Jigoku (; ; "Hell"), also titled The Sinners of Hell, is a 1960 Japanese horror film directed by Nobuo Nakagawa and produced by Shintoho. The film stars Shigeru Amachi, Utako Mitsuya, and YÃ Âichi Numata, and is notable for separating itself from other Japanese horror films of the era such as Kwaidan or Onibaba due to its graphic imagery of torment in Hell. It has gained a cult film status. Shintoho declared bankruptcy in 1961, its last production being Jigoku.
A student, Shirà Â, is set to marry his girlfriend, Yukiko, the daughter of his professor, Mr. Yajima. After announcing the engagement, Shirà Â's colleague Tamura drives Shirà  home. Taking a side street at Shirà Â's request, Tamura hits and kills yakuza gang leader, Kyà Âichi. Though Shirà  wants to stop, Tamura keeps driving, feels no guilt and says that it is Shirà Â's fault for asking him to drive down that street. Kyà Âichi's mother, who witnessed the incident, resolves to find and kill them.
Though Tamura feels no guilt for the killing, Shirà  does and attempts to go to the police. After telling Yukiko of what happened, Shirà  insists that they take a taxi cab to the police station, despite Yukiko's pleas to walk instead. The vehicle crashes, killing Yukiko. After Yukiko's funeral, Shirà  meets strip bar worker and Kyà Âichi's grieving girlfriend Yoko, who discovers Shirà Â's culpability for the hit-and-run after sleeping with him and, with Kyà Âichi's mother, plots revenge.
Shirà  learns that his mother, ItoâÂÂwho lives in a retirement community run by his father, Gà Âzà ÂâÂÂis dying. Shirà  arrives there and meets the other residents of the community, including a painter, Ensai, who is wanted for a crime in another city and is painting a portrait of Hell; a former reporter, Akagawa; a corrupt detective, Hariya; the community doctor, Dr. Kasuma; and Sachiko, a nurse and Ensai's daughter, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Yukiko. While Ito lies dying, Gà Âzà  carries on an open affair with a mistress. Later, Mr. and Mrs. Yajima arrive by train. Ito dies, and Ensai (who was Ito's lover years prior to Ito and Gà Âzà Â's marriage) lambasts Gà Âzà  for his activities with his mistress. Tamura appears and reveals that each resident has some complicity in a murder: Mr. Yajima caused the death of a fellow soldier during a war; both Hariya and Akagawa framed or slandered innocent men who then both died by suicide; and Dr. Kasuma knowingly misdiagnosed Ito's condition.
Yoko tracks Shirà  down and meets with him on a rope bridge. She reveals her identity and attempts to shoot him, but trips and falls to her death. Tamura appears, and after a struggle, Tamura also falls into the gorge. Shirà  returns in time for the community's tenth anniversary party, where Gà Âzà  has allowed cheap, rancid fish to be served to the residents. As the partiers descend into insobriety, Gà Âzà  finds his mistress lying with his son. A brief altercation occurs in the attic that accidentally leads to her falling to her death. Shirà Â, going outside after being told by his father to not say anything, encounters Mr. and Mrs. Yajima leaving the party. They soon kill themselves by leaping in front of a train. The residents die from consuming the tainted fish, and Kyà Âichi's mother poisons the remaining residents' wine, killing them. Tamura, near death, stumbles into the party and shoots Sachiko. Enraged, Shiro strangles Tamura to death while Kyoichi's mother does the same to him.
In Limbo, Shirà  encounters Yukiko, who reveals that she was pregnant with their child when she died. Having sent the baby girl, whom she names Harumi, floating away on the Sanzu River, Yukiko begs Shirà  to save the child. Shirà  enters Hell and is sentenced to punishment by Lord Enma (the king of Hell) for his sins. While searching for his daughter in Hell, Shirà  witnesses those from his life suffering for their wrongdoingsâÂÂbeing boiled and burned, flayed, or dismembered and beaten by oni, only to be revived to suffer anew. Tamura taunts Shirà Â, saying there is no escape from Hell, before Tamura himself is tortured for his misdeeds. Shirà  finds Sachiko, but their reunion is interrupted by Ito, who reveals that Sachiko is his sister: Shirà  is actually Ensai's son, and Sachiko is actually Ito's daughter. While caught in a vortex of damned souls, Shirà  finds his baby daughter helplessly rotating on a large wheel. Lord Enma gives Shirà  one chance to save his daughter, otherwise she too will suffer eternally. As Yukiko, Sachiko, and his mother call to him, Shirà  leaps onto the wheel, but cannot reach his daughter.
