Jigoku (地獄, "Hell"), also titled The Sinners of Hell, is a 1960 Japanese horror film directed by Nobuo Nakagawa and produced by Shintoho. The film stars Utako Mitsuya and Shigeru Amachi, 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.
Plot[]
A student, Shirō, is set to marry his girlfriend, Yukiko, the daughter of his professor, Mr. Yajima. After announcing the engagement, Shirō's colleague Tamura drives Shirō home. Taking a side street at Shirō's request, Tamura hits and kills yakuza gang leader, Kyōichi. Though Shirō wants to stop, Tamura keeps driving, feels no guilt and says that it is Shirō's fault for asking him to drive down that street. Kyōichi's mother, who witnessed the incident, resolves to find and kill them.
Though Tamura feels no guilt for the murder, Shirō does and attempts to go to the police. After telling Yukiko of what happened, Shirō 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, Shirō meets strip bar worker and Kyōichi's grieving girlfriend Yoko, who discovers Shirō's culpability for the hit-and-run after sleeping with him and, with Kyōichi's mother, plots revenge.
Shirō learns that his mother, Ito, who lives in a retirement community run by his father, Gōzō, is dying. Shirō 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, Gōzō 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 Gōzō's marriage) lambasts Gōzō 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 Shirō 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. Shirō returns in time for the community's tenth anniversary party, where Gōzō has allowed cheap, rancid fish to be served to the residents. As the partiers descend into insobriety, Mr. and Mrs. Yajima kill themselves by leaping in front of a train, and Gōzō's mistress falls to her death after an altercation. The residents die from consuming the tainted fish, and Kyōichi'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, Shirō 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 Shirō to save the child. Shirō enters Hell and is sentenced to punishment by Lord Enma for his sins. While searching for his daughter in Hell, Shirō witnesses those from his life suffering for their wrongdoings—being boiled and burned, flayed, or dismembered and beaten by oni, only to be revived to suffer anew. Tamura taunts Shirō, saying there is no escape from Hell, before Tamura himself is tortured for his misdeeds. Shirō finds Sachiko, but their reunion is interrupted by Ito, who reveals that Sachiko is his sister: Shirō is actually Ensai's son, and Sachiko is actually Ito's daughter. While caught in a vortex of damned souls, Shirō finds his baby daughter helplessly rotating on a large wheel. Lord Enma gives Shirō one chance to save his daughter, otherwise she too will suffer eternally. As Yukiko, Sachiko, and his mother call to him, Shirō 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 Shirō as sister and lover, respectively, with lotus petals falling around them.