Yoko Nogachi (Yukiko Okamoto) is a successful plastic surgeon who feels the she has the right to charge her patients whatever she wants. She dislikes "ugly women" and has no shame about the greedy way in which she pursues her business. One night, Yoko is visited by Yoshie (Asuka Kurosawa), a young, disfigured woman who wishes to be beautiful. Yoshie appears to have unlimited wealth and asks Yoko to transform her face, but Yoko can only work at night and she must be alone. Yoko is unsure about this odd proposal from this unusual woman, but she can't say no to the money. So, Yoko begins a series of operations on Yoshie, transforming her into a person who isn't afraid to show her face during the daytime. But, the surgeries trigger a change in Yoshie and it becomes apparent that she's quite disturbed. In making Yoshie into a beautiful woman, has Yoko created a monster?

Kirei: The Terror of Beauty is an odd film in that it raises some interest and poignant ideas and then goes nowhere with them. The first half of the film really drives home the point that Yoko is greedy and unscrupulous. When Yoshie arrives on the scene, the audience thinks, "OK, something is going to happen and Yoko is going to get her comeuppance." And while this does happen...sort of...it's not the least bit satisfying. When Yoshie first appears, she's rather creepy with her distorted features and knit cap. But director Katsuya Matsumura wastes any power that these visuals hold, as the second half of the film becomes something more akin to Single White Female. The eerie and subtle tactics of the film's opening become cheap and tawdry by the finale.

This isn't all that surprising considering that Matsumura was responsible for the All Night Long series of films, which are essentially exercises in human suffering. With Kirei: The Terror of Beauty, it's clear that he's going for a more classy and artistic approach, but this results in a movie which has very little to offer. While the All Night Long movies aren't necessarily good, at least they are shocking and stay with the viewer. The only shocking thing in Kirei: The Terror of Beauty is the amount of gratuitous sex and nudity, which only slow down an already slow movie. The second half of the film contains a few set-pieces which are clearly supposed to be shocking, but come off as feeling out of place.

Another issue that I had with Kirei: The Terror of Beauty was the overall look of the film. I can't fault Matsumura if he was working with an extremely limited budget, but the movie was shot on videotape and in this world of digital video, watching something which had the look of a home video was quite jarring. The movie is polished in the sense that there are interesting camera angles and "real" sets, but the shot-on-tape look made Kirei: The Terror of Beauty look like something that I would have inadvertently rented in the 80s.

Considering the general wackiness of Japanese horror films, Kirei: The Terror of Beauty had a chance to be something different, as it took a more subtle approach to a real-life situation. The movie's questions concerning the lengths to which people will go to achieve beauty are good ones which could have yielded a truly disturbing film. Instead the result falls into the realm of a tawdry thriller and the movie is never able to save face.