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Stars: Tadanobu Asano, Ryuhei Matsuda, Mikako Ichikawa, Yuko Daike, Hanae Kan, Kaiji Moriyama, Tamaki Ogawa, Taro Suwa | Written by Atsushi Kaneko, Akio Satsukawa, Suguru Takeuchi, Shirô Yumeno | Directed by Suguru Takeuchi, Akio Jissoji, Hisayasu Sato, Atsushi Kaneko

Rampo Noir is a visually arresting anthology film that brings together four short stories inspired by the works of Japanese author Edogawa Rampo, often referred to as the Japanese Edgar Allan Poe. Directed by a quartet of filmmakers – Akio Jissoji, Atsushi Kaneko, Hisayasu Sato, and Suguru Takeuchi – each segment of the film delves into the macabre, surreal, and psychological depths of Rampo’s unsettling world.

The film’s strongest suit is undoubtedly its visual style. Every segment is meticulously crafted, offering a unique aesthetic that ranges from gothic elegance to nightmarish surrealism. The directors employ a variety of techniques—stark lighting contrasts, elaborate set designs, and experimental cinematography—that evoke a dreamlike and,...

Arrow Video continues its legacy of spotlighting extraordinary cinema with the release of Rampo Noir on Limited Edition Blu-ray. This chilling anthology pays tribute to the enigmatic and unsettling tales of Edogawa Rampo, Japan’s revered master of the macabre. Featuring four distinct shorts, each helmed by directors from vastly different artistic disciplines, Rampo Noir is an electrifying exploration of Rampo’s “erotic grotesque” imagination.

The anthology opens with Mars’s Canal, a surreal and haunting experience crafted by music video director and visual artist Suguru Takeuchi. Set against a barren landscape, this introspective short examines a man’s psyche as it reflects back at him, both literally and figuratively, from a circular pond. Its minimalistic yet potent imagery is a compelling dive into existential dread.

Akio Jissoji, the celebrated New Wave auteur known for his work on Ultraman, directs Mirror Hell. This tale delves into the deranged mind of...

Like many other artists born in the 19th century, Kaita Murayama met a tragic end. His future as a young painter and prodigious poet was brutally cut short by tuberculosis which took his life in 1919, when he was aged just 22. Having been forgotten by the general public, Murayama is now being celebrated on the hundredth anniversary of his death after around one hundred of his early works were unearthed. Known for his flamboyant, wild, impulsive and indeed inflammatory style, Murayama uses flat tints of red paint to make his subjects' skin stand out against a dark background. (Source: https://pen-online.com/arts/kaita-murayama-the-dazzling-artist-rediscovered-100-years-after-his-death/). Hisayasu Sato, who once more manages to leave his pinku film past behind, through an avant-garde film this time, but also to retain a sense of (perverse) sensualism, offers a surreal, intense, experimental movie that draws much from the artist's life and work.

Dear Kaita Ablaze...

translation by Lukasz Mankowski

Takahisa Zeze is a Japanese film director and screenwriter first known for his soft-core pornographic pink films of the 1990s. Along with fellow directors, Kazuhiro Sano, Toshiki Sato, and Hisayasu Sato, he is known as one of the “Four Heavenly Kings of Pink”. Eventually, he moves away from the particular industry, directing movies such as “Heaven Story” which took the Fipresci and Netpac award in Berlin, and “The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine”.

On the occasion of “In the Wake” screening at Toronto Japanese Film Festival, we speak with him about adapting Shichiri Nakayama’s novel, the Fukushima disaster and its connection with social welfare, the main characters and the casting, his past and present in cinema, and his latest project

“In the Wake” screened at Toronto Japanese Film Festival

Why did you decide to adapt Shichiri Nakayama’s novel “Mamorarenakatta Monotachi e”?

It all starts with...

Following previous announcements of their film lineup, the Fantasia International Film Festival has released their full lineup of movies to be shown at the 18th Annual festival, starting July 17.

New additions to the lineup include 2014 Cannes Selection When Animals Dream, directed by Jonas Alexander Amby and the return of Fantasia’s showcase of animated films, Axis.

Tickets for the festival go on sale starting July 16, and the festival runs through August 5.

View the whole press release of additional announcements below:

Fantasia Celebrates Its 18th Birthday

With Over 160 Feature Films Montreal, Thursday July 10, 2014 – 2014 is the year that Fantasia turns 18. We can’t believe it either. Fantasia’s 18th birthday means over 160 features and something in the neighborhood of 300 shorts, many being shown for the first time on this continent, a good number screening here for the first time anywhere in the world.In addition to being stacked with a multitude of breathtaking debut filmmaker discoveries,...

Following last week’s first wave of programming announcements, the Fantasia International Film Festival has revealed its second wave of programming, which includes a screening of Ju-On: The Beginning of the End and a 40th anniversary screening of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, where Tobe Hooper will be presented with a lifetime achievement award:

“Official Closing Film – Abel Ferrara’s Welcome To New York

Fantasia will close its 2014 edition with the North American Premiere of Abel Ferrara’s Welcome To New York, the controversial latest from the legendary filmmaker behind such landmarks as Bad Lieutenant, King Of New York, New Rose Hotel and the recently re-released Ms 45.

