Rapeman Masami Akita - aka Merzbow – is one of the most prolific and respected ''noisicians'' in the Japanese noise scene today. He has been cranking out Harsh Noise since the early 80's and has collaborated with various artists from Genesis P-Orridge and Gore Beyond Necropsy to Mike Patton and Sunn O))). I am a big fan of his work, so naturally when I found out he had directed a short film I was rather excited and sought it out immediately (which was not an easy task).Lost Paradise is a Seppuku - or Harakiri - fetish film. Seppuku is an ancient form of Japanese ritual suicide which involves disemboweling oneself, and was a key part of the Samurai warrior code, Bushido. If a warrior had been taken hostage or dishonored he would take his Tanto (ritual blade) and pierce his abdomen, then make a left-to-right gash, letting his intestines spill out onto the ground.Lost Paradise is part of a six film Harakiri series produced by Right Brain. Other entries in the series are exactly the same (minus the Merzbow direction & score of course), the only difference being that the female is portraying a different character – eg: schoolgirl, nurse, Kabuki actress, traditionally dressed Japanese woman, etc. So once you've seen one you've basically seen 'em all.The runtime of the film is 30 minutes, heres how it plays out - first 10 minutes: A woman dressed in military uniform enters a room. She sits cross-legged on the floor and proceeds to methodically strip down to just her shirt. She then opens her shirt and caresses her naked stomach for a while before pulling out her ritual blade. She stares at it for a few minutes then wraps ½ the blade in a ceremonial cloth. Next 10 minutes: She plunges the blade into her stomach and slooooowly pulls it across from left to right. She moans sexually as her intestines begin to fall onto the floor. Last 10 minutes: she rolls around in her entrails groaning and then finally dies. A man comes in, and at discovering her body promptly blows his brains out. The End Obviously there's not too much ''substance'' to it, but I enjoyed this flick immensely, it is a true piece of transgressive art. The way the camera caresses the actress's body as she's in the midst of her death throes, zooming in on her breasts as she moans and groans erotically, is a total sexualization of death.A lot of the bleak mood comes down to Merbow's fittingly grating soundtrack. While not as harsh as "classic" Merzbow, it's more of an underlying rumbling static, which sometimes rises to dissonant peaks. Merzbow has also directed some Shibari rope-bondage videos for various companies and written copiously on the origin and history of the art of Japanese bondage. Recommended for fans of Merzbow or confrontational & obscure cinema. 8/10

Argwaan Always looking for movies that can still shock me like Guinea Pig: Flower of Flesh and Blood or August Underground: Mordum did, I stumbled upon this short movie of a woman performing ritual suicide.Yes, that's the "story", a woman performing ritual suicide. With a setup like that you can assume the director wanted to at least shock his audience, but he fails miserably because of the bad special effects (we never see a wound, just lots of fake blood and what is probably animal intestines).Well, maybe he wanted to make a fake snuff movie, like the movies mentioned earlier? This doesn't work either because of the many camera angles and the artsy beginning and ending of the movie.Having said this, it's still at the very least an interesting movie, worth hunting down if you like rare and weird stuff, and it has some nice atmospheric noise music, but it's definitely not for everyone.Rating: 3/10

HumanoidOfFlesh "Lost Paradise" is directed by Masami Akita,who is also one of Japan's leading noise musicians under the name Merzbow.With a soundtrack by the director himself,this intense and ultra-gory seppuku film shows a young woman taking her own life by an act of ritual harakiri.Dressed in militaristic attire,the girl(Asako Mochuzuki)kneels,removes her jacket and opens her shirt to the waist,exposing her naked breasts and stomach.Lowering the waistband of her white panties,she caresses her belly before taking up a sacrificial knife,whose blade she wraps in a white bandage.Pressing the point into her left side she punctures the flesh,then slowly and deliberately pulls the knife across to the right.First blood leaks out,then as the gash widens her entrails start to ooze onto the floor.She continues to cut,her moans strongly reminiscent of those made by the actresses in porno films.Finally she collapses,still groaning,in a lake of blood and coiling viscera.Her death throes are extremely protracted."Lost Paradise" is an extremely gory Japanese shocker which looks as real as possible.I was really shocked whilst watching it and that's a compliment.The suicide scene is extremely long and painful to watch,because it lasts 18 minutes.The soundtrack by Merzbow is truly disturbing and hard to forget.This film is not entertaining,so fans of mindless teen horror should not bother.Check it out,but good luck finding a copy.

erebus3001 OK, so I'm a fan of that racket-making kind of industrial ruckus that is referred to as noise and I've been a fan on Masami Akita's noise work under his Merzbow moniker for quite some time (even though his material of late has been somewhat unchallenging and tame) and I've always been interested in (but perhaps not a fan per se) of arty film and experimental movies and cinema in general. So I was of course excited when I found out that Masami-san had actually made his own movie. I was equally excited to actually stumble upon it on one of the lesser-known p2p networks lately (in divx format) and so I promptly downloaded it.I had no idea what the film was about, not an inkling as to what to expect, though I think I expected it to be at least loud. But it wasn't. It's quite subdued actually. And, to be blunt, quite boring as well. It's about a Japanese girl, dressed as a schoolgirl who flips through some photographs and after a while starts to fondle herself. After a couple of minutes she pulls out a knife and starts fondling that for a while. Then she promptly starts to commit seppuku (or is it harakiri? I never get that right for some reason). After she has sliced her abdomen up she pulls out a piece of intestine and wiggles it about for a bit before she collapses and dies, apparently from blood-loss (all the while with a vaguely pleased look as if this somehow sexually arouses her).That's it. The special fx are good but not spectacular. The point of this piece eludes me. I admit I'm no art critic nor am I crazy about gore for gore's sake, but to me this film is pretty much useless. The camera work is decent, the editing OK and so on, but really: what is the point? I'm bewildered and confused and also a bit disappointed. I guess I had expected more somehow. I'm just not sure what.