Rent Punishment Room (1956)
3.6 of 5 from 45 ratings
1h 36min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
A bored university student takes teenage rebellion to extremes, as he bullies classmates, scams his father out of his savings and rapes a college girl after spiking her drink. But as the number of targets grows, his victims band together and devise a plan for revenge, to be carried out in the titular punishment room. One of his darkest and most controversial films, 'Punishment Room' saw director Kon Ichikawa (Ten Women in Black, Fires on the Plain) courting scandal with his unflinching depiction of abuse and rape among amoral post-war Japanese youth. Based on the story by future Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, this film was highly divisive upon its initial release, but perhaps more pertinent today than ever. - Actors:
- Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Keizô Kawasaki, Seiji Miyaguchi, Ayako Wakao, Teruko Kishi, Nobuo Nakamura, Yosuke Irie, Masayoshi Umewaka, Masaya Tsukida, Toshio Harumoto, Kôichi Itô, Osamu Maruyama, Nobuo Minakata, Shizuo Chûjô, Eniko Seto, Kôji Minami, Tsutomu Nakata, Tetsurô Takeuchi, Hiroshi Otsuka, Naoyasu Itô
- Directors:
- Kon Ichikawa
- Producers:
- Hidemasa Nagata
- Writers:
- Keiji Hasebe, Shintarô Ishihara, Natto Wada
- Aka:
- Shokei no heya
- Genres:
- Action & Adventure, Classics, Thrillers
- Countries:
- Japan
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 25/01/2027
- Run Time:
- 96 minutes
- Languages:
- Japanese LPCM Mono
- Subtitles:
- English
- Aspect Ratio:
- Full Screen 1.37:1
- Colour:
- B & W
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Newly filmed interview with film historian Tatsuya Masuto (2026, 21 mins)
- The Complex Legacy of Shintaro Ishihara - a visual essay by Steve Corbeil on author Shintaro Ishihara and the original novel (2026, 17 mins)