(6) The Mystery of Rampo (Ranpo, 1994, Okuyama Kazuyoshi & Mayuzumi Rintaro)
In contrast to the other Ranpo films, this a mixture of one of his stories, “The Appearance of Osei” (tr. Seth Jacobowitz in The Edogawa Rampo Reader, Kurodahan Press, 2008), with a new plot featuring Edogawa Ranpo himself. In other words, Ranpo's imagination comes to life! In the beginning we even see Ranpo's actual house and the kura (storehouse) which served as his library (these still exist; they are under the management of Rikkyo University, and partly open to the public on designated days.
The film was made by Shochiku to celebrate its 100th anniversary and also the 100th birth year of Edogawa Ranpo. The initial director was Mayuzumi Rintaro, but producer Okuyama Kazuyoshi was not satisfied with the end result and therefore with his own hand reshot 70% of the film (the interesting anime fragment of the Osei story at the beginning of the film was also his idea). As the Mayuzumi version was also released, this has become a film that exists in two versions, but all international issues follow the Okuyama version.
We start with Edogawa Ranpo himself as the main character in this film (Takenaka Naoto). Ranpo has just written “The Appearance of Osei,” in which a man plays hide-and-seek with his children and hides in a large chest of which the lid by accident falls into the lock; when his wife (who is often absent because of an extramarital relation) finds him, after only a moment's consideration she re-locks the chest so that her husband is asphyxiated. In the film, this story is refused publication by the censors as being too outrageous (in reality, the only Ranpo story ever censured was “The Caterpillar,” because it was considered as critical of the military), but afterwards Ranpo finds a recent newspaper article reporting exactly such a murder.
He then visits the murderous wife in question (called Shizuko and played by Hada Michiko), who is the owner of an antique store, and falls in love with her (supposedly she has not been arrested as her guilt could not be proven). From then on, fact and fantasy increasingly start to mingle. While Ranpo stalks Shizuko through Tokyo, she also appears as the captive mistress of a sadistic cross-dressing count (Hira Mikijiro) living in a castle at a rocky coast. Akechi Kogoro (Motoki Masahiro, who also plays the main role in Gemini) parachutes into the castle grounds to investigate and eventually rescue her. But in a scene where the count binds Shizuko's nude body in ropes as in a bondage film, Akechi sits only voyeuristically peeping through a skylight. When the count presses his painted face against Shizuko's bare back, he leaves red markings on her flesh like in the story "The Martian Canals." Finally, Ranpo will appear as a competitor for Shizuko’s love with his own fictional character Akechi...
This poetic film with its extravagant visual beauty is a fitting homage to Edogawa Ranpo. It hits exactly the right atmosphere.
(7) Gemini (Soseiji, 1999, Tsukamoto Shinya)
“The Twins” on which the film is based is one of the tales included in Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination (tr. James B. Harris, Tuttle Books). It concerns a pair of twins from a rich family, the oldest of whom receives the entire family's fortune; the younger in contrast is left without anything. Being a bad sort, he murders his older brother, throws the body down the garden well, and assumes his brother's identity, taking possession of his fortune… and his wife.
Cult director Tsukamoto Shinya (b. 1960) was initially inspired by Lynch and Cronenberg (for example in his first film, Tetsuo, about a man who is transformed into a cyborg). There is often a threatening atmosphere in his work, of everyday settings made strange. He also focuses on violence and forms of perversion, and his films often induce an uncomfortable feeling. Tsukamoto acts in nearly all his films (but not in Gemini), and has appeared in many other directors' films as well.
Gemini in so far is different from Tsukamoto's usual work as it was not his own project, but he was invited to direct by the production company. Tsukamoto is a big fan of Ranpo's work – he also plays the role of Akechi Kogoro in the later Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf – so he must have been happy to do so. The most fundamental change he made was to keep the eldest brother, Yukio, alive in the well. Another addition is a sort of class conflict: Daitokuji Yukio (Motoki Masahiro) is successful doctor, living in comfortable circumstances, who out of feelings of superiority only treats wealthy patients - during an epidemic he even refuses to treat slum people. But the slum doesn't leave Yukio alone: his amnesiac wife Rin (played by the actress Ryo) harbors the secret of being born in the slums and having a criminal background. Then his vengeful twin brother Sutekichi suddenly appears to take over his position and indeed his wife. That goes wrong of course: Rin notices that her husband has changed (Sutekichi is an exact duplicate, but has not been able to study Yokio's habits at night) and she comes to the conclusion that she is dealing with Sutekichi. Imprisoned in the well, Yukio develops animalistic and aggressive qualities – in other words, he grows close to the slum dwellers – and he manages to climb out of the well and kill his false brother. After resuming his life, he now also goes into the slums to heal people - he has become more complete as a human being.
Gemini is an opulent historical film (set in the Meiji period), a rarity in Tsukamoto Shinya's work. With lush colors and exaggerated make-up and costume design (such as the interesting wheel-like hairdo of Rin), this gorgeous fantasy stands in stark contrast to the J-Horror films made in the same period. Note there is a small but interesting role for author Tsutsui Yasutaka as the father of Yukio.