In the realm of the living, everyone at the party is dead, including Ensai, who has hanged himself after completing his portrait of Hell and setting it on fire. Elsewhere, both Sachiko and Yukiko are seen standing and smiling, calling to Shirà  as sister and lover, respectively, with lotus petals falling around them, implying that Shirà  has success in saving his daughter, enabling the souls Sachiko, Yukiko and Shirà  to be purified to go to Heaven.
Nobuo Nakagawa asked Ichirà  Miyagawa to write the script, which was originally supposed to be called Heaven and Hell, under order of producer Mitsugu Okura. They had been influenced by various conversations they had about guilt and sins, with various inspirations ranging from the thought experiment Plank of Carneades to hearing a report about a fisherman selling poisoned fish he caught in a river to Faust. Mitsugu Okura read the script and angrily said to Miyagawa that "Heaven is nowhere to be seen in this script!", to which Miyagawa jokingly replied that he would write about Heaven in the sequel. Actor Yoichi Numata played Tamura in the film, and expressed in a later interview that he had tried to analyze the role, as the director had told him that "just like Goethe's Faust, it was about the outside and inside of a person", which puzzled him. He decided to act the way he felt, reasoning that that it would be okay if the director yelled at him, only to find that Nakagawa just silently observed him for filming; Numata felt that he couldn't play the role to his best ability because he couldn't really understand the character while also noting that "maybe acting can't be clearly understood."
The film was not expected to be well received, as Shintoho studio was considered to be a maker of low-budget, gory films. Jigoku was made in a hurry, and was the last Shintoho production. For the scenes which take place in hell, the cast and crew used Shintoho's largest soundstage and put dirt over it. In a recent documentary, a crew member said that normally it would be just the crew helping to build the sets, but because it was Shintoho's last production, all the extras were helping. Mamoru Morita said that Nobuo Nakagawa tried in many ways to make Jigoku different from other horror films from the time.
Jigoku was theatrically released in Japan on July 30, 1960. Miyagawa noted that the film received reviews split down the middle about its merits. One review called the film "like a tumor" and another called it "a half-baked oddity". He mused that while they had succeeded in making the concept of people going to hell for their misdeeds easy to digest as a film, "we didn't have to make it in such a crudely popular fashion." He also noted that with the film's release before the collapse of the company's distribution system, it was not a major success.
The film was released on DVD in North America from the Criterion Collection on September 19, 2006.
Retrospective reviews of the film have been more positive, with many critics now recognizing it as a cornerstone for NakagawaâÂÂs career. Dennis Schwartz from Ozus' World Movie Reviews awarded the film a grade "A", calling it "[a] disquieting morality tale based upon the Buddhist concept of an afterlife". Schwartz praised the film's performances, and visuals which he felt 'acted as a lurid study of sin without salvation'. In an essay for the Criterion Collection, Chuck Stephens wrote, "Overflowing with brackish ponds of bubbling pus, brain-rattling disjunctions of sound and image, and at times almost dauntingly incomprehensible plot twists and eye-assaulting bouts of brutish montage, Jigoku is more than merely a boundary-pummeling classic of the horror genreâÂÂitâÂÂs as lurid a study of sin without salvation as the silver screen has ever seen." Brett Gallman from Oh, the Horror! praised the film, calling it "a masterpiece in visual and abstract horror". Gallman praised the film's performances, eerie score, NakagawaâÂÂs direction, and "vivid color palette". HorrorNews.net stated in their review of the film that, "Although this film contains effects that are outdated by modern standards, it is a very powerful story that is based upon the Buddhist belief that sins are atoned for in the afterlife."
Jigoku has developed a cult following over the years and is now considered a cult classic.
In 1979, the acclaimed Nikkatsu Roman Porno director Tatsumi Kumashiro remade Jigoku for Toei. The film was released as Hell.