While doing a deep dive into the year 2000, I’ve unearthed a bit of a gem for fans of rape/ revenge genre. 

Freeze Me (also sometimes referred to as Freezer) is a film by Japanese director Takashi Ishii. The film came out as the J-horror movement was just taking off, but it really has no connection to this label beyond being made in Japan. In fact, Freeze Me is not even a horror movie. At its core, the film is more crime/drama, but it’s one that contains a considerable amount of gore and flirts with content that could be considered extreme in its discomfort. 

But if you’re a cinephile, and enjoy films like The Coffee Table, you will appreciate this film. It certainly fits my criteria for The Midnight Selections. Quite frankly, the only rape/revenge films I can think of that may be better than Freeze Me is Coralie Fargeat’s 2017 film Revenge and, of course, Gasper Noé’s groundbreaking masterpiece, Irreversible.

Freeze Me starts off with a young woman looking up at a streetlight during a snowstorm while an audio flashback of her abuse can be heard. 

We then fast forward five years to find that same woman, Chihiro (Harumi Inoue), working in an office. She asks her co-workers to wait for her as she wraps up some computer work. They don’t. And when the office lights go out we see just how jittery Chihiro is when left alone. Her abuse has left lasting scars that she is able to keep hidden from the people in her new life.

And honestly, considering that Chihiro is only in her twenties, she seems to have carved out a pretty good life for herself. She has her own apartment in Tokyo. She works in an office. And she even has a serious boyfriend and work friends she feels comfortable enough around to get tipsy with. Sure, she has an unhealthy obsession with the locks in her apartment, but otherwise things are good.

That is, until Noboru, one of three men who raped Chihiro five years prior, shows up in the lobby of her apartment and forces himself inside her apartment before she can shut the door.

Freeze Me is a rather poignant admonishment of attitudes in Japanese that blame woman and leave them powerless in cases of sexual abuse. Noboru was once Chihiro’s friend in the small town she grew up in. But one day, in a betrayal of trust, he and two friends violently film themselves raping her as a way to make money on the black market. Her shame about the incident keeps her silent throughout the years, and when Noboru returns she chooses to continue to stay silent after he blackmails her by saying he’ll hand out photos of the rape to everyone who know her if she doesn’t cooperate

What does Chihiro want? A group reunion. It seems his two friends have fallen on hard times and he wants to relive that horrible night as a way to cheer them up..   

To make this plot work, you do need to suspend belief a little. Chihiro’s helplessness in this situation feels hard to accept- but to Ishii’s credit he makes Noboru a shameless over-the-top presence and there are a few mentions of ties with the yakuza. He’s a psychopath that operates with no restaurant.

In fact, one the film’s strengths is the way Ishii gives each of Chihiro’s rapists a distinct personality. They are menacing, but each in a different way. One’s a volatile emotional mess and violent drunk. The other is a complete brute who just got out of prison.

But it’s the empowering madness of Chihiro’s character that really captures our attention. Harumi Inoue does a great job in a really demanding role and she breaths levity and pathos into a character whose mind is starting to crack under the unimaginable pressure. The title, Freeze Me, has dual meaning. On one hand, it speaks to Chihiro’s emotional state. But it also references Chihiro’s choice to dispose of Noboru’s body in her freezer and the film’s twists, which turns freezers into a major plot point.

And there are plenty of nude scenes in this film. Ishii was mostly known as a director of exotic drama films.

Though Freeze Me is relentlessly dour, Ishii adds plenty of film dark humour, especially in the back half of the film, to make it easier to digest. The impressive, often claustrophobic, cinematography and escalating tension show a director at the top of his game.

Today, Freeze Me is not a title in the popular consciousness, but the film has not fallen into obscurity either. It leaves an impression on those who have seen it and its social relevance has only increased. Considering the subject matter, that’s saying something.