Strange Circus is a Asian horror film by Sion Sono full of mind screw and Fridge Horror
The film begins with 12-year-old Mitsuko who accidentally walks in on her school principal father raping her mother. Her father realizes this and one day invites his daughter to watch him and his wife having sex with Mitsuko locked in a cello case. Having been forced to watch her parents' love-making, Mitsuko's pervert father decides it's her turn. He locks his wife inside of the cello case and has his way with his daughter as his wife watches in horror.
This goes on without anyone at the school finding out, but over time, Mitsuko's mother Sayuri becomes extremely jealous of her daughter having sex with her father. Sayuri begins to attempt to kill Mitsuko on multiple occasions when her husband Gozo is away. When Mitsuko finally stands up to her mother, she pushes her down the stairs, killing her. But even after the funeral, Mitsuko's abuse continues at the hands of her father.
Mitsuko continues going to school where her father is the principal and one day jumps off the roof in an attempt to kill herself but only ends up in a wheelchair.
This is the Gorn filled tale of murder, incest and suicide that wheelchair-bound novelist Taeko intends to write. With her Pretty Boy assistant Yuji, she will figure out the truth behind her newest story and her own past as well. But will her constant nightmares become too much to bear?
Strange Circus Contains the following Tropes
- Abusive Parent: Gozo and Sayuri both treat their daughter horribly for no real reason.
- Gozo rapes his wife and his daughter as he pleases, but Sayuri refuses to report her husband to police and Mitsuko becomes broken beyond repair.
- Sayrui get jealous of Mitsuko and tries to kill her when her husband is away, eventually throwing Mitsuko gdown the stairs over a lost earring. Thankfully Mitsuko lives.
- All Women Are Lustful: In this movie they are, Mitsuko being the only exception (because she's only a child).
- All for Nothing: Sayuri abuses her daughter for a stolen earring, going as far as to push her down the stairs. It's later revealed that her daughter didn't know where it went; it was swallowed by one of Gozo's sex slaves.
- Amnesiac Hero: Taeko shows some signs of this. Not all of her backstory is told and she can't seem to remember who she was as a child. And towards the end of the film, she admits to never knowing whether or not she was Mitsuko in the first place. She is in fact Sayuri, having deluded herself into believing that she is Mitsuko after thinking she killed her daughter.
- Bait-and-Switch: We're lead to believe that Mitsuko killed her mother and that Taeko is actually an older Mitsuko. Turns out Sayuri pushed Mitsuko down the stairs and thought she killed her — she didn't — and repressed her memory to the point that she thinks that she was Mitsuko and that Taeko is Sayuri the entire time. Mitsuko grew up to be Yuji.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Yuji brings up a suggestion to Taeko that Gozo and Mitsuko should be amputated, to which Taeko agrees. Come the climax and Yuji has already amputated Gozo and Taeko is next.Yuri: (as he's revving up a chainsaw in front of Taeko, smiling) You said you wanted to make the protagonist an amputee, right? Let me help you with that.
- Beneath the Mask: Mitsuko's family and Yuji are all hiding their true natures.
- Mitsuko always has to put on a brave face at school and hide the fact she's being abused and raped.
- Gozo is a caring elementary school principal who rapes and abuses his daughter as well as his wife.
- Sayuri is a housewife who has been raped, abused and forced to watch her husband's perversions, and who takes all of that out on her daughter.
- Yuji is Taeko's assistant that works for her publisher but it's revealed that he's actually Mitusko all grown up and ready to go on a rampage for revenge.
- And especially Taeko who is actually Sayuri thinking she's Mitsuko grown up.
- Best Served Cold: Mitsuko grew up, had a sex change to become Yuji, worked to become Taeko's assistant so he could get close to her, and eventually gets his revenge by slicing Sayuri and Gozo's limbs off with a chainsaw.
- Broken Bird: Mitsuko spends the film getting more and more broken down due to her parents' abuse, culminating in returning as Yuji as an adult to get revenge.