(8) Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf (Moju tai Issunboshi, 2001, Ishii Teruo)
We have already encountered the novella Blind Beast as the second film in Edogawa Rampo on Screen (1). This story is here combined with The Dwarf (Issun-boshi, 1926, tr. William Varteresian in The Early Cases of Akechi Kogoro, Kurodahan Press, 2014), a popular Ero-Guro novel (the first work of Ranpo to be filmed, as soon as it appeared), in which Akechi Kogoro faces off with a mysterious, evil dwarf.
Michiko, a young upper class woman has disappeared. Her beautiful mother, Yurie, calls in Akechi but it seems already too late as the victim's limbs are appearing in various places all over Tokyo. The dwarf has been spotted in nightly Asakusa Park carrying a female arm around and he has also been on the scene in a department store where a mannequin showing the latest kimono fashion boasts an arm which is too real to be true. But the dwarf's repertory of evil is not yet exhausted: next we find him, wearing prostheses to hide his stunted limbs, blackmailing Yurie into a rendezvous... he has been in love with her for ten years, he confesses...
This film - his last - was made on an extremely low budget by Ishii Teruo and shot directly on video. That shows. Most of the film looks rather amateurish, both as regards the shooting, the acting and the plot. There has been no attempt to bring the two stories together, we are in fact watching two different films which have been cut together. I would say this film is strictly for fans and completists, who like to see director Tsukamoto Shin'ya in the role of Akechi Kogoro, or the cameo by Tanba Tetsuro at the end of the film. Little Frankie is excellent as the dwarf, and Hirayama Hisayoshi is chilling as the blind sculptor, but the sections based on that novel can’t compare with the lush version by Masumura Yasuzo (film 2 in Edogawa Rampo on Screen (1)). This film looks cheap and that is killing – it is after all visual style that is essential to successfully filming Ranpo's stories.
(9) Rampo Noir (Ranpo Jigoku, 2005, Jissoji Akio, Kaneko Atsushi, Sato Hisayasu & Takeuchi Suguru)
Ranpo jigoku ("Rampo Noir") is an anthology movie based on four stories by Edogawa Ranpo. Asano Tadanobu plays in all four episodes, by four different directors. The four stories adapted are:
- “The Martian Canals “ (tr. Seth Jacobowitz in The Edogawa Rampo Reader, Kurodahan Press, 2008).
The story: The protagonist walks through a shadowy, gloomy forest that seems to have no end, afraid that he is walking in circles. Then he reaches a clearing with a pool of water in the heart of the forest. He now notices he is stark naked, and that his body has metamorphosed into that of his white (presumably Caucasian) girlfriend. He swims to a rock in the center of the pool and then realizes he needs some color in the white and gray world – preferably crimson. He scratches his shiny white body until the blood gushes out, leaving wounds like “Martian canals” on his body. He dances and rolls about like a worm – until his girlfriend, next to him in bed, wakes him up from his nightmare with “My dear!” in her own language. This story shows Ranpo's ambivalent feelings towards Western women and Western culture (as in the story "The Human Chair")...
The film (Suguru Takeuchi): A highly experimental, 6-min film almost without sound in which a stark naked Asano Tadanobu stumbles across a desolate alien landscape to a pool of water. He is all the time plagued by memories of a violent sexual encounter with a woman (girlfriend?) and – as in the story – in flashes he sees his body as that of the woman (the intercultural element has been dropped).
- “The Hell of Mirrors” (tr. James B. Harris in Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination, Tuttle Books).
The story: Tanuma Kan is obsessed by mirrors, telescopes, kaleidoscopes, lenses, and anything that can reflect an image. He uses these optical instruments to peep on others, and builds bizarre devices in a lab in his garden. While his mind becomes deranged, Tanuma builds ever more fantastic creations, such as a glass sphere lined with a single-unit mirror, in which he encloses himself, trying to look into the infinite through endlessly repeated mirrorings. When the narrator destroys the globe, Tanuma comes out of it stark raving mad...
The film (Jissoji Akio): This film has no connection at all with the above story, and with Ranpo only the fact that Asano Takanobu appears as Akechi Kogoro. Although with its many mirrorings and mirror effects it is visually very creative, the story has a rather conventional J-Horror plot about traditional-style bronze hand mirrors which can kill the woman who looks into it by "microwaving her face." The film is set in Kamakura and we meet a tea ceremony teacher and her circle, as well as the young craftsman (Narimiya Hiroki) who makes the mirrors by hand, keeping the old craft alive. Unfortunately, he also has an unhealthy obsession about women, leading to two killings and the appearance of Akechi Kogoro. But it is no easy case as the occult seems involved...
- “The Caterpillar” (tr. James B. Harris in Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination, Tuttle Books).
