Watch: Japanese boss dunks worker’s face in hotpot at office party

A video clip of a corporate executive forcing the head of one of his employees into a scalding pot of food at a party has gone viral in Japan and triggered outrage on social media sites.

The clip, apparently taken on at least two mobile phones and lasting a little over a minute, was initially published on the website of the Shukan Shincho weekly news magazine but was quickly picked up by other outlets.

It shows a group of people in a Japanese-style restaurant with jugs of beer and plates of food on the table. In the centre of the table is a nabe, a pot of boiling water used for cooking meat and vegetables, above a lit stove. A man whose face does not appear in the footage grasps the back of the head of the victim – whose face has been obscured – and forces it into the bubbling water in the pot. Onlookers can be heard laughing in the background.

The video on the website says the incident happened at an end-of-year party in 2015 for an entertainment agency based in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward that the Mainichi newspaper identified as MELM.

The clip also includes a still image of the man showing extensive burns to his face. According to the complaint, his injuries required a month to heal.

The man has filed a criminal complaint for assault against the president of the company and is seeking damages, his lawyer told the media. The man has not been named and it is not clear why he waited nearly three years to file the lawsuit, although the man told a press conference this week he suffered flashbacks to the incident every time he sees a nabe pot.