Review by manfromplanetx

The camera follows forty-year-old office worker Ishino (Keiju Kobayashi) as he opens this outstanding film with a personal introductory narration, happy with his life he feels it almost perfect, he has a solid income and looks to a comfortable retirement future.... With a dramatic shift in tone the film soon descends into an absorbing thriller, it really would spoil to say any more at all. Even the brief summaries give away far too much , this is a film to watch totally unprepared. All I had was a no frills disc with the title "The Black Book", what a wonderful surprise I got. Written by the much filmed author Seicho Matsumoto and adapted by award winning screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto, two fabulous reasons alone to take notice of this little seen gem. The twisting tale is multi layered a taut psychological drama directed with creative flare by Hiromichi Horikawa. Keiju Kobayashi gives an amazing double edged performance and deservedly won the Kinema Junpo Award, "Best Actor" . Highly Recommended Classic Japanese Cinema !!