- Bungled Suicide: Mistuko, which is why she ends up in a wheelchair. Actually it turns out that Mitsuko survived the fall and it's Sayuri, who thinks she's Mitsuko, who fakes being handicapped.
- Calling the Old Man Out: The climax is Mitsuko, as Yuji, telling Sayuri, as Taeko, how much this woman was a horrible mother.
- Chainsaw Good: Yuji, formerly Mitsuko, amputates Gozo and Sayuri's limbs with a chainsaw as revenge for the abuse they perpetuated against him.
- Chekhov's Gun: The earring Sayuri almost killed Mitsuko for. It was found but then cruelly swallowed by a sex slave.
- Circus of Fear: The movie opens up with one, although the only thing that you might consider frightening about this particular circus is that they brought a guillotine onto the stage and asked if anyone in the audience wanted to die. This is presumably symbolic of Taeko/Sayuri's final moments before Yuji/Mitsuko beheads her. The guillotine is actually the chainsaw Yuji has on hand.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Taeko is somewhat of a ditz and spacey. Turns out it's all an act.
- Companion Cube: Taeko's cello case which may or may not have Gozo stuffed inside it.
- The Dog Bites Back: Gozo gets this on both ends from his wife and daughter. After he gets crippled for his cheating ways, Sayuri gets to beat him around like she did to him before taking his wheelchair and stuffing him into the cello case just like his daughter. And then his daughter, who becomes Yuji, finishes it off with a chainsaw.
- Driven to Suicide: Subverted; there's a scene where it looks like Mitsuko fell off the school building and survived. It turns out that never happened since she ended up becoming Yuji.
- Foreshadowing:
- The first line of Taeko's novel is how the daughter feels like she was going to be executed in place of her mother. This sets up the Bait-and-Switch in that Mitsuko didn't die from falling down the stairs and how Sayuri instead assumed her daughter's identity following the trauma.
- Yuji meets up with a group of people who willingly mutilated themselves, and opens up his shirt to them to expose his mutilations. Said mutilations were part of a sex change he underwent when abandoning his identity as Mitsuko; the scars are where his breasts were removed
- Yuji suggests that perhaps Taeko should have Gozo and Mitsuko's limbs amputated. Come the end of the film, Gozo has suffered this fate at Yuji's hands and Taeko/Sayuri (who believes she's Mitsuko) is next.
- Foster Kid: Mitsuko ended up in foster care after she survived her tumble down the staircase and escaped her abusive parents.
- Freak Out: Taeko has these in the climax when Yuji, really Mitsuko, has her remember what really happened in her so-called novel, and that she was really Sayuri this whole time and that she went as far as to kill Mitsuko.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: Yuji, really Mitsuko, ends up being hired as Taeko's assistant so it gives him a better chance to get revenge on his mother.
- In-Series Nickname: Taeko often calls Yuji 'Robo-chan' because of his somewhat robotic mannerisms.
- I Am Who?: Taeko begins to wonder who she is toward the end of the film. She later learns that she's really Sayuri who believes she's Mitsuko.
- Ironic Echo: Early in the film, Sayuri tells Mitsuko that her daughter looks like her. This is reversed in the climax in the same house years later when Mitsuko, who transitioned into Yuji, tells this to Taeko aka Sayuri.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Sayuri pushes Gozo down some stairs, crippling him. Considering all the shit he did to his wife and daughter, he got off easy. Then Yuji finishes the job with a chainsaw.
- Laughing Mad: Yuji starts laughing like a loon in the climax as he gets his revenge on Taeko aka Sayuri.
- Metaphorically True: The narrations that say that Sayuri died when Mitsuko was in 6th grade and was like an innocent child, with Mitsuko saying she killed her. Sayuri "died" when she believed that she killed Mitsuko and she regressed into the mindset of Mitsuko.
