Rampo Noir Reviews

Great Japanese film, based on the macabre short stories of Edogawa Rampo (known as the Japanese Edgar Allan Poe). It's an anthology consisting of 4 segments. The first segment is "Kasei no Unga (Mars Canal)" and it's only about 7 minutes long; but it's a very surreal 7 minutes and a nice way to open the anthology. A naked man (Tadanobu Asano) staggers along a bleak landscape and comes upon a pool of water where he sees the reflection of a woman (and I'll leave it there because this is really a conceptual piece left up to the individual viewer's interpretation). This segment makes great use of sound and the absence of sound. Up next is "Kagami Jigoku (Mirror Hell)" and it definitely brings the noir mystery element (as well as some S&M kinkiness). Private detective Kogoro Akechi (played by Tadanobu Asano), investigates a series of deaths where the victims faces have been melted, their skulls charred, and a handheld mirror found at the scene of each crime. It features a wonderfully kinky erotic scene involving rope and candle wax. The third segment, "Imomushi (Caterpillar)", is my favorite and the most disturbing; directed by the wonderfully demented Hisayasu Sato (Splatter:Naked Blood). A soldier returns home from war but without his arms and legs. He has also lost the ability to hear or speak. His wife takes care of him, but her "care" soon turns to torture and sadism. Private detective Kogoro Akechi (Tadanobu Asano) turns up again. Kogoro Akechi is a recurring character in Rampo's works (much like the character of Dupin in Poe's stories). This segment reminds me of a much more disturbing and sadistic version of BOXING HELENA. The fourth and final segment is "Mushi (Crawling Bugs)", and it's basically a surreal and melancholic tale of obsessive love (with some perverse twists of course). It also features some beautiful cinematography. Tadanobu Asano stars again as a limo driver for a stage actress, whom he's secretly in love with. She doesn't share this love, however, and he finds a way to (shall we say) remedy the situation.