The beginning of the film is a performance of a traditional Japanese puppet show. Brightly colored costumes are worn on a pale doll whose face is smeared. The doll's every move is very realistic, but the face is always the same, without performance, and will not move.
Cut back to reality from the puppet show. The screen transitions are abrupt and neat. A man and a woman are bound by thick red ropes around their waists, the man walks in front, and the woman follows. When she was caught in the middle of something, the woman remained expressionless and did not turn her head. The man looked back, his face seemed to be stagnant, and he couldn't see any emotion. Then there is a flashback. Matsumoto and Gongtian, who were originally lovers, planned to marry the daughter of a certain president according to the wishes of the family. In the end, Matsumoto couldn't relax, broke off the engagement, and guarded the crazy Gongtian.
Kitano's mastery of the camera is on full display in this film. In the car, Gongtian opened his big dumb eyes and blew on a small toy. In the small basket of the toy, a small pink ball bounced up and down with her breath. The picture was repeated up and down the pink ball, and there was no one's face, and there was a dead silence. Gongtian blew and blew, tears streaming down his big eyes. Matsumoto asked her to go back into the car, fearing that she might catch a cold, but she still stubbornly squatted outside the car, her eyes blowing blankly. The ball was blown too hard and bounced out. Gongtian went to pick it up, but was almost hit by a car. Matsumoto hugged her by the waist and kept saying sorry to the driver. The ball was squashed after the car drove away. Gongtian put the flattened ball back into the frame of the small toy, but couldn't blow the ball up again. So those big eyes shed tears, dried, and then shed tears and dried again. Miho Kanno's expression was so desperate and fragile that it was impossible not to feel pity. In order to fear that Gongtian would run around and make trouble again, Matsumoto had to chain her to the seat of the car. While Gongtian always wanted to move forward, the camera repeatedly showed that the slender red rope was tied and pulled on the headrest of the car seat, as if trying to break free, but could not break free. After that, there was the scene at the beginning. Matsumoto tied himself to Gongtian with a thick rope, and walked without expression.
In addition to this pair of lovers tied together by a rope, there are two other stories interspersed. A man went out to pursue a career, and his girlfriend said that he would bring two boxes of bento for him to eat at noon every Saturday. This woman has been waiting for him for a long time, and he has become a big brother in the underworld. He has killed many women because he thinks women are a hindrance. However, in the end, he saw that his woman had waited for him for so many years, but he couldn't help sitting beside her. Unfortunately, she no longer recognized him, but told him that she didn't want to wait any longer. They shared the lunch and sat on the bench they had agreed upon. The woman's pale face smiled so gently. However, a shot made him live up to her waiting again. The figure of the woman was once again frozen on the bench alone. There was wind, but it couldn't take away the confusion in her eyes.
Another story is about an idol singer played by Kyoko Fukada, who retirees after being disfigured in a car accident. One of her fans blinded herself with a knife in order to prevent herself from seeing her absent beauty. After the disfigurement, Fukada took the hands of the blind fans and smelled the fragrance of roses. The roses are so red and bright, like and bloody. The blind fan eventually fell to his death in the woods. The police used faucets and brushes to wash off the blood-stained red. Only Fukada was left, sitting alone by the sea. Solitary.
Eventually Matsumoto and Gonda returned to the wooden house where they were engaged, and they changed into traditional costumes that were identical to the doll show. The stupid Gongtian actually remembered that the necklace around her neck was given by Matsumoto. She shook the pendant on her chest and smiled brightly at him, and then suddenly cried. Matsumoto hugged her and began to cry. They snuggled together and lit a fire to keep them warm, but were driven to say they couldn't do it for fear of causing a fire. They fled in embarrassment in the heavy snow. Gongtian slipped, and the red rope dragged them both down the cliff together. A picture at the end of the film is so beautiful that it makes people suffocate. Under the dim light and shadow, there are two people tied by ropes hanging from the trees on the edge of the cliff, like two dolls hanging. The final picture returns to the pale faces of the two dolls that appeared in the title. The whole play ends in silence, leaving a deep despair to spread.
Intense, paranoid, and persistent things eventually come to nothing. And those who think they have a choice are just dolls. There is always no escape from the red rope that binds him. The fiery maple leaves, fiery roses, and fiery red robes all vanished into thin air.
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