind of movie? 'Reality-check'? Pretty nasty flick and for sure a must have on the strange bizarre and uncommon. A must for every serious collector. So a recommendation? YES indeed!

First off - I believe that the other reviewers on this page are reviewing SPLIT OXEN TORTURE, which is neither part of the "true" JOYS OF TORTURE series - it's actually an unofficial sequel - nor is it directed by Teruo Ishii. That film (directed in 1976 by Yuuji Makiguchi) has it's own IMDb page under the title TOKUGAWA ONNA KEIBATSU-EMAKI: USHI-ZAKI NO KEI. INFERNO is not the "gore" film that SPLIT OXEN is - though Makiguchi's film is very good as well - and is honestly better than any of the Ishii-directed JOT films that I've seen so far. In fact - INFERNO was far too weak on gore to be truly memorable to me, and was actually very dull at points...The story-line revolves around two tattoo artists who are vying for the attention of the Emperor. Jealousy and the love of a young concubine get between the rival artists and causes problems for all involved...Unfortunately - there's just not nearly enough torture in INFERNO to be all that joyful. I was hoping for a little "rougher" content - and this one didn't really deliver. The story-line was decent enough - but it tended to drag quite a bit after the first third of the film or so, and only picked up slightly towards the end. The very last scene of the film was decent, but not enough to save it overall. Worth a look to Japanese exploit fans, but don't expect too much out of it...6/10

Whatever happened to storytelling? That's the question that I was left asking myself after wasting time watching this movie. Yes, the gore scenes are plenty and creative, but the problem is that not once can you feel any kind of sympathy for people you don't know anything about. The so-called "love story" is a rushed into the first 2 minutes of the film and does nothing to help character development. The film shows absolutely nothing worth watching, even as a gore-hound I was left not caring that much about the torture scenes. This movie gave me no reason to care about any of it's characters of their story, it just relied on gore to shock me and I found that cheap and got more angry about losing precious time on this than on the gore itself. This movie is about torture, torture of it's audience that is.