Line #3 Film/ColdFish


1	[[quoteright:336:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cf.png]]
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3	A 2010 film written and directed by Creator/SionSono, ''Cold Fish'' tells the story of a [[TheQuietOne quiet]] fishmonger named Nobuyuki who once again gets into trouble because his daughter gets caught stealing in a shop. The cheerful and charismatic Yukio, who also happens to be a fishmonger, bails him out. Yukio suggests that Nobuyuki’s daughter may work at his shop (which is significantly larger than Nobuyuki’s) and that he and Nobuyuki can work together as business partners on top of that. Nobuyuki agrees, not yet knowing that the man he made a deal with is actually a psychopathic SerialKiller who has murdered well over 50 people. Soon Nobuyuki is blackmailed into assisting Yukio in what he calls making his victims "[[DisposingOfABody disappear]]". This is the beginning of a nightmare of {{Gorn}} and humiliation.
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5	!!''Cold Fish'' contains examples of the following tropes:
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7	* AbusiveParents: [[spoiler:Nobuyuki in the last act of the story, after he kills Yukio. He knocks out his daughter (twice) and rapes his wife.]]
8	* AlasPoorVillain: A disturbing example. [[spoiler:It’s especially disturbing because of Yukio‘s reaction to the unexpected brutality of Nobuyuki - he seems to have a flashback to when his father raped him as a child.]]
9	* AllWomenAreLustful: Yukio’s wife is a very straight example of a lustful woman, but even Nobuyuki’s wife falls into this trope. The sex scene with Yukio showing this is particularly embarrassing to watch and seems very OutOfCharacter compared to the rest of the film.
10	%%* AndThereWasMuchRejoicing: [[spoiler:Nobuyuki’s daughter after his suicide.]]
11	* BeneathTheMask: Yukio may seem friendly at first with his extroverted behaviour. It takes some time until it gets clear that he is a psychopath and SerialKiller.
12	* BewareTheNiceOnes: Nobuyuki seems like he couldn’t even harm a fly, but the appearance is disturbingly deceiving.
13	* CallBack: The very last thing you see before the credits is [[spoiler:a picture of planet Earth]]. This is a call back to earlier dialogue between Yukio and Nobuyuki: [[spoiler: Yukio makes fun of Nobuyuki being fascinated with astronomy because for him, planet Earth is not a beautiful blue planet but [[StrawNihilist just a cold rock in space]]. With this last picture, the movie raises the question to the viewer if Nobuyuki, after all the terrible things that happened throughout the movie, is still able to see Earth as a beautiful planet.]]
14	* TheClimax: [[spoiler:The fairly long scene that results in Nobuyuki stabbing Yukio down.]]
15	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Homicidal tendencies aside, Yukio has a clownish facade and likes to spontaneously break out dancing to motivate his friends and workers.
16	* CrapsackWorld: More or less the point of the whole thing; Yukio wants to make Nobuyuki (a man who loves the world) see the world as a crapsack world. [[spoiler: He succeeds, with Nobuyuki committing suicide at the end of the movie.]]
17	* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Sure the Muratas are dead, but Nobuyuki turns into a violent beast who ultimately kills himself, and his daughter doesn't mourn him when he dies.]]
18	%%* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Nobuyuki.]]
19	%%* EvilMentor: Yukio is this to Nobuyuki, in a way.
20	%%* FanDisservice: A lot, especially towards the end.
21	%%* FreakOut: Nobuyuki eventually takes this up to eleven, in an extremely disturbing manner.
22	* FreudianExcuse: Yukio was sexually abused by his father as a child.
23	* GenreShift: The story begins as a harmless family drama, even though some conflicts are present even then (like the daughter stealing). The first scene to imply where the story is going is the grotesque sex scene between Yukio and Nobuyuki's wife. Once the first murder occurs, the movie has turned to a psycho thriller and there is no turning back, diving deep into {{Gorn}} territory.
24	* {{Gorn}}: Scenes of this getting more and more frequent as the plot evolves.
25	* HeWhoFightsMonsters: [[spoiler:Nobuyuki's stresses, exacerbated by the Muratas, cause him to snap and turn into an even ''nastier'' psycho than Yukio.]]
26	* HitMeDammit: Also earlier in the movie, when Taeko demands that Yukio hit her more during their tryst.
27	%%** A very memorable example of Yukio telling Nobuyuki this.
28	%%* ImprovisedWeapon: A pen.
29	%%* JerkAss: Yukio is an extreme example. [[spoiler:Then Nobuyuki after he snaps.]]
30	%%* OverdrawnAtTheBloodBank: The finale.
31	%%* PayEvilUntoEvil: [[spoiler: What Nobuyuki does/lets do with Yukio and Aiko. After that there’s no turning back.]]
32	%%* TheQuietOne: Nobuyuki.
33	%%* RapeAsBackstory: Yukio.
34	* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Two cases of this.
35	** [[spoiler: A very, very rare example of a man forcing another man to have sex with a woman (the wife of the first man). This is the [[TheClimax key scene]] of the movie, making Nobuyuki FreakOut.]]
36	** [[spoiler: After his FreakOut, Nobuyuki rapes his wife in another very distubing scene.]]
37	%%* SanitySlippage
38	%%* SerialKiller: Yukio is one of the Power/Control type.
39	* StrikeMeDownWithAllOfYourHatred: Yukio provokes Nobuyuki to strike him down. Noboyuki doesn’t seem to stand a chance against him though. [[spoiler: Until he has the FreakOut and the tables turn.]]
40	* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Even though the movie itself states that the story it tells is true in the opening scene, the actual correspondence with true events is very thin.

Context Film / ColdFish