Red Angel

Star Review

Masumura is a major director whose 1960s work has been unseen in the UK for too long. His Red Angel is from 1966, a time when many Japanese directors were being pushed by their studios towards more sensational material as audiences began to drift away. Wakao Ayako's performance in the title role and Masumura's direction hold together a story about an Army hospital unit in China that might have been ludicrous exploitation fare, but ends up as both disturbing and deeply moving.
Wakao plays a nurse subjected to gang rape, who then gives herself to a desolate amputee out of a sense of duty and falls in love with a morphine-addicted doctor. The amputation scenes (as much heard as seen) are brutal, and the sex scenes 'extreme' for the 1960s. This is as effective a 'war is hell, but the human spirit can survive' film as any other. Shot in crisp black and white 'Scope, the visual style brings to mind the compositional strength of Nicholas Ray and the bravura of Sam Fuller.

Roy Stafford on 15th August 2006

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Film Description

Masumura's best-known work is a disturbing and often gory war drama; a young nurse who assists in the numerous amputations of wounded soldiers during the Sino-Japanese war. She falls in love with a surgeon, impotent from his morphine addiction, and follows him to the front. A visceral, startling piece of cinema.

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DVD Extras

• Trailer
• Director Biography.

Film Details

Cast

Ayako Wakao, Shinsuke Ashida

Technical Details