The film is based partly on Sono's friend, who was a tosatsu maniac, and partly on Sono himself. Sono had quite an interesting youth. He ran from home to Tokyo when he was 17. There he met a charming older lady, and had high hopes of losing his virginity with her. Turned out, the woman was suicidal maniac looking for someone to die with. But Sono didn't want to die, so she changed her plan. She returned to her parents with Sono, with Sono playing her husband. This act continued for a few weeks until Sono "escaped". He never really found out whether the parents bought the act or not. Sono later adapted these events into his film Noriko's Dinner Table.Markgway wrote: Honest? You mean people like these characters actually exist?
Later, probably in Tokyo again, Sono joined some kind of a religious cult. He got into trouble with the police while being part of this cult, and said that if he had not quit he would probably have become a terrorist. These events inspired Love Exposure.
Fast forward some years, and Sono has moved to California. He was supposed to be studying, but he spent most of his time watching grindhouse films and porn. He later adapted some of this stuff into a film called Hazard, which he shot in New York.
After this he founded Tokyo GAGAGA, which was a querilla street performance poetry group. This group got quite famous. These days many people like punk musicians have fond memories of the good old days when Sono's group was having aggressive, protest like performances on streets and subway stations. Of course with no permits, and always trouble with the police.
Sono himself was a poet before becoming a filmmaker. He got international recognition in the early 90's when his movies Bicycle Sighs and The Room played in Berlin. If I remember correctly Japan was not happy at all with rebel Sono's movies being shown abroad.
But his final international breakthrough came in 2002 with Suicide Club. Everybody hates it in Japan (too touchy subject and too accurate points) but it become an instant cult classic in in festival circuit. It's popularity is partly based on wrong reasons, though. It's a very challenging movie and you need strong knowledge of Japanese society and Japanese way of thinking in order to interpret it. But it got very popular with foreigners because of its strangness and goriness (which are also part of its appeal, though). I have to admit that while I loved it from the first time, it took me several years before I even started to understand it.
