Year: 2007
Duration: 113'
When the body of a woman is found in a container where hair is collected for making extensions, suspicion falls on the existence of an organization that traffics in internal organs. In fact, the woman’s organs are missing and have been replaced by hair. The disturbing discovery spurs Yamazaki Gunji, who works at the morgue, to hide the woman’s body and he decides to use the hair that was stuffed inside her to make extensions. But the dead woman’s ire will punish him when he tries to get hold of the locks of the hair stylist Yuko and her granddaughter Mami. “Along with Be Sure to Share, Extension is almost the only declaredly genre film Sion Sono has made, even though the eclectic director always inserts a series of distinctive elements into his method of narration. The genre conventions are combined with the subversive traits of the filmmaker: the roguish tone, the scowl that follows the fright, the grotesque self-satisfaction, the incongruous combinations. Extension is a journey into genre films, in which some of the features of Japanese fantasy films have been re-elaborated.” (Luca Calderini)
Biography
film director
Sion Sono
Sion Sono (Toyokawa, Japan, 1961) is an internationally acclaimed Japanese filmmaker. His movies depict Japanese society in a provocative and violent way, amid a plethora of pop culture references. His most renown films include Suicide Club (2002), which is part of a trilogy on alienation along with Noriko’s Dinner Table (2005), winner of the Berliner Zeitung Jury Award, and Love Exposure (2008), winner of the FIPRESCI Award and the Caligari Film Award at the Berlinale. Love Exposure is also the first film of the “trilogy of hate,” which includes Cold Fish (2010) and Guilty of Romance (2011). He participated to the Venice Film Festival in 2011 with the feature Himizu, and in 2013 with Why Don’t You Play in Hell. The Torino Film Festival paid tribute to him with a retrospective in 2011. He participated in several TFF editions with his films Tokyo Tribe (2014), Love & Peace (2015), TAG (2015) and Shinjuku Swan (2015).
FILMOGRAFIA
The Room (1992), Suicide Club (2002), Noriko’s Dinner Table (2005), Strange Circus (2005), Hazard (2006), Exte: Hair Extensions (2007), Love Exposure (2008), Cold Fish (2010), Guilty of Romance (2011), Himizu (2011), Why Don’t You Play in Hell (2013), Tokyo Tribe (2014), Love & Peace (2015), Riaru onigokko (TAG, 2015), Shinjuku suwan (Shinjuku Swan, 2015), Antiporno (2016), Tokyo Vampire Hotel (serie tv/tv series, 2017).
Cast
& Credits
regia, soggetto/director, story
Sion Sono
sceneggiatura/screenplay
Sono Sion, Adachi Masaki, Sanada Makoto
fotografia/cinematography
Yanagida Hiro’o
montaggio/film editing
Ito Jun’ichi
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters
Kuriyama Chiaki (Mizushima Yuko), Sato Miku (Mami), Sato Megumi (Morita Yuki), Yamazaki Gunji (Osugi Ren)
produttori/producers
Hattori Tsugio, Okada Makoto
produzione/production
Central Arts, Exte Film Partners, Toei Picture Company Productions
vendita all’estero/world sales
Toei Picture Company Productions
