TANIN NO KAO - "The Face Of Another" (1966)

"Tanin No Kao"(The Face Of Another) is another fine film brought to you by writer Kôbô Abe and director Hiroshi Teshigahara, who also made "Otoshiana"(Pitfall)!

Now I could easily wax on eloquently about all the fascinating ins and outs of this movie, but that's already been done by people a lot smarter than me, so I'll just get down to the brass tacks of why this is such a cool movie just to watch for it's face of another value!

Basic concepts don't really take a lot of explaining!

Tatsuya Nakadai as Mr. Okuyama is a man who has lost his face in an industrial accident! It's fascinating that a Japanese actor like Tatsuya Nakadai has 159 acting credits without one Kaiju film amongst them!

With the help of a psychiatrist/plastic surgeon, Mr. Okuyama is going to be able to lead a normal life again! (Almost)

The role of the psychiatrist is played Mikijiro (13 Assassins) Hira! Both Tatsuya Nakadai and Mikijiro Hira have still been acting right up to the last two years!

They found a guy to volunteer to have his face used as a mold, and Mr. Okuyama is fitted with his new identity! There's only one catch, the mask can only be worn for a certain amount of hours at which time the face must be given a rest!

Mr. Okuyama has one goal, and that is to seduce his wife who would have nothing to do with him after he became horribly disfigured!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there's a complete second subordinate story going on about this young lady who is quite attractive except for the fact that half of her face was terribly scarred from birth!

Right about here is when I fell in love with this movie! The Doctor and his patient are in this bar when this song titled "Waltz" written by Tôru Takemitsu with lyrics by Tatsuji Iwabuchi is performed by Bibari (LET'S GO, YOUNG GUY!, SON OF GODZILLA) Maeda! You can get the gist of the lyrics from the sub-titles, but the song is sung in German!! I don't know about you, but it threw me for a massive curve!!

Everything became very clear, and I found no reason to not start drinking again!

My sentiments exactly!!

After Mr. Okuyama successfully seduces his wife, and they make love again for the first time since the accident, he reveals who he is to her and calls her a slut, and she tells him she knew it was him all along!

The young lady with the scarred face makes love to her brother then commits suicide by walking out into the ocean and drowning!

All the answers come to light in the end!

As hordes of masked people pass them by, the final statement is made!

Is this one of the artiest movies you'll ever see, is this a damn good movie, is it available on Netflix, do you need to see it?? Hell Yeah!!!