Welcome To New York is loosely based on the Dsk scandal and stars the iconic Gérard Depardieu in one of the bravest performances of his career. Co-starring is the equally sensational Jacqueline Bisset.

Abel Ferrara will be on hand to host this special evening,...

We're back with more titles heading to the 2014 Fantasia Film Festival as well as a few new images and word on a Lifetime Achievement Award for Tobe Hooper. Read on for all the details!

From the Press Release:

Following last week’s first wave of programming announcements, the Fantasia International Film Festival is proud to unveil additional highlights to rev you up for our July 10th Press Conference, where our full 2014 film lineup will be revealed.

Official Closing Film - Abel Ferrara’s Welcome To New York

Fantasia will close its 2014 edition with the North American Premiere of Abel Ferrara’s Welcome To New York, the controversial latest from the legendary filmmaker behind such landmarks as Bad Lieutenant, King Of New York, New Rose Hotel and the recently re-released Ms 45.

Welcome To New York is loosely based on the Dsk scandal and stars the iconic Gérard Depardieu in one of...

The 18th Fantasia International Film Festival’s second lineup of films was unveiled Thursday, and it features the closing night film on August 5, Welcome to New York directed by Abel Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant, Ms. 45).

Ferrara will be present to talk about his latest film, starring Gérard Depardieu and Jacqueline Bisset. The film was received with warm reviews after appearing out of competition at Cannes and at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

The Fantasia Film Fest runs July 17 to August 5 in Montreal, and the full lineup of films, in addition to the ones already announced, will be released July 10.

View the whole press release of second wave lineup announcements below.

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Fantasia Announces Second Wave

Of 2014 Programming Montreal, Thursday June 26, 2014 – Following last week’s first wave of programming announcements, the Fantasia International Film Festival is proud to unveil additional highlights to rev you up for our July 10th Press Conference, where...

Abel Ferrara’s controversial Dsk feature to receive North American premiere at the genre festival, which has announced its second wave of programming.

Welcome to New York will receive its North American premiere as the closing film of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

Abel Ferrara’s controversial feature, loosely based on the Dsk scandal, is part of the second wave of programming for the Montreal-based genre festival, along with the international premiere of Masayuki Ochiai’s reboot Ju-on: The Beginning of the End.

The second wave includes three additional world premieres – Tim Grabham & Jasper Sharp’s The Creeping Garden, Joseph O’Brien’s The Devil’s Mile and Chad Archibald’s The Drownsman – while the likes of Brian O’Malley’s Let Us Prey and Maximilian Erlenwein’s Stereo receive their North American premieres at this year’s edition.

Nicholas McCarthy’s At the Devil’s Door (formerly Home), Wong Jin’s From Vegas to Macau...

Love & Loathing & Lulu & Ayano

Directed by Hisayasu Sato

Written by Naoko Nishida based on the book by Atsuhiko Nakamura

Japan, 2010

Love & Loathing & Lulu & Ayano is perhaps the most heartfelt pornography film you will see this year. Blending the tragic personal lives of two young women, Lulu & Ayano, who respectively turn to porn to feel wanted and to survive. The film plays on comic notes but is largely focused on the overlying drama and horror of the Japanese porn industry, which exploits and abuses young women. It presents the industry as selling out it’s stars to the highest bidder at the expense of their personal volition. The women in particular, dreading the hyper-violent “rape scene”, which is as dirty and violent as it sounds.

The act of selling sex is not the issue of the hand (if it were, I’d take some objection to the film, which is still...

When one hears the word 'epic' one usually thinks of 'battles' and 'dragons', 'conspiracy and intrigue', 'larger-than-life filmmaking.' When one hears the words 'revenge story' images of Charles Bronson mowing down street punks or Choi Min-sik dishing out justice with a hammer may come to mind. Takahisa Zeze -- a man who started out his filmmaking career as an assistant to pinku (soft-core porn) pioneer Hisayasu Sato, then himself becoming one of the "kings of pinku cinema" before moving onto relatively mainstream comedies like Dog Star  -- is here to take those notions of 'epic' and 'revenge' and flip them right on their heads and spin them around until they come to rest at an angle where they may breathe freely. Zeze can then take...

The New York Asian Film Festival has announced that its tenth anniversary edition will open on July 1 with the North American premiere of Yoshimasa Ishibashi's Milocrorze: A Love Story ("one solid slab of psychedelia," promises the festival; image above) and close on July 14 with the New York premiere of Na Hong-Jin's The Yellow Sea (aka The Murderer), which has just screened at Cannes in Un Certain Regard (see the roundup).

There'll be two Centerpiece Presentations, Benny Chan's Shaolin, with Andy Lau, Nic Tse and Jackie Chan, and Takashi Miike's Ninja Kids!!! — which, you may remember Danny Kasman caught in Cannes, and got quite a nice kick out of it, too. The festival will also be screening Miike's "director's cut" of 13 Assassins.

There'll be three special focuses. First off...

Wu Xia: Hong Kong's Flying Swordsmen

Tsui Hark's Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame...