[Feature] - Cold Fish (Or An Examination of Societal Pressures In A Conformist Society)

Have you ever felt downtrodden? Have you ever felt past your prime? Have you ever felt so disrespected and overlooked that it makes you boil with anger deep inside? Have you ever felt so powerless to actually let that anger out in any healthy fashion? Have you ever felt that deep resentment fester until it reached its boiling point? Welcome to the world of Nobuyuki Shamoto (Mitsuru Fukikoshi) in the Japanese film, Cold Fish.

Our first impressions of Shamoto are that of a meek, mild mannered and mostly unmotivated owner of a store specializing in rare tropical fish. A widower who has recently remarried, although his daughter deeply resents both him and his new bride. His new bride also doesn’t seem to think much of him as it seems to be a marriage born out of financial security rather than true love.

Deep down in his heart, all Shamoto wants is that loving harmonious family unit. The type of perfect model family you might glimpse in a photo frame at your local store. While visiting his favorite pastime, the local planetarium, he frequently dreams of such a perfect family moment. He envisions his new wife and daughter by his side enjoying his company and laughing together. In reality though, what he really has is a completely dysfunctional family that is bordering on the edge of self-destruction.

One night while out with her boyfriend, his daughter Mitsuko is caught shoplifting. The store owner summons Shamoto and his wife down to the store in order to deal with his daughter. Enter Yukio Murata (Denden), a regular patron of the store and fellow rare tropical fish store owner. He persuades the store owner to drop the pending charges against Mitsuko and invites the family back to his own store.

Back at his store, Murata convinces Shamoto to allow Mitsuko to not only come and work for him but also to live with him. For it turns out that Murata has taken in a range of young girls with the aim of giving them work as in-store models/saleswomen of sorts. The old adage of “sex sells” is alive and well here as they flaunt their young feminine bodies around the store in skimpy outfits.

Shamoto is taken aback at first but then sees it as an opportunity to get his daughter out of the house and a chance to get some private time with his new bride. He agrees to this also based on Mitsuko’s enthusiasm at the offer at hand. Eventually the two store owners go into business with one another in more ways than one as Shamoto quickly learns of the darker side of Murata’s day-to-day operations. That Murata is quite literally killing the competition.

Sion Sono’s film Cold Fish is loosely based on a true murder story in which a dog breeder and his wife killed at least four clients in what would become known as the Saitama Dog Lover Murders. The film uses this as a loose basis in order to study both a dysfunctional Japanese family unit and to also examine the harsh realities of Japanese society in a microcosm.

Screenwriter Yoshiki Takahashi has altered the scenario from being about Dog Breeders to Tropical Fish Suppliers for reasons of removing the potential hassle of dealing with numerous dogs on set. Another reason for the change, as stated by Takahashi, was due to his willingness to examine these characters' actions through the lens of the aftermath of the bubble economy that Japan experienced during the 80s. Which resulted in the financial growth of many Tropical Fish Stores at that time.

This directly plays into the stark contrast between Murata and Shamoto. As aforementioned, Shamoto is largely unambitious and set in his ways. His store does well enough to keep the lights on but it's clear he has no real aspirations for personal or even financial growth. He’s more than happy not to disrupt the flow of things.

Meanwhile Murata is the total opposite. A man driven by greed and excess. He openly flaunts his worth with exquisite vehicles such as the Red Ferrari he drives. His wife screams that of a ‘Trophy Wife’. His store is twice the size and caters to more foot traffic than that of Shamoto's store in thanks to his shrewd business tactics. Murata is very much a ‘moriagaru’ type. Boisterous to the core and completely in your face. He relishes in the power and fortune he has accumulated and will gladly curb stomp anyone who stands in his way. Take his first shared private moment with Shamoto’s wife where he forces himself upon her and seemingly rapes her without regard. It's clear given his stature in life that he feels completely above the law.

The female roles in this film are certainly a factor that has raised a few eyebrows as some have labeled the film as being misogynistic. Sex and violence is a huge factor in this film and the two main women largely serve both sides of the coin. One side being the pure victim and the other side representing the instigator. I would argue though that the film offers a harsh critique of the modern expectations of the female role in Japanese society more so than it does any sort of actual reinforcement.

Shamoto’s new bride Taeko (Megumi Kagurazaka) looks to be approaching her early 30s. It seems entirely obvious that her marriage to Shamoto is one born out of convenience rather than anything approaching love.

There is a saying in Japan that if a woman is not married by the time she is 25 then she is a “Christmas Cake.” A rather sexist slur comparing women to pastries that can’t be sold past the date of December 25th. This is a rather harsh societal pressure placed upon Japanese women as they either marry young or else be considered of little to no value.

Based on this societal pressure, it seems obvious that her marriage to Shamoto is a total sham born out of convenience as she yearns for her former days of hedonism. We see this as she pushes Shamoto aside any time he makes a pass at her. It’s clear she has no real desire for the man and perhaps for good reason considering the shell he hides himself in. Therefore, she plays the role of the good obedient domesticated wife while burying her resentment at the life she has settled for. As noted, she is also very much the perpetual victim as she finds herself thoroughly abused by the men in her life.

His daughter Mitsuko has a rebellious fiery spirit about her. Lost and confused after the death of her mother, she deeply resents her father and his new choice of bride. She certainly isn't shy in expressing this as she lays her boot into her step-mothers stomach. With Shamoto’s complete withdrawal, she has no real male role model in her life to look up to. If her own father has no self-respect then why should she have any for him in return? Hence her attraction to Murata’s boisterously overflowing self confidence.

Then we come to Murata’s wife Aiko (Asuka Kurosawa), who is perhaps the most fascinating female character in the movie. Aiko is not only fully aware of her husband's crimes but is also completely complicit in them. She completely owns her psychopathic tendencies and relishes in them if not more than her husband does his own.

