Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects

This article is about the 1989 film. For the sumo wrestling term, see Kinjite.
Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects

Theatrical release poster
Directed by J. Lee Thompson
Produced by Pancho Kohner
Written by Harold Nebenzal
Starring Charles Bronson
Music by Greg De Belles
Cinematography Gideon Porath
Edited by Mary E. Jochem
Peter Lee-Thompson
Distributed by Cannon Films
Release dates
  • February 3, 1989 (U.S.)
Running time
 97 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget Unknown
Box office $3,416,846 (USA)

Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989) is an action/drama film starring Charles Bronson and directed by J. Lee Thompson. Being Thompson's final film, it was the last project he and Bronson did together — a long and famed Hollywood collaboration.[1]

Plot

A Japanese businessman in a troubled marriage sees a woman being groped in a crowded Tokyo subway. He is fascinated by the fact that she moans silently, involuntarily orgasms, but does not cry out or let people know she is being sexually molested. When he is transferred to Los Angeles, the Japanese businessman has too much to drink at a business party and tries to imitate what he saw by groping a school girl while riding a crowded bus. But unlike the Japanese woman that the businessman saw in Japan, the American girl screams. The Japanese businessman runs away but is robbed and beaten by a mugger who doesn't know that he had groped the girl. Meanwhile, several innocent Asian men are beaten by bystanders who suspect that one of them is the man who groped the girl.

The girl happens to be the daughter of an LAPD vice-squad detective, Lt. Crowe (Bronson), who is very protective of her.

Shortly afterward, the daughter of the same Japanese businessman is kidnapped into a child prostitution ring led by the infamous 'Pimp-King' Duke. Lt. Crowe, who claims the Japanese are in the process of buying Los Angeles, is assigned against his will to find the girl. His feelings about Japanese people start to change when he realizes that the girl's parents care about their daughter as intensely as he cares for his daughter.

Lt. Crowe and his partner eventually find the daughter and rescue her from the pimp and his gang. They kill one member of the gang but the others escape. The Japanese businessman and his wife visit Lt. Crowe's house with gifts to show their appreciation for his work. Lt. Crowe's daughter recognizes the Japanese businessman as the man who groped her on the bus -- and he recognizes her -- but says nothing.

However, despite this apparently happy ending, the Japanese businessman's daughter has been so traumatized by her experiences as a prostitute -- she was raped by Duke and his gang members and then sold to customers of both sexes -- that she commits suicide by an overdose.

Lt. Crowe and his partner decide to find Duke and locate him on a boat in a harbor. In the ensuing fight, Duke and his remaining gang members kill Lt. Crowe's partner, but Duke eventually ends up in the harbor screaming for help because he doesn't know how to swim.

The movie ends with Lt. Crowe escorting the short, long haired sociopath to prison where it is clear that many of the inmates intend to rape him. As Duke is being forced into a cell occupied by a large man who is describing in explicit detail what it going to happen to him, Lt. Crowe walks away and then looks back and says, "Now that's justice."

Cast

References

  1. ↑ New York Times

External links