Beautiful Target (1995)

Directors: Toshiharu Ikeda, Naosuke Kurosawa
Stars: Yôko Natsuki, Shiho, Michihiro Yamanishi

In “Beautiful Target,” Yoko Natsuki plays “Dr. Kyoko Mizuki,” a visually striking but dispassionate medical examiner who becomes the target of a sadistic stalker and serial killer of women. In a disturbing sequence, “Mizuki” – who possesses not only a high status career but also classically aquiline good looks – is subjected to a horrific home invasion in which she is stripped, groped, blindfolded, bound in a humiliating position and videotaped by the assailant. Her body and status are portrayed as highly vulnerable, while that of the male detective investigating the case is almost indestructible. Here, the male body is nearly impervious to harm when tempered by service – as when the injured detective rises from his hospital bed after a nearly fatal hit-and-run – while the body of the male serial killer as an anonymous, looming threat is immune to female blows or even repeated stabbing!

Determined to save herself by finding the perpetrator before he strikes again, “Mizuki” teams with “Natsumi” (SHIHO), a female switchblade-wielding gang leader who has lost a girlfriend to the killer. “Natsumi” finds “Kyoko” tied up in her apartment, and the two unlikely opposites become partners and then lovers. Kurosawa guides the narrative through seedy bars and clubs toward a climax in which “Mizuki” tracks the killer to his lair, where he has abducted and tied up “Natsumi.” Such narratives and scenes are characteristic of many Japanese genre films that relish the torture and humiliation of women. “Beautiful Target” is additionally disturbing because it is actually quite well acted and manages to generate a measure of drama and character identification. However, despite their best efforts, “Kyoko” and “Natsumi” cannot finish off the perpetrator by striking and stabbing him repeatedly. His mysterious, cloaked body – emblematic of an all-powerful male figure – must be finally put to death by a shot fired by the miraculously recovered detective “Komiya.” Despite her recent intimacy with “Natsumi,” “Kyoko” ultimately collapses into his arms. In one final plot twist, there is an implication that she may have been awakened to the “pleasures” of the conduct to which she was exposed, and could now become a perpetrator of similar acts herself – representing ultimate symbolic identification with the oppressor.

IMDB

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