Kenpei to barabara shibijin

Kenpei To Barabara Shibijin (憲兵とバラバラ死美人) AKA The Military Policeman And The Dismembered Beauty is that film that traumatized Shigesato Itoi as a kid, and inspired him to create Giygas and unleash its horror upon us all via Earthbound.

However, there is quite a bit more to the film than that. It takes place in World War 2, during the time when Japan occupied Manchuria. A group of Japanese soldiers at Sendai (located in northeastern Japan and a good distance away from Tokyo) discover the body of a dismembered woman in a well. At least a month goes by, and the investigation into the woman's death goes nowhere. Cue the arrival of Miltary Policeman Staff Sergeant Kosaka to solve this mystery!

This film contains examples of:

• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Gigyas' lines supposedly came from a character that was being raped. However, this character was engaging in consensual sex, she said nothing except making a squawking sound when her killer strangled her, and he did not grab her breast and squeeze it into a ball shape.
• Blackmail: Hospital Guy got Yuriko Ito pregnant and she wanted him to marry her. When he clearly didn't want to, she threatened to talk to his squad captain about the rich girl he hooked up with and shows him a picture that was of them together (which was a big deal back then). So he agreed to marry her, and they engaged in sex, at which point he killed her and dismembered her to cover it up.
• Cowboy Cop: Jerk Investigator could be compared to Carter Blake from Heavy Rain.
• Fan Nickname: Okay, maybe "fan" is not the right word, but someone came up with creative nicknames for some of the characters. Let's see, you have Mr. Higher-Ranking Shirtless Man, Assistant Man, Jerk Investigator, Squad Captain, and Hospital Guy, to name a few!
• Hypocritical Humor: It's funny to see Mr. Shirtless Man fly into a speech about how his soldiers are wasting precious water, and he drinks it, only to spit it out and say that it does taste and smell terrible.
• Jerkass: Well, with a name like Jerk Investigator, it's pretty obvious who is this trope.
• Narm: Well, this film was released in August 6, 1957, so this trope was bound to happen.
• Red Herring: The Squad Captain is not the guilty party and Fumiko is alive, well, and not the murder victim.
• Talking to the Dead: Kosaka talks to the victim's skull, and swears to catch the killer and get the closure the victim wants.
• Villainous Breakdown: Hospital Guy goes into this once he gets caught. It's supposed to be creepy, but it will probably be considered Narmy to a number of people.
• Watch It for the Meme: Admit it! You watched this film, or at least read up on it so you can see the horror that spawned Gigyas! Unfortunately, you will be doomed to disappointment when you see the scene Itoi caught.
• Whip It Good: Jerk Investigator does this to Squad Captain, and there is no discretion shot of this.

I get that you find things you watch very interesting, but shouldn't this kind of stuff go on a page or as a review rather than on the forums? You seem to do this a lot.

Maybe. But it seems painfully difficult to get a discussion going on a fictional work that nobody has ever heard of, let alone cared about. At least this way, it draws attention, and gets people to go to that page (not to mention copying and pasting tropes into the page in one fell swoop) in a jiffy!

edited 29th Apr '12 12:19:08 PM by TiggersAreGreat

Maybe being "hell yeah"?

edited 29th Apr '12 8:54:25 PM by Prowler

"Hell yeah" is right. The stuff to this movie is now on the page it should be in. It's interesting how people go into the movie fully expecting to see something horrifying, especially after the way Itoi describes it. It's too bad that it's nothing like that! But then, he was a kid at the time! He probably had no idea what he was looking at, and he caught the tail end of the movie, so he didn't have the proper context. Still, Giygas probably gives you a good idea of his reaction to it!