The story: The "caterpillar" is the symbol for Lieutenant Sunaga, a war veteran whose body has been terribly mutilated in battle: he has lost both legs and arms, and can neither hear nor speak. He has only his eyesight left. The lieutenant crawls through the room like a hideous insect, in nothing resembling the handsome man he once was. His wife, who has to nurse him, is filled with hatred for this ugly lump of flesh, but at the same time she is strangely attracted to it. She plays cruel games with her amputee husband, the stress and sexual frustration arouse her basest instincts, leading to further mutilation and ultimate disaster.
The film (Sato Hisayasu): As in the story, a quadruple amputee war veteran (Omori Nao) returns home only to face sadistic abuse at the hands of his resentful wife (Okamoto Takiko). A new element in the film is that a local artist takes a morbid interest in the twisted sexual relationship of the couple (Matsuda Ryuhei, playing a character called “Hirai Taro,” the real name of Edogawa Ranpo), as well as in the glass pots in which the limbs of the soldier have been preserved on alcohol. Nor surprisingly, this segment full of surreal imagery and twisted sexuality is rather hard to watch.
- “Bugs” (no translation available).
The story: Through his friend Ikeuchi, Masaki Aizo, a misanthropist, again meets the love of his youth, the actress Kinoshita Fuyo - but she is now the lover of Ikeuchi. Masaki declares her his love, but she only laughs at him. In the end, Masaki kills the actress, and brings her corpse to the second floor of the storehouse in which he lives. There the body is attacked by bugs and quickly rots away – there is nothing Masaki can do to stop the process.
The film (Kaneko Atsushi): Asano plays a limo driver who is infatuated with his client, a sexy actress (Ogawa Tamaki). The driver suffers from rashes and has an abnormal fear of bugs. In his daydreams he is the lover of the actress, and finally he does kidnap and eventually kill her. When the body starts to decompose, he tries to embalm it but fails and finally it will be devoured by the fearsome bugs… The director is a manga artist and has filled his segment with lush visuals and pop colors – but the convoluted story is hard to follow.
(10) Caterpillar (Kyatapira, 2010, Wakamatsu Koji)
The story “The Caterpillar” (see above) was a few years after Rampo Noir also filmed by Wakamatsu Koji (1936-2012), a director who achieved notoriety in the late 1960s by his violent pink films with strong political messages. His adaptation is a fierce anti-war statement. The ugly lump of flesh of the medal-decorated war hero is considered as a military god by the village from which new men are constantly leaving for the killing fields, until only women, children and the elderly are left behind. But our amputee can only eat, sleep and have sex.
The wife (Terashima Shinobu in a Berlin Silver Bear winning performance) first is shocked, then decides to stand by her man and care for him, but gradually realizes that she also can exploit her husband's condition and so take revenge on him for his brutish behavior towards her in the past. To pester him, she starts pulling him in a cart through the village, where everyone has to pay their respects to the "war god"…
The performance by Terashima Shinobu has been widely praised and is a good reason for seeing this film. On the other hand, Wakamatsu knows no subtlety and his anti-war message has been plunked with fat capital letters in front of the viewer, which is rather tiresome.
(11) Murder on D Street (D-Zaka no Satsujin Jiken, 2015, Kubota Shoji)
This is the story, written in 1925, in which Ranpo's serial detective, Akechi Kogoro, makes his first appearance (tr. William Varteresian in The Early Cases of Akechi Kogoro, Kurodahan Press, 2014). Interestingly, the story is a very Japanese variant of the "locked room mystery." In the traditional Japanese house with its sliding doors and movable partitions, a locked room does not exist - there often are not even locks! But in a busy down-town neighborhood of Tokyo, people are always watching each other - this "mutual surveillance" creates in fact a virtual locked room. The beautiful wife of a second-hand book seller is found strangled in the living room behind the shop, but as various neighborhood people have been watching both the front and the back of the shop, it is impossible that a stranger has slipped in, so we have the equivalent of a "locked room." Even in this classical story Ranpo could not desist from one of his favorite Ero-Guro elements: the murdered woman has died in the heat of a sadomasochistic game...
Kubota Shoji (1974) has greatly changed the story. The locked room is gone and BSDM takes center stage. Etsuko (played by photo model and actress Shoko), the wife of the bookseller, is not early on killed off as the victim here, but instead her mysterious presence dominates the whole film - she is into bondage as is her husband, whose shop is filled with sadomasochistic literature. A student (Kawai Ryunosuke) from a nearby boarding house (Goda from Ranpo's "The Watcher in the Attic") falls in love with her and she teaches him the “art of the rope” (Japanese traditional SM rope-binding or kinbaku, which is very different from Western types of SM). Akechi Kogoro (Kusano Kota) is an armchair detective who just sits in his office, while his wife (Otani Eiko) does all the sleuthing. This film is close to the pink genre, but in contrast to Tanaka Noboru’s artistry, the camera is quite conventional as for a TV film. The film is also too long. But while at first the story seems rather common, there follow some interesting plot twists which keep the viewer's attention.
Note: Murder on D Street was also filmed by Jissoji Akio (1998), an adaptation I have not yet seen.
(This post has been written with input from from my earlier articles Best Japanese Cult Films and The Ero-Guro Mysteries of Edogawa Ranpo.)