Noriko's Dinner Table

Noriko's Dinner Table Noriko no Shokutaku
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Sion Sono
Produced by	Takeshi Suzuki
Written by	Sion Sono
Starring	Kazue Fukiishi Ken Mitsuishi
Music by	Tomoki Hasegawa
Cinematography	Souhei Tanigawa
Editing by	Junichi Ito
Studio	Mother Ark Co. Ltd.
Distributed by	Eleven Arts (Worldwide) Tidepoint Pictures
Release date(s)	April 2, 2006 (2006-04-02) (US) September 23, 2006 (2006-09-23) (Japan)
Running time	159 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Noriko's Dinner Table (紀子の食卓, Noriko no Shokutaku^?), is the sequel to the cult film Suicide Club (Jisatsu Sākuru), a Japanese film, written and directed by Sion Sono, concerning a mass suicide of 54 schoolgirls and how it leads the law to a shadowy cult. Noriko's Dinner Table takes place before, during, and after the Suicide Circle timeline as an attempt to resolve some questions Suicide Circle left behind.

Noriko's Dinner Table explores various issues including the generation gap in modern families, the concepts of family and happiness, suicide, lack of communication, the effects of alienation and how the Internet is used as a tool.

The film was released theatrically in Japan on September 23, 2006, and won the Don Quixote award at the 40th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic and a special mention.

Plot

A 17-year-old teenage girl named Noriko Shimabara (Kazue Fukiishi) lives with her quiet family, formed by her sister Yuka (Yuriko Yoshitaka), her mother Taeko (Sanae Miyata), and her father Tetsuzo (Ken Mitsuishi), in Toyokawa. Feeling alienated and misunderstood by her parents, Noriko resorts to the internet where she finds a website where other teenagers from Japan gather. There, after making new and unknown friends, she feels truly at "home" and eventually runs away from her unhappy life to Tokyo, where she plans on meeting the website's leader, a mysterious girl who uses the screen name "Ueno Station 54". On December 10, 2001, there was a blackout (a common occurrence) and Noriko takes advantage of this moment to quickly gather her most valued objects with the intent of running away to Tokyo and flees to the subway station. Once in Tokyo, Noriko logs onto the website and contacts Ueno54. They meet up at Locker #54 in Ueno Train Station, where it is revealed that she is a relatively young woman named Kumiko. She introduces Noriko to her "family" and sweeps her off into her bizarre organization. The purpose of the organization is to be contacted by people that want them to act out a role for them (families, lovers, spouses, etc.).

Six months later, 54 girls decide to act out their roles by jumping in front of a train at Shinjuku station and committing suicide. They happily die in their roles, splattering all of the onlookers (including Noriko and Kumiko) in blood. After the events of Suicide Club transpire, Yuka (back in Toyokawa) hears about it. Suspecting that her sister is involved, she also runs off to Tokyo. After Taeko commits suicide, Tetsuzo starts looking for clues as to what happened to cause both of his daughters to abandon their family. It all eventually brings him to Kumiko and her role in the "Suicide Club". In order to get his daughters back, Tetsuzo gets a friend to rent Kumiko as his wife and the two girls, Mitsuko and Yoko (Noriko and Yuka respectively), as his daughters. Once Tetsuzo reveals himself to the girls, the cult's "thugs" come in and start to beat him up. He brutally kills them all with a knife. Then Tetsuzo, Kumiko, Noriko, and Yuka sit at the dinner table and start to eat, and go to bed a happy family. Yuka, however, decides to shed her roles and become a new person, leaving the house early the next morning. Mitsuko awakens shortly after Yuka has left and, to herself, says goodbye to Yuka, goodbye to her childhood, goodbye to haikyo.com, and goodbye to Mitsuko. Lastly, she says "I am Noriko."

By the end, two years have passed in this film and 18 months since Suicide Club.

Cast

• Kazue Fukiishi as Noriko Shimabara/Mitsuko
• Ken Mitsuishi as Tetsuzo Shimabara
• Yuriko Yoshitaka as Yuka Shimabara/Yôko
• Tsugumi as Kumiko/Ueno54
• Sanae Miyata as Taeko Shimabara
• Shirô Namiki as Ikeda
• Yôko Mitsuya as Tangerine
• Tamae Andô as Broken Dam
• Chihiro Abe as Long Neck
• Hanako Onuki as Midnight
• Naoko Watanabe as Cripple
• Hiroshi Sakuma

Novel

Suicide Circle: The Complete Edition (自殺サークル　完全版 Jisatsu Sākuru: Kanzenban) was written by Sion Sono in April 2002. This book was as a draft of sorts for Noriko's Dinner Table, according to Sono. In fact, the movie is divided in four "chapters", as the book, and is constantly narrated by its characters, like the book. The story of The Complete Edition deals with both the events of this film and those of its prequel, Suicide Club. So far no plans for an English edition have appeared.

External links

• "Noriko's Dinner Table". Eleven Arts. Archived from the original on 2006-06-15. http://web.archive.org/web/20060615174350/http://www.elevenarts.net/noriko/. Retrieved 2011-10-28. 
• Noriko's Dinner Table at the Internet Movie Database
• Noriko's Dinner Table at AllRovi
• Soundtrack #2