964 Pinocchio

964 Pinocchio (Japanese: ピノキオ√964, Hepburn: Pinokio√964, lit. 'Pinocchio√964'), released in the United Kingdom as Screams of Blasphemy, is a 1991 Japanese cyberpunk-horror film directed by Shozin Fukui.

964 Pinocchio
Japanese theatrical release poster
Kanji	ピノキオ√964
Directed by	Shozin Fukui
Screenplay by	Shozin Fukui Makoto Hamaguchi Naoshi Gôda
Story by	Shozin Fukui
Starring	Haji Suzuki Onn-chan
Cinematography	Kazunori Hirasawa
Edited by	Shozin Fukui
Music by	Hiroyuki Nagashima
Production company	Honekoubou
Release date	14 September 1991 (1991-09-14) (Japan)
Running time	97 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

It deals with themes such as autonomy, memory, love between outsiders, brain-modified sex-slaves as well as mental breakdowns in a hallucinogenic thrill-ride.

It is widely considered as one of the best examples of the underground Japanese Cyberpunk genre.

Plot

964 Pinocchio is a memory-wiped sex-slave cyborg who is disposed of by his owners for failure to maintain an erection. His modifications are unclear beyond having no memory and being unable to communicate.

While wandering aimlessly through the city, he is discovers Himiko, a homeless girl. Himiko has also been memory-wiped, possibly by the same company that "produced" Pinocchio, though she appears to be fully functional. Himiko spends her days drawing maps of the city, to aid other memory-wiped people.

She takes Pinocchio home and tries to teach him to speak. After much effort, he has a breakthrough and finally becomes aware of his situation. Himiko and Pinocchio kiss and become physically intimate, triggering something in both of them. Pinocchio's body erupts in an inexplicable metamorphosis and it becomes clear that his modifications were much more involved and esoteric than simple memory loss. Both undergo violent transformations involving huge amounts of blood, pus and vomit. Both of which cause their memories to return. In his transformation, Pinocchio violently shakes and convulses while gallons of blood and yellow pus coat his skin, eventually forming a massive wound-like cavity in the centre of Himikos home, with Pinocchio at its centre, unable to move. Himikos transformation takes place in an underground train-station: After stomping through the station while aggressively gnashing her teeth she keels over and begins to vomit copiously.

Meanwhile, Pinocchio's head director, companied with his female secretary who spits out cherries into a bowl which he eats from, plots to kill him as he commands three mercenaries to find him in the city.

Himiko pretends to help Pinocchio post-metamorphosis, but soon betrays him; shackling him to a pyramidal concrete block and force-feeding him trash after accidentally some on her. Later, she kept him back at her place, companied with one of the mercenaries. Upon finding Pinocchio, he contacts the head director who proceeds another mercenary to track the place to kill Himiko with a smoke gun. Both mercenaries attempt to kill Himiko with the smoke gun, but she survives, kills one of them by scratching his face and activating the smoke gun on him. Pinocchio's memories then eventually return, Himiko tries to lunge at him but was unable to attack due to Pinocchio's ability before he escapes, running through the streets at high-speed as crowds of horrified onlookers watch on.

Meanwhile, both Himiko and the mercenary reached to the head director's place to tell him about Pinocchio's memories returning, much to his anger. The alarm was set off, indicating that Pinocchio is coming before the mercenary, the head director and his secretary grouped up in attempt to put an end on his destructive reign.

However, Pinocchio reaches to the factory outside, confronts the three after the head director shouts at him to die, charging at the three at high speed before killing him by disembowelment and running off, leaving his horrified secretary and the mercenary behind where she starts convulsing afterwards. Later, Pinocchio finds Himiko who she demands Pinocchio's death, commanding him to "tear off your face", but she tears off her face instead, revealing a large stone-ish head. In a blind rage, Pinocchio attacks her, ripping her head off from her shoulders and placing it over his own. The film concludes as Pinocchio is free from his prolonged agony and the two are hybridized into one.

Production

964 Pinocchio was created on a low-budget using guerrilla-filmmaking techniques, with scenes in Tokyo utilizing real crowds of people rather than professional actors. The team had to get permits for most of the scenes filmed on the streets.

After working on Tetsuo the Iron Man as an assistant director, Sogo Ishii insisted that Shozin would make a direct feature in-which after experiencing special effects to editing while working on Ishii's 1989 short film,The Master of Shiatsu, Shozin would finally have an idea for a story which would later become known to be 964 Pinocchio.

According to an interview on the 88 Films Blu-ray release with Shozin Fukui, the script was written while he was homeless.

The actress who played Himiko was initially just a crew member until she was cast a week before filming started. She is credited in the movie as Onn-chan, which was a pseudonym created for the film. 964 Pinocchio was the only movie she ever acted in. The actor who played Pinocchio, Haji Suzuki, had a personal life with his parents being farmers, he had returned to his hometown, got married, and has since taken over the farm. Due to the limited budget, some improvisations had to be made during filming. Director Shozin Fukui stated in a 2007 interview which was included as a bonus feature in the DVD release of the film that they used an old wheelchair as a makeshift dolly. Both filming and editing took place over the span of 6 months each. The smoke bombs used during film were quoted as "smelled very bad" and are difficult to control. Following the release of 964 Pinocchio, most of the actors quit all their involvement, indicating they felt that they had completed their performance.

To promote the film prior to its release, Fukui had flyers and posters put up at music venues, movie theatres, galleries, restaurants and event spaces, even spray-painting a car and drive it around the city.

Fukui has cited Blade Runner, Possession and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as big influences on his work.

Release

The film was shown at the Rotterdam Film Festival, which Shozin never went despite the programmer seeing the film and had played it there. Shozin was also even given a photo of the audience at the festival.

Unearthed Films released the film on DVD in the United States in 2007.

The film was released in a single edition DVD and in the Cyberpunk Collection alongside Fukui's Rubber's Lover.

964 Pinocchio was re-issued for the first time on Blu-Ray on February 7, 2023, by Media Blasters, and again for March 24, 2025 by 88 Films, including a booklet essay by Mark Player, Fukui's earlier short films, Gerorisuto and Caterpillar, along with both a filmed introduction from Stephen Thrower, a new interview with Fukui along with the aforementioned 2007 interview.

Reception

A ScreenAnarchy review stated, "964 Pinocchio is meticulously tailored to weigh on its audience. ... You're sure to be completely exhausted when the end credits finally grace the screen ... the constant presence of screaming, yelling, grunting and whining bears its own unique sense of torture", comparing it to films like Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Electric Dragon 80.000 V.

A 2022 retrospective article by Collider described it as "an uncommon and unparalleled riff on the timeless fairy-tale".

External links

• 964 Pinocchio at IMDb
• 964 Pinocchio at Rotten Tomatoes
• 964 Pinocchio at Horrordrome
• "ピノキオ ［ルート］９６４ (Pinokio［Ruuto］ 964)" (in Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. Archived from the original on 30 August 2007. Retrieved 19 July 2007.