Bunta and Takakura share a roasted rat. Aren’t there any hardcore scenes as ideal as this? Filmed crudely, as if shot in a hurry, with no scene repeats and yet with such a realistic ending; the whole cliché thread is offset by the unique combination of the raw ending, which was not predictable: namely, the woman you despised only sees your dying body being carried away in the ambulance.

Who would want that ending? But who would think that it would come to an end, if what mattered was the vendetta? We all want retribution for an innocent man (by ‘all’ I mean the viewers who redeem ourselves in the name of justice), and there will be retribution in this film, because eating the faeces of young people who had sex last season on a winter’s night, warming oneself with one’s own urine stored in a used condom, or later roasting fat rats in an abandoned cellar, keeps alive the punitive arrogance of Kozue, the prisoner in cell 13, and inflames the viewer’s curiosity about whether, even in this cliché, damn predictable plot, some small details will escape destiny.

These details save this film, including Aoyama’s music, which continues to strike me as being made up of phrases and musical paraphrases from Nino Rota or Morricone, but perhaps that’s just me.

Returning to the plot, the innocent-guilty man has to escape to seek the revenge that we ‘all’ want to be unpredictable but which will not be, and I’m sorry to spoil it, except for the path to achieve the goal. Kazue was convicted for defending himself and allegedly stealing a fortune, so while he is on his way to dispense justice against those who framed him for what he did NOT steal, such as Goda and Tomorani, the convict Kuniiwa Kunizo sticks to him like a leech in order to get half of what he theoretically stole. They will go hungry and almost freeze to death (predictable), they will have to watch other fellow escapees die, such as the toothless Kazami from cell 52, aged 62 (predictable).

The hero has to be the object of love, or at least the desire of an occasional female character on his journey to revenge (predictable), he doesn’t get ratted out because he kills first, but in self-defence against possible snitches (predictable) and so on.

The cinematography with the locations is superb and the performances are very convincing. The ending breaks the predictable narrative, as I said, and allows us to enjoy the revenge against the one who achieved his revenge and, with his success… died! Unless we believe he will survive in the ambulance. But it’s okay that he dies, he achieved his goal and will dissolve with his circumstances; and it reminded me of the master Alejandro Jodorowsky: ‘To disappear is to give the world what belongs to it.’