Caterpillar (2010) poster
2010 · war · drama · anti-war

Caterpillar

Directed by Kōji Wakamatsu1h 27m2010
ElsewhereIMDb6.71kRT86%Metacritic75TMDB6.333
  • heavy
  • measured
  • extreme
  • bleak
  • cold
Movie DNA

Heavy, measured, extreme war / drama, inventive in texture. Nihilistic, mid-stakes, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

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The story of a village woman given the grueling task of looking after (and fulfilling the sexual needs of) her quadruple amputee husband, a Japanese soldier in the Second Sino-Japanese War who has been decreed a "War God" by the Emperor.

Our read · Caterpillar (2010) reads as a heavy, measured, inventive war · drama · anti-war entry — extreme in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, cold in temperature, nihilistic in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of Caterpillar

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What watching it is actually like.

You want a raw anti-war film about duty, mutilation, and sexual exploitation at home.

ends devastatingit will wreck youmeditativegrips by minute 5attention 4/5earns its lengthsubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upexplicit sexnuditysexual violencegraphic violencesuicide theme

Skip it tonightSkip if graphic sex, war crimes, or on-screen suicide will destroy your night.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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