Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa has explored a variety of genres in a career spanning over forty years, and this release of his fourth feature, The Guard from Underground, demonstrates that his confidence in genre-hopping came early on. The film begins as a work-based drama, but gradually shifts into slasher horror as a murder suspect who narrowly avoided jail is hired to work as a guard at Akebono Trading, and begins killing anew.
We’re introduced to this world through Akiko Narushima – a former museum curator who specialises in art sales and acquisition – who has joined Akebono Trading’s new Section 12 as a consultant. Makiko Kuno does well with in the role of Akiko, bringing a grounded approach to what is structurally an audience stand-in. Sadly her role is marginalised in the second half of the film, but she excels in the small character moments that are scattered throughout the film – such as hiding food given to her by a colleague so as not to seem rude.
While the serial killer narrative gradually builds, there’s a domestic horror underscoring the opening scenes in this underfunded section of Akebono Trading. The building itself is memorably dingy, and its sickly yellow and green walls seem to reflect the unpleasant nature of the people within it. The department has a culture of enabling everyone to indulge in their worst habits, from the top people like Hydodo – the dispassionate head of Human Resources – to the desperate guard, Mamiya, who becomes an unwilling accomplice to the murders. The most shocking display of indulgence and mistreatment occurs when Narushima is sexually harrassed by her boss Kurume, and although he may be the head of a department made up of “losers” (as Hyodo casually describes them), this scene of him exploiting the little power he has is one of the most unsettling in the film.
The sliver of information we get is enough to raise your curiosity, and not providing a reductive motive makes the character much stranger and scarier.
Once the killing spree begins, the film shifts into a completely different tone as the titular guard starts working his way through the established characters. Fujimaru uses the dark corners of the building and the staff’s status as forgettable employees to literally beat them to a bloody pulp, and Yutaka Matsushige has a memorably imposing presence as the former sumo wrestler and murderer – his tall, gangly frame often dominating the screen while bathed in shadows
While Kurosawa’s previous horror film, Sweet Home, was a broad genre pastiche, Guard contains some of Kurosawa’s specific qualities that he would develop in later works – particularly in characters like Fujimaru. He is, at one point, described as a “freak”, and there are occasions where Fujimaru displays an inhuman quality, as if he’s stepped out of a heightened, borderline magical realist world. Intruding on this neglected workplace, Fujimaru coldly addresses his brutal crushing people by stating “What’s my game? That’s for you to figure out”. It could be argued that Fujimaru simply fulfils the stereotype of the psychopathic killer, but there’s a calm methodical quality to Matsushige’s performance – especially in the final scene – which suggests that the character has an existential motive, and that he may not be in total control of his actions. The sliver of information we get is enough to raise your curiosity, and not providing a reductive motive makes the character much stranger and scarier.
Extras that come with this release contextualise Guard as being one of the final films made by The Director’s Company – a production company operated by nine directors that ran between 1982 and 1992. There’s also an interview with Kurosawa from 2022 in which he tells this story from the inside, and although he’s an engaging speaker, he’s also adorably awkward during the photo session afterwards.
Producer Takashi Ikom provides a frank interview about the difficult conditions faced by Kurosawa and his staff during the filming of Guard, and rounding off the supplementary material is an audio commentary from Tom Mes, who recently appeared in the documentary The J-Horror Virus. Mes disagrees with the film being categorised as a slasher, and highlights that Kurosawa’s skills were already on display in this early work. Although this edition of The Guard From Underground may seem like it’s aimed at Kurosawa completionists, there are plenty of things to enjoy on their own merits, and hopefully this release allows it to be reassessed as a notable entry in the history of Japanese horror.
The Guard from Underground is out now on Third Window Films Blu-Ray