She is completely and utterly damaged goods as she is more than willing to use her sexuality to seduce her victims before delivering the final blow. As for her feelings regarding her husband, it’s hard to say if she has any real respect or even love for him, or if she is just stringing him along too as she seems to do with everyone else she comes into contact with.

At one point, she makes a pass at Shamoto and tries to pressure him into replacing Murata entirely as her new lover and partner in crime. If she were to be compared to an animal, she’d be best compared to a black widow. She’ll make love to you, but will also eat you alive the moment you no longer serve her any benefit. Unlike Taeko, she's anything but the obedient or domesticated housewife. Instead, she completely owns her true nature and has entirely freed herself from the aforementioned societal pressures.

As for Shamoto, he serves mostly as a conduit for the audience to observe the mayhem surrounding him. His progression is not dissimilar to that of Dustin Hoffman’s character in Straw Dogs. As he becomes more and more entangled into the sordid world of Murata’s killings, he finds his own morality being severely tested. The Murata’s methods of killing usually involve a digestive form of poison. Once their victim is dead, they take their bodies out to a shack in the remote countryside and hack the bodies to pieces before burning the pieces and scattering the ashes in the nearby river. Make no mistake about it, it’s not at all shy in presenting its gore as the film highlights just how messy it is to hack a body to pieces. You could almost say it’s as if the Coen brothers directed a Japanese serial killer movie.

Shamoto is initially sickened by the lack of humanity on display as he plays witness to the Murata’s hacking their victims to pieces with glee. But eventually he starts to grow indifferent as the bodies pile up. Still, he plays the weak subservient assistant to Murata just hoping to survive another day.

Murata eventually tires of Shamoto’s weak willed nature and finally lays the harsh truth on him. He berates Shamoto, belittling his manhood by calling out his failures as a husband and father. He goads and taunts Shamoto as he lays the truth on him about his weak willed nature and his inability to solve the problems he has faced throughout life. Before finally revealing the truth that he fucked Taeko.

At first, it’s obvious to see the mechanical point of this scene as it serves Shamoto’s final breaking point at the hands of Murata. But on another level, one could maybe argue that this speech is potentially a scathing indictment of the passive nature of Japanese society in general.

I can only speak as a foreigner looking in from the outside here and perhaps I’m wrong in my assessment. But based on my own experiences of studying some Japanese culture, I have come to learn that the nature of this culture is very passive in general. To my understanding, it is a tendency for Japanese people to avoid confrontation wherever they can as politeness is key to a functional society. Murata is the polar opposite of this though. He’s not shy in voicing his complete and utter disdain for Shamoto or those around him.

Shamoto may as well represent your common Japanese man or woman. He’s entirely passive and almost afraid to step out of line. Whereas Murata has fully embraced his psychopathic tendencies and has entirely freed himself from all of the bullshit that comes with society. Or to quote Yoshiki Takahashi; “Murata is the missing link between the old strong and fearless Japanese army-type in contrast to the quiet-reserved type of character you see these days.”

In Japan, there is a saying that people wear three faces; the face you show to the public, the face you show to your inner circle and the face that is your true face. To an extent, the Shamoto's abide to this as they hide their true feelings even from one another. While the Murata's mostly wear their true emotions out on their sleeves. Murata himself is almost a complete rejection of this notion. I say almost because he is still wearing the one mask posing as a respectable businessman for the public eye. But outside of his little secret, he is very much a ‘what you see is what you get’ type of man. Thus this speech winds up feeling like it could be more so an indictment of passive Japanese society as a whole. But I can’t say for sure being a foreigner and all.

Shamoto eventually breaks under the pressure of this goading and develops a new found backbone. He rushes back to the store and grabs his daughter by the hair dragging her kicking and screaming to the car. He drives back home where he orders his wife to prepare a final meal of sorts. They eat as a family unit although the tension in the air is palpable. Mitsuko is called outside by her boyfriend but is intervened by Shamoto as he lays his boot into the boyfriend before knocking his daughter unconscious dragging her limp body back inside.

He then confronts his wife about her and Murata. Before his wife even gets a chance to explain herself, he beats her to the ground and lays on top of her demanding the truth. In this moment, the truth is finally revealed as to just how much she loathes him and his daughter. If this charade of a family unit wasn’t already fractured, it’s now completely obliterated. This leads to Shamoto forcibly raping her making her yet again the passive victim. Gone is the weak spineless little boy and in his place is an assertive albeit completely broken man. Maybe, just maybe if he had been a little more assertive in the first place then all of this could have been avoided.

Cold Fish serves as much more than just a true-murder film. It is both an intense study of the dysfunctional family unit and a seemingly scathing indictment of the harsh realities that come hand-in-hand with societal pressures in a mostly conformist society. Sion Sono has said about it that he wanted to depict “a sense of total hopelessness” that he felt was lacking in Japanese cinema. To a large extent, I believe he and his screenwriter Yoshiki Takahashi have achieved just that and a little bit more.

But outside of the barbaric and prevailing sense of nihilism that the film is soaked in, what still really fascinates me to this day is its seemingly harsh critique of societal pressures in general. One thing is for certain though, regardless of gender, no one comes out of this film for the better. There is a prevailing nihilism about all of its characters in general that I quite appreciate.

Sure, Shamoto eventually grows a backbone of sorts, but it comes at the cost of his own sanity. Meanwhile, Mitsuko doesn’t really seem to learn anything as even in her fathers death she still shows him nothing but disrespect and contempt.

All Shamoto ever wanted was the perfect model family. And in the end, he got nothing. Leading to his final words; “life is pain.” Sometimes, it truly is just a sick, sad, cruel little world we live in with no reason or rhyme.


-Daniel M