Subversive Cinema enters into the DVD fray with their first release, the debut feature for Shugo Fujii (credited here as Fujii Syugou) and while they've packed the disc with a pleasing amount of extras and seem to have taken good care in bringing interesting content for their viewers, it's too bad the movie attached to it just isn't that great.

There's certainly promise here and director Fujii has managed to inject the film with decent visual style considering it was shot in nine days for a mere $100,000, but the problem is his script wastes too much time on talk and trying to have a story that makes sense (though it never really does) while occasionally throwing in a few torture moments on our main character, the wheelchair bound Yasu (Honda Hiroshito, who's pretty weak).

The film opens with a couple being killed by an old lady and younger girl (one gets a hammer to the head, another has a beetle eat their eye) only for them to move in with relatives a year later. They're pretty odd as the elder is seemingly senile and the younger woman stares into space a lot and doesn't speak, but things get extremely difficult for Yasu when he's left home alone with them and they proceed to torture him in various ways (such as pulling out his teeth with pliers - which even that isn't that great) trying to drive him insane. Also in the mix is a ambitious reporter who's looking into the previous murders and starts to find out information that might just save Yasu, or will it?

There's been a huge influx of Asian horror hitting the shores of North America after the success of The Ring (a remake of Japanese flick, Ringu), but this one isn't really worth your time because the plot is just too slender, our main character is a big pansy who's screaming all the time and is quite annoying, there's moments of abrupt editing, and the movie completely falls apart in the finale (and what a mess of a finale it is!).

If you're a fan of Asian horror, I'm sure you'll want to see this regardless; but if you're looking to start getting into the movies coming from that side of the World you'd be better off with something like Uzumaki or the various others that are much better than Living Hell. Almost a * 1/2.

Visit Subversive Cinema for more information and to order. (Chris Hartley, 1/13/05)

Directed By: Fujii Syugou (Shugo).
Written By: Fujii Syugou (Shugo).

Starring (Voices): Honda Hiroshito, Shiraishi Yoshiko, Rumi, Yashiro Kazuo.

Picture Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: The transfer here is perfectly acceptable even though it does look a bit soft and gets somewhat fuzzy at times (a problem apparently common in Asian films).

Extras: Subversive have certainly packed in a decent set of extras here with 2 trailers (plus trailers for The Witch Who Came From The Sea, Battlefield Baseball, and Gemini), storyboards, a fuzzy reel of deleted scenes (that are pretty pointless), a well written bio of director Shugo, 4 of his prior shorts (Blackhole, Seesaw Game, Grief, and Dead Money), and finally a listenable commentary track (that's a bit robotic sounding, but generally fine and Shugo's English isn't bad either).