Ranpo jigoku

I thought the movie was... interesting. Some parts a little too artsy. I'm not really here to debate the movie but, to ask about the warning in the beginning. What are the EXACTLY talking about pertaining the "intended effects"? I'm not sure if they're talking about the blockey distorted appearance of a scratched DVD or if its just the one I'm watching. After a few minutes it gave me a little headache. I thought that that was what they were warning about until towards the end when the guy in crawling bugs says, "what was I thinking?" then the movie was "normal". I had rented the movie from Blockbuster and it was brand new and undamaged.

I also happened to have seen this at the very same Japanese festival in Sydney, and I enjoyed it quite a lot.

These shorts are sick. The writer behind the original stories may have a disturbed and twisted mind for inspiring these disgusting tales of torture and obsession, and love (love which is so alien it doesn't really fit the word).

Of course many stories by Edogawa Rampo have been banned already in Japan for that very same reason.

However, these shorts were great examples of how dark cinema can get. These push right to the boundaries, where sense, reason, and any sort of real point is left behind in its own madness. And it does try to make points. They draw parallels between conscious and subconscious, reality and delusion. The surreal images and narratives destroy the boundaries between the two and the flow freely into each other. The film challenges what art really is. Whether it's a beautiful reflection, a horrific image, or something that is both beautiful on the outside but dead and corroded inside. Here we see that mirrors have the potential to be god, trapping us in its frame. Love is horrific. Horrific. These shorts have the potential to repel you in disgust, or to draw you in and lose yourself in its insanity, and for that reason alone it is a powerful work of art.

The four individual directors obviously had a daunting task ahead of them trying to make this. They had to present these tales honestly, and also visually uncover the madness behind them. I don't know about the former, as I haven't read any of Rampo's stories, however visually these films are amazing too. Especially Mirror Hell, which has amazing shots of the actors constantly reflected in dozens of different mirrors.

You leave the film feeling as if the makers had thrown a lot of violence and sex at you stylishly but with no real substance. The shorts are too surreal and disjointed to follow through with any of the points they try to make. The are no answers to be found in these shorts, and nothing profound to learn or re-learn. However, these shorts were never made with such intentions. They were made to show the madness of Edogawa Rampo. They were made to disgust you, and to provoke you. And they mastered that exceptionally.

Whether you like it or not, you won't forget this one.

This film, an adaptation of four (really three) short stories penned by Edogawa Rampo, is unfortunately more stomach-churning than it is stylish. Given the uniform elegance of RAMPO NOIR's composition and design, that makes the ick factor pretty high. After the relative subtlety and effectiveness of the first piece, "Mirror Hell," the ensuing parade of erotic leeches, quadriplegic sex, sadism, mutilation and necrophilia should be enough to put almost anyone off their dinner. Potential viewers, you've been warned. The images, which are beautiful, will stay with you, but they'll probably inspire a queasy stomach more than they will a sense of fascination and horror. Here's hoping it was more palatable on the page.

Rampo Noir is a collection of 4 short films based on stories by Edogawa Rampo, the so-called "Japanese Edgar Allen Poe". Rampo Noir is widely uneven, painfully pretentious and at least half an hour too long. Despite these shortcomings, the film does offer its fair share of pleasures - stunning visuals, black comedy and a large dose of Japanese weirdness. Rampo Noir is not a great film but it is an interesting addition to the very small genre of "arthouse horror".

The first of the four films sums up everything that is wrong with the project. A naked man running towards a lake is inter-cut with a naked couple wrestling. The film is silent and partly shown in slow motion. I'm sure there was a deep philosophical reason behind this but I was basically too bored to bother considering what it might be. Even the French would be embarrassed by this exercise in pretension. The next segment, Mirror Hell, is an improvement. For starters, it has sound and a narrative. Mirror Hell is a mystery about a mirror that has the nasty habit of burning off faces. The film is not particularly riveting and some of the special effects are clumsy and not very convincing. The segment is saved by some arresting photography and a wonderfully kinky sex scene between Azusa and Toru, which involves a lot of rope and candle wax.

Caterpillar is the third and, in many ways, most successful of the films at pushing the envelope. This film has an edge that the first two segments are sorely missing. The basic premise of the film is a wife who appears to have amputated her husband's arms and legs in order to save him from going to war. This film explores domestic violence and domination from the unusual angle of a female perpetrator. Caterpillar is an interesting thesis about love in one of its most warped incarnations but instead of shedding light on the issues it puts forward, the film is happy to be a kind of Japanese "Boxing Helena", with its focus firmly directed at shock value and titillation. And it is exceedingly successful at meeting these goals. The scenes where the wife makes her limbless husband eat from a dog bowl and then beats him with a riding crop certainly leave an impression, as does a gruesome scene where she cuts off his nipple. The film also offers a large dose of kinky, limbless sex which is portrayed as vilely erotic. Caterpillar is a nasty little film and Rampo Noir is all the better for it.

