Synopsis
In Japan, gonzo filmmakers hatch a three-pronged plan to save an actress's career, end a yakuza war and make a hit movie.
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Cast
- Jun KunimuraMuto
- Shinichi TsutsumiIkegami
- Hiroki HasegawaDirector Hirata
- Gen HoshinoKouji Hashimoto
- Fumi NikaidoMitsuko Muto
- TomochikaShizue Muto
- Tak SakaguchiSasaki
- Itsuji ItaoMasuda
- Jyonmyon PeSato
- Hiroyuki OnoueDetective Tanaka
Recommendations
- 92
TheWrap
Like so many memorable yet hard-to-describe movies, Why Don't You Play in Hell? takes a ridiculous concept and commits to it fully. You might laugh with surprise or shriek in horror — both, most likely — but you certainly won't dismiss it. - 89
Austin Chronicle
Why Don’t You Play in Hell? isn’t for everyone, but neither was Stravinsky’s "The Rite of Spring." Genius is genius, no matter how many audience members may riot. - 83
The Playlist
Mostly, the film's very funny, Sono displaying a sense of how to frame and time a visual gag that feels positively Zucker-ish. But there are real stakes, and bursts of real feeling too. - 75
Slant Magazine
Refusing to mourn anything, displaying a Futurist-style disdain for the past, Sion Sono imagines a world in which static adherence to old ideas leads directly to doom. - 75
The A.V. Club
Even when it’s trying one’s patience with throwaway gags or bits of over-the-top brutality, Why Don’t You Play In Hell? is a rather canny celebration of the very type of no-holds-barred cinema that it’s peddling. - 75
RogerEbert.com
It is also the post-punk writer/director Sion Sono's most accessible film: a middle-aged filmmaker's tribute to the kind of epic-sized gangster-romance he used to fantasize about making. - 70
Village Voice
The film's blast of self-mocking overkill can be charming. - 60
The Dissolve
Alternately exhilarating and tedious, Why Don’t You Play In Hell? is Sono’s tribute to moviemaking—specifically an elegy to 35mm film, though the tone could hardly be called mournful.
