Five years ago, Chihiro was raped by three men. The crime, captured on video, hangs over her life like a sword. She leaves for the big city, managing to start anew, working an office job and about to marry her new boyfriend. But when one of her assaillants shows up at her doorstep, he threatens blackmail and warns her: they are back. Now waking to a recurring nightmare, Chihiro is shocked into actions that will keep her abusers close, forever.

One of the most memorable Japanese exploitation films of the 2000s, Takashi Ishii’s Freeze Me places a heavier emphasis on stasis, trauma and the haunting effects of sexual assault, than is customary for the rape-revenge genre. Icy, shocking and carried by Harumi Inoue’s bold performance, the film also serves as a culmination of sorts for director Ishii’s formalism (A Night in Nude, Gonin) and his time at Nikkatsu. Shot on 16mm for a small budget on the studios’ sound stages, here is a bitter and confrontational work that isn’t easy to recommend to all audiences, but that nonetheless lingers as one of its director’s most refined "women in peril" films — inviting allegorical readings that complicates the film's own provocation and emphasize the horrors of Japanese patriarchy.