Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
When fish shop owner Shamoto's teenage daughter Mitsuko is caught stealing, a generous middle-aged man named Murata helps resolve the situation. The man and his wife offer to have Mitsuko work at their opposing fish store. Shamoto soon discovers that something far more sinister lives behind Murata's friendly demeanor.
Sion Sono's Cold Fish is a viscerally intense J-horror crime film loosely based on the real-life Saitama serial murders. The plot is functional but deliberately escalating — a slow-burn submission narrative that builds to grotesque excess — earning above average marks for its thematic coherence around male passivity and societal repression, even if the structure occasionally drags. The acting is genuinely exceptional: Denden's performance as Murata is one of the great villain turns in contemporary Japanese cinema — magnetic, terrifying, and darkly comic — anchoring the film with ferocious energy. Kimura Mitsuru as the emasculated Shamoto provides a credible, haunting counterweight. Cinematography is competent and purposefully grimy, serving the material without being artistically distinctive. Novelty is high: Sono's film occupies a singular space blending domestic horror, transgressive body horror, grotesque black comedy, and social critique in a way that feels wholly his own — few films manage this particular cocktail with such conviction. The ending, while thematically resonant in its nihilism and eruption of violence, is somewhat expected given the film's trajectory and feels more conclusive than surprising.