- Mind Screw: This movie lives, eats and breathes Mind Screw.
- Most Writers Are Writers: Taeko is a writer of dark and twisted erotica stories. She started writing stories to hide the fact that she, as Sayuri, went so far as to push her daughter down the stairs.
- My God, What Have I Done?: As reality crashes on Taeko, really Sayuri, she starts crying and looking in horror as she remembers how she tried to kill her own daughter over nothing.
- "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization:
- Mitsuko hates having sex with her father, but feels as though she was becoming her mother and when she becomes her mother, she claims to start enjoying the sex
- It's actually played with. At the end, the real Mitsuko rages over the exact line that states this, showing that she herself DID NOT enjoy it.
- Obfuscating Disability: Taeko is first seen as using a wheelchair, but in truth she was always able to walk just fine. The wheelchair actually belongs to her husband, Gozo.
- Offing the Offspring: Sayuri attempts to do this because she's jealous of her
12-year-old daughter having sex with her husband. Subverted; Mitsuko survived the fall down the stairs. - Once More, with Clarity:
- At first it seems as if Sayuri died by falling down the stairs. When it's seen again, it's the opposite. Mitsuko fell down the stairs (but survived) yet Sayuri thinks she killed her daughter.
- Those clips of Sayuri in a school uniform and Mitsuko's class looks like an Imagine Spot. Nope! Turns out Sayuri regressed into becoming Mitsuko and essentially did end up going to class in a school uniform, embarrassing her husband.
- Parental Incest: Gozo rapes his daughter in front of his wife.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In the climax, Yuji, formerly Mitsuko, delivers a scathing speech to Taeko, who is actually Sayuri, about how she was a horrible mother who allowed her husband to abuse their child and then attempted to kill said child for no good reason.
- Rewatch Bonus: After knowing that Yuji and Mitsuko are the same person, his reactions to Taeko take on a more meaningful light.
- Sex Slave: We don't see this happen to wheelchair-bound Mitsuko as a teen but her father starts having multiple women over and having sex with them even when she's in the room. Even to the point of neglecting Mitsuko's needs such as going to the bathroom... Subverted because it's not Mitsuko but rather Sayuri believing she's Mitsuko.
- Show Within a Show: It's a movie within a movie, or rather, a book within a movie. It might be easy to forget but the things Taeko writes are not an exact re-telling of what happened, as shown by Mitsuko's reactions to them in the final act.
- The Shut-In: Sayuri's fate after she thought she killed her daughter, writing apology letters, believing she was Mitsuko, and eventually becoming the novelist Taeko.
- Significant Double Casting: Sayuri and Taeko are played by the same actress. This is absolutely not a coincidence because Takeo is an amnesiac Sayuri.
- Staircase Tumble: Sayuri dies in this matter. Turns out it was actually Mitsuko who tumbled down the stairs, but she survived.
- Swallow the Key: Remember that earring Sayuri told Mitsuko to find when she was dying? One of Gozo's many sex slaves swallows it in front of Mitsuko to make her suffer after Mitsuko begged her to give it back. But it wasn't Mitsuko who saw the earring, it was Sayuri who thought she was Mitsuko.
- Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Sayuri lost her memory when she assumed she killed Mitsuko by pushing her down the stairs. The horror that she would go as far as to kill her own daughter for something so petty breaks her, and she ends up thinking she is Mitsuko.
- Wham Line: The Twist Ending of the film starts when Yuji tells Taeko this.Yuji: Shut up, mother.
- Yuji then reveals the truth of what happened after the fall down the stairs and how Sayuri was writing letters of apology.
Yuji: But you [Taeko] wrote them from the perspective of a child who killed her mother. - Wham Shot:
- When we rewatch the scene of the Staircase Tumble, the truth reveals that Mitsuko fell down the stairs, not Sayuri.
- Yuji unbuttons his shirt to Taeko to reveal surgery scars where breasts would be.
