is a 2010 Japanese

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Kōji Wakamatsu was a Japanese film director who directed such pink films as and . He also produced Nagisa Ōshima's controversial film '' In the Realm of the Senses'' (1976). He has been called "the most important director to emerge in the pink film genre," an ...

, partially drawn from

Edogawa Ranpo , better known by the pen name , was a Japanese author and critic who played a major role in the development of Japanese mystery and thriller fiction. Many of his novels involve the detective hero Kogoro Akechi, who in later books was t ...

's banned short-story .Roberto Silvestri
Sesso acrobatico contro la guerra
'', ''

il manifesto (; English: "the manifesto") is an Italian daily newspaper published in Rome, Italy. While calling itself " communist" and broadly left-wing, it is not connected to any political party A political party is an organization that coordin ...

'' 16 February 2010, p.12 The film is a critique of the right-wing militarist

nationalism Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, I ...

that guided Japan's conduct in Asia during the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War was fought between the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the Empire of Japan between 1937 and 1945, following a period of war localized to Manchuria that started in 1931. It is considered part ...

and

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The film deals with various issues, such as

war crimes A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hos ...

, handicapped veterans, and

spousal abuse Domestic violence is violence that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. In a broader sense, abuse including nonphysical abuse in such settings is called domestic abuse. The term "domestic violence" is often use ...

. The film also deals with themes of

sexual perversion A paraphilia is an experience of recurring or intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, places, situations, fantasies, behaviors, or individuals. It has also been defined as a sexual interest in anything other than a legally consenting human ...

and features graphic sex scenes. It was nominated for the

Golden Bear The Golden Bear () is the highest prize awarded for the best film at the Berlin International Film Festival and is, along with the Palme d'Or and the Golden Lion, the most important international film festival award. The bear is the heraldic an ...

at the

60th Berlin International Film Festival The 60th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 11 to 21 February 2010, with Werner Herzog as president of the jury. The opening film of the festival was Chinese director Wang Quan'an's romantic drama '' Apart Together'', in com ...

Shinobu Terajima is a Japanese actress. Her feature films include '' Akame 48 Waterfalls'' (2003) and '' Vibrator'' (2003). For her role in ''Caterpillar'' (2010), Terajima won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 60th Berlin Film Festival while her perform ...

received the

Silver Bear for Best Actress The Silver Bear for Best Actress () was an award presented at the Berlin International Film Festival from 1956 to 2020. It was given to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance and was chosen by the International Jury from the fil ...

at the Berlin Film Festival for her portrayal of Kurokawa's wife.

Plot

The film is set in the late 1930s, during the

. In the first scene,

Lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a Junior officer, junior commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations, as well as fire services, emergency medical services, Security agency, security services ...

Kurokawa scourges, rapes and disembowels Chinese people during the war. Later, he returns home as a war hero, but with a horribly mutilated body. He is alive but reduced to a torso (no limbs), deaf and mute, with burns covering half of his face, but with three medals on his chest. Despite his condition, he is still constantly eager for sex, which he performs acrobatically with his wife. The sexual acts are rough and are imposed on his wife, who is repulsed by him. Nevertheless she feels a duty to take care of him. The film concludes with the disabled veteran Kurokawa committing suicide by dragging himself into a pond outside his home.

Cast

as Shigeko Kurokawa * Keigo Kasuya as Tadashi Kurokawa * Sabu Kawahara as The Village Chief *

Go Jibiki is a Japanese actor. Go Jibiki is a Japanese actor. He was born in Tokyo, Japan. Because of his father's business, he spend his early life in Singapore (1983–86) and the United States, New York (1986–89). This is the reason why he speaks Eng ...

as Military officer #1 * Arata as Military officer #2 * Katsuyuki Shinohara as Kuma * Daisuke Iijima as Commander * Ichirō Ogura as Announcer *

Sanshirō Kobayashi Sanshiro may refer to: *Plawres Sanshiro, a popular anime series aired in 1983 in Japan, Hong Kong, the Middle East and Greece and Algeria *Sanshiro Sugata, the directorial debut of the Oscar-winning Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa *Sanshiro ...

as Village man #1 * Mariko Terada as Chinese woman #2 * Ken Furusawa

Themes

Wakamatsu's film is part of a revisionist movement seen in fashion, cartoons and video games that reconsider the country's past. The film is the political response to and criticism of

Yukio Mishima Kimitake Hiraoka ( , ''Hiraoka Kimitake''; 14 January 192525 November 1970), known by his pen name Yukio Mishima ( , ''Mishima Yukio''), was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, Ultranationalism (Japan), ultranationalis ...

's short film ''

Patriotism Patriotism is the feeling of love, devotion, and a sense of attachment to one's country or state. This attachment can be a combination of different feelings for things such as the language of one's homeland, and its ethnic, cultural, politic ...

''. ''Caterpillar'' criticizes

Japanese militarism was the ideology in the Empire of Japan which advocated the belief that militarism should dominate the political and social life of the nation, and the belief that the strength of the military is equal to the strength of a nation. It was most ...

, satirically deploys Japanese propaganda, and significantly politicizes and humanizes

Edogawa Rampo , better known by the pen name , was a Japanese author and critic who played a major role in the development of Japanese mystery and thriller fiction. Many of his novels involve the detective hero Kogoro Akechi, who in later books was the ...

's 1929 banned short-story. The film demystifies the glorification of war, which is used to hide war's grim reality. It also depicts the unfair demands placed on Japanese women, during war and peacetime. The film represents a departure from Japanese films of the immediate post-war year, which often emphasized a notion of Japanese victimhood with little or no acknowledgement of wartime atrocities. There are frequent references in the film to the mass rape and murder of Chinese civilians during the Second Sino-Japanese War. There is no sense that Japan was the primary victim of World War II, as may be seen in other Japanese films on the war. The film is both anti-nationalist and

anti-war An anti-war movement is a social movement in opposition to one or more nations' decision to start or carry on an armed conflict. The term ''anti-war'' can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conf ...

in its depiction of the Empire of Japan.

Reception

The film received a 91% rating on film review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

. It grossed $4,157 at the domestic box office and $247,765 at the foreign box office for a combined Worldwide total of $251,922.

Awards

It was nominated for the

at the

received the

at the Berlin Film Festival for her portrayal of Kurokawa's wife.

References

External links

Official websiteEnglish version
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Caterpillar 2010 films 2010 drama films 2010 war drama films 2010s Japanese-language films Japanese war drama films Films about amputees Films based on works by Edogawa Ranpo Films directed by Kōji Wakamatsu Films set in the 1930s Second Sino-Japanese War films Films based on short fiction 2010s Japanese films