If you're here to participate in a suicide pact with me, I'm sorry, but that's not what I'm posting about at all. However, I really do hope you seek some professional help...

No, today I'm here to tell you guys about a Japanese movie, called "Suicide Circle/Club," that I saw very recently. It was written and directed by Sion Sono, and it's positively blown me away. The plot of the movie sounds like standard psychological thriller/ horror fare: 54 schoolgirls commit suicide one day by jumping in front of a subway train. The police are baffled as to what may have caused so many people to commit such a horrible act. As a result of the incident, suicides soon begin to occur all over Japan, and the police must find out what the connection is between all these seemingly unrelated incidents. Although the movie sounds like a suspense thriller/ horror film, if you watch the movie with that mentality you'll be sorely disappointed. Although Suicide Club does have its moments of gore, it's not scary in any particular way (at least not by Hostel standards).

In fact, Suicide Club seems more like a social commentary on suicide in Japan, if anything else. Sion Sono uses various shots and scenes in his movie to convey the "plight" of modern day Japanese within a pop culture/ commercial society, and how people, in general, have lost touch with more meaningful connections in life (e.g., family) in order to maintain the superficial role they have in their everyday lives. 

If you like movies that are mindless and fun, then Suicide Club may not be for you. However, if you like movies that require a bit of analysis and possess a deeper meaning, then Suicide Club might be a movie worth checking out; if you do take the time to figure this movie out, you'll be rewarded with a great piece in Japanese cinema. I have to warn you, though: if you look at this movie with an American lense, you'll finish the movie wondering what the hell you just saw. When you're watching it, keep asking yourself "what would this mean to a Japanese person?" It sounds hard (and it is, I had to do a little research after viewing it to fully understand the movie), but it's a bit necessary.

Welp, that's my "review" on Suicide Club. It'll probably hard to find (LOL), but you might be able to order it from Borders, Amazon.com, or just pick it up at some local anime store (it's not anime, but those stores sell a lot of Asian live-action movies as well). Bye!