Product Details

• Actors: Ranyaku Mikutei, Kyoko Hara, Hage Suzuki, Onn Chan, Koji Kita
• Directors: Shozin Fukui
• Format: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
• Language: Japanese
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: UNEARTHED
• DVD Release Date: December 28, 2004
• Run Time: 97 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0002YCVBU
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #98,549 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Pinocchio 964" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars No real purpose, August 10, 2008

By 

Sir Jub-Jub (Sir Jub-Jub's Lair, Alaska) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Pinocchio 964 (DVD)

964 Pinocchio is an acquired taste. If you like movies that are wierd just to be wierd, you might like this. It really has no narrative structure and is nothing more than a series of disjointed scenes strung together for ninty minutes. The plot concerns an underground manufacturer of sex androids, one is let out and is befriended by a street person. After the first ten minutes, all real structure is thrown out and it turns into an arty student film with massive jump cutting, grotesque imagery, etc. I admit, it held my interest just to see what strange things would happen next, but overall, I wasted my time. I bought it, you should rent it-you will only need to see it once, if at all.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not terrible, but not quite coherent enough to be average., October 7, 2010

By 

Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Lakewood, OH) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pinocchio 964 (DVD)

964 Pinocchio (Shozin Fukui, 1991)

In case you were wondering, the square root of 964 is 31.048349392520047457724923534346.... I know this because I became curious while watching 964 Pinocchio. (It's actually "the square root of 964 Pinocchio", but I'm too lazy to look up the alt code for the square root sign, and it probably won't show up right on Amazon anyway.) What this has to do with this odd little film, the first feature-length piece from Rubber's Lover director Fukui, I've no idea. In any case, I'll tell you right now that this is one of those movies you will either love or hate; there seems to be no middle ground.

There is a plot to it, though it's so over the top that at times you may wonder if it's really still a plot at all. A sex slave (Haji Suzuki, who never acted again) is ejected from the bordello of his keepers and finds himself wandering the streets, where he runs into a cute, though crazy, lass named Himiko (Onn-chan, again in her only screen appearance). While she finds him a bit creepy at first, she eventually warms to him. (It is she who dubs him Pinocchio while they're on a quest to discover his identity.) The two of them traipse around trying to figure out who (and why) they are, while the company who created Pinocchio sends out extermination squads to get rid of him; he is, after all, defective merchandise.

It's not like there's no precedent for something like 964 Pinocchio, especially in Japan; this is really nothing more than the psychedelic movies of the seventies taken to extremes. Think Hausu or Corman's The Dunwich Horror or Kenneth Anger's sixties and seventies flicks, for example. Pinocchio just updates the psychedelic feel with the feel of the drugs more common during the time frame (ecstasy and crack) and has much better special effects. It's the same kind of rambling plot, the same odd, stilted dialogue, the same odd lack of resolution despite there being a pretty solid climax (once again I refer you to The Dunwich Horror for an idea of what I'm trying to get at there). Conceptually, it's not a bad little film at all. But theory and practice often differ. Fukui has no sense of pace at all, leading to long parts of this movie dragging when they should be snappy, and some of the less action-oriented bits feeling way too rushed. It tips the balance, in my opinion, from an average-to-good flick to an average-to-bad flick, which is too bad; there are a lot of interesting ideas here. **

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unhinged cyberpunk from hell!!!, January 14, 2006

By 

Alex Strauss "[e-mail]" (Reno, NV) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pinocchio 964 (DVD)

Yowza!!! This is an amazing flick from Shozin Fukui (Rubber's Lover). This baby is filled to the brim with kinetic energy that'll blow the unsuspecting viewer away.

Previously residing in the lonely world of bootleg video, Unearthed Films released this fantastic edition on DVD. The image quality is something magnificant to behold. For a film shot on 16mm, the restoration is quite breathtaking. I couldn't believe how amazing it looked.

For me, this film isn't really about the story, it's about the experience of watching it, and it's one hell of a ride. Fukui has an impressive eye (I wish he crank out a few more films) and even though he was working within the limited aspect ratio of 1:33:1, he still manages to capture some striking compositions. His creative use of cinematography creates a very chaotic and unstable world that can become unhinged (which it usually does) at any given moment. His use of sound and performaces from fearless actors will further test of audiences' boundaries of sanity.

I saw this before I saw Tetsuo: The Iron Man, which many people accuse this film of ripping off. No way! This baby is a completely different animal. In many ways, I think Pinocchio 964 emerges as a better film. At the very least, it lives within its own creative world and I'm very happy that I can finally view it as it was meant to be seen!

Check it out!