Crawling Bugs is the fourth and final segment of Rampo Noir. This film once again explores the idea of how the illusion of love can be the catalyst for the most abhorrent situations. Crawling Bugs tells the story of Masaki, a man who can not bear to be touched by other human beings. This obviously affects his chances with Fuyo, so he kills her and takes her home to be his bride. Despite the multitude of possibilities that this scenario offers, Crawling Bugs avoids the explicitness of "Nekromantik" or even "Kissed", and is happy to be blackly comedic. This is ultimately a smart move as Masaki's vain attempts to keep Fuyo from rotting inject Rampo Noir with some much needed humour and offer some pleasant respite from the sometimes overwhelming level of pretension. Crawling Bugs is visually stunning and very well directed. The gore effects are convincing and the film walks the fine line between the surreal and the plain disgusting with great skill.

Rampo Noir desperately tries to push the boundaries of mainstream cinema but never quite succeeds. In comparison to many of the films emerging from Asia, Rampo Noir is actually rather quaint - with the exception of the large quantity of kinky sex. However, the concept is an interesting one and it offers the opportunity to explore the work of four promising Japanese directors. Rampo Noir is no "Three Extremes" but is worth watching, particularly for the crazy woman with a riding crop.

Rampo Noir is one of my favorite horror anthologies, sharing a similar disturbing, visceral feeling to Subconscious Cruelty (2000). (Check out my review for it if you have time.) The film is a fascinating, yet uneven, collection of four stories, each directed by a different filmmaker adapting a tale by Rampo Edogawa. The only constant thread is actor Tadanobu Asano, who takes on a new role in each segment, from a naked wanderer to a private detective. The movie has almost giallo-esque vibes, aesthetically and argumentatively, a strange cocktail of David Cronenberg's body horror and the aesthetic of films like Heroic Purgatory (1970) (check out my review if you have time here) and House (1977).

The directors involved are an interesting mix of seasoned artists. Legendary Akio Jissoji, whose "Buddhist Trilogy" is a work I adore and recommend, and whose name you might also have seen on the famous Ultraman TV series and his acclaimed Art Theatre Guild films, directs one segment. Another is from Hisayasu Satô, an icon of pinku cinema. Mangaka Atsushi Kaneko and director Suguru Takeuchi round out the quartet.

Of the four, the two standout chapters are Takeuchi's opening segment, "Mars Canal," and Satô's "Caterpillar." "Mars Canal" is a short, silent parable about a naked, vulnerable man at a lake, almost like a piece of living art. The simplicity and atmosphere make it a hypnotic start to the film.

The Metamorphosis of Caterpillar: The most absurd and grotesquely captivating storyline is "Caterpillar," the complete story of a war hero who returns home completely dismembered-a quadruple amputee, mute, and facially scarred. His wife, the artist, treats him not as a husband but as a living canvas. She dresses him, feeds him, and parades him around, obsessing over her creation. It's a horrific allegory about control, love, and the monstrous ways in which we can possess another. The wife's affection is a twisted kind of horror; her love is a form of artistic subjugation. She sees her husband as a prize, a bizarre specimen she has reshaped and kept in a jar. In her mind, she's transforming him from a "caterpillar" of war into something beautiful and powerless. The ending climax of this story is a shocking, visceral punch to the gut, fully embracing the erotic grotesque themes of the source material.

The Mirror and the Bugs:

The other two segments, Jissoji's "Mirror Hell" and Kaneko's "Crawling Bugs," are also ingenious but less compelling. "Mirror Hell" follows a detective as he investigates a series of mysterious deaths caused by a man who creates mirrors that seem to burn people's faces off. This segment explores obsession with self-image and the danger of perspective.

"Crawling Bugs" is a strange, unsettling tale of a man with a mental illness that makes him feel like bugs are crawling on his skin whenever he's near other people. He becomes obsessed with a beautiful theater actress, fantasizing about a life with her. This story is an unsettling, dirty dive into the themes of idolization and loneliness, where the protagonist creates his own reality to escape the horrors of the one he's trapped in.

Overall, Rampo Noir is a must-watch for diehards of the directors here and also for anyone who enjoys Japanese horror and isn't afraid of a little absurdity.