SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Thehibikiew Not even bad in a good way

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Patrick McCoy Koji Wakamatsu's anti-war film Catepillar (2010) is notable for it's strong anti-nationalism stance and Shinobu Terajima's powerful performance as a long suffering wife dealt a poor hand in life (one in which she won an acting award at the Berlin Film Festival). Her husband is returned from war, as a "God of War" with decorations, without limbs, the ability to speak or hear. Her role as a good wife of a soldier of the Emperor's is to take good care of him-a thankless task for a man who only eats, sleeps, and demands sex from his wife. Furthermore, we learn that he was an abusive husband and has committed atrocities in the war in China. Wakamatsu is a member of that older generation and has an ax to grind-one that the nationalists of today wouldn't be so happy about either. It's a difficult film to watch, but perhaps necessary since most of the new generations are unaware or unbelieving of the atrocities committed at war by the Japanese in the name of the emperor due to whitewashing to history textbooks in schools.

najania In premise, "Caterpillar" (the English translation of the title of a short story by masterful mystery author Edogawa Ranpo on which the movie draws heavily) may call to mind Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun", but whereas the latter dwells entirely on the slug of a man left from the battlefield, the former actually focuses on the wife who must care for and cater to a deified deformity of a husband. Director Wakamatsu walks the viewer through the war with newsreel footage and announcements from the "Daihonei" Imperial Headquarters, which duped the public into thinking their forces were winning victory after victory. There is also the text of the article prohibiting capture or surrender from the "Senjinkun" (Combatants' Code), which was distributed to all soldiers in early 1941 under the name of Hideki Tojo, and was a key factor behind the suicidal attacks and just plain suicides (voluntary or compelled) by Japanese soldiers throughout the war. Kurokawa (the husband) comes back limbless and mute, but there is nothing wrong with him downstairs, as his hapless wife soon discovers. There ensues a kind of sexual warfare between the two, portraits of the emperor and empress solemnly gazing down at the lurid scenes all the while, that lasts as long as the war. I took Kurokawa's attempted suicide as an attempt to end his personal torment, not as a sign of repentance for his own crimes per se. No one saves or is saved in this flick.After the intense fixation on the couple and the rural home front, the A-blasts and war's end seem to break the spell, and the film embraces a more general anti-war sentiment. I felt this diluted the impact, but audiences (especially those in Japan) will do well to ponder the figure of 20 million on the screen at the film's end for the estimated WWII death toll in Asia alone.Shinobu Terajima turns in a bravura performance as the wife (though she looked laughably incongruous standing in a rice paddy, farming implement in unaccustomed hand, her fair and flawless complexion shining under the sun - far cry from a sun-beaten peasant- woman!), and Shin Onishi, a creditable one in a difficult role.Wakamatsu again showed courage in making this film, as he did with "United Red Army". I guess this is why mention of his name often elicits groans in Japan. He must be doing something right.

axe_hallorann I wonder why the short story of the same name is never given credit. Especially since it was written by Edugawa Rampo*, the "father of Japanese mystery". Is this blatant plagiarism or is the story so famous that it needs no reference? The film is intermediate in its adaptation, keeping the general premise of a limbless veteran and his tormented wife. The Rampo text is much darker and depicts the wife as relishing in sexually teasing her "lump of flesh". The film version adds visualizations of the "caterpillar's" war crimes in China during WWII; memories of which haunt the miserable creature. Unfortunately, the film tends to dwell on the tedium of their lives (eating, sleeping, "sex") and not the psychological/physical abuse that the wife perversely doles out.*Edugawa Rampo is a phonetical pronunciation of Edgar Allen Poe in Japanese: "Edugaw-Aram-Po"

DICK STEEL Directed by Koji Wakamatsu, Caterpillar takes a clear and hard anti-war stance with its explicit warnings, vivid images of brutality and questioning of just what war means and will result in. Complete with archived documentary film reels that come from both news and propaganda, it tells the story of the effects of war through a husband and wife, where the former has returned from his tour of duty serving in the Emperor's Asia Pacific mission, complete with 3 highly decorated medals, a major tribute printed in the newspaper, but with the price of having lost all limbs, now left with just a torso and a head.The film poses a few questions very early on about war itself. What good are commendations and medals when one is left limbless and at the mercy of others to feed, clothe, bathe you, and just about every other basic human function requires care given, as part of karmic retribution for having to survive a battle when countless of others get killed under one's hands. It's the ultimate torture for someone who once dish out punishment against helpless civilian victims, now unable to function normally, not even speak to express desires.How can someone be hailed as a war hero, when being a hero in this sense meant the killing of others, like the twist in the adage that states not to die for your country, but to make the other poor bastard die for his instead. And if put under the context of the Japanese invasion of Asia as the film portrayed, how does rampaging, pillaging, raping and killing bring one honour or glory, especially in the senselessness of war that cannot be justified, what more being hailed as a god by many others, balanced by the ultimate mockery of sorts by being put on a pedestal like a caged animal in a zoo, since Tadashi Kurokawa (Keigo Kasuya) becomes the poster boy for his dedication and sacrifice in the name of the throne.Tadashi aside, the film also takes on another more important and engrossing perspective through that of Tadashi's wife Shigeko (Shinobu Terajima, who got the Silver Bear for Best Actress at last month's Berlin Film Festival), initially shocked by the image of a husband who's more than a cripple, being maimed both physically and emotionally, and to balance that expectation set by society of the dutiful wife who will stand by her husband no matter the costs, and live the vows of being there for better or for worse. Keigo Kasuya may have the more technically challenging role of expressing himself through his eyes only, but Shinobu Terajima brings forth her character's development superbly, as one initially very reluctant and fearful of other's perception, to one who learns how to capitalize the turning of tables to dish out revenge long overdue, especially when she holds the upper hand in rewarding good behaviour brownie points to a sex-addicted husband (yeah, he can still function below the waist). In many ways, it's a close examination of the live of the Japanese woman during war, and societal pressures put on them at the time.Like the insect, Tadashi spends much of his life eating, sleeping, and requesting for plenty of sex, that it becomes nothing more than a routine cycle to feel alive, until guilt pours over him when given a chance to reflect, and us as the audience as well, the atrocities committed by troops. The other interesting aspect of the film is how Wakamatsu includes elements of how simple living Japanese folk practise for that eventuality of an air strike and invasion of enemies troops on their soil, with civil defense type drills like bayonet fighting and fire fighting being pretty much the standard lessons learnt by the villagers. Bookend by archive footage and the telling of stark statistics of WWII, Caterpillar will stick to you long after the credits roll, and it certainly doesn't detract from its intended hard messages and fluff into a narrative butterfly.