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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...

Japanese author Hirai Tarô took his pen name, Edogawa Rampo, as an homage to the American writer Edgar Allan Poe. Like his idol, he produced numerous stories that incorporated mystery and horror elements in various admixtures, and exhibited a similar fascination with mental abnormalities and (perhaps more so in Rampo’s case) sexual perversities. The term that came to be associated with Rampo’s work starting in the late 1920s was “erotic grotesque nonsense,” delineating a sensibility that outrageously mixed together sex, violence, and a dark sense of humor in ways that bring to mind the surrealist movement percolating to a boil in Paris at around the same time.

Rampo Noir was the unholy brainchild of producer Miyazaki Dai, who had unleashed Miike Takashi’s Ichi the Killer on the world a few years earlier. He hand-selected the four stories to be adapted and then recruited the directors: two industry...

Arrow, the premier streaming platform for cult cinema and international classics, is ushering in the New Year with an exciting slate of handpicked films and curated seasons. This January, viewers can immerse themselves in a rich collection of horror, thrillers, martial arts, and unique cinematic oddities, promising a month packed with discovery, entertainment, and adrenaline.

Arrow January 2025

Sam Raimi’s The Gift arrives on Arrow this month, offering a gripping blend of supernatural suspense and character-driven drama. Featuring an all-star cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Greg Kinnear, Katie Holmes, Keanu Reeves, and Hilary Swank, the film marks a fascinating entry in Raimi’s filmography, seamlessly melding his trademark eerie sensibilities with powerful storytelling. Don’t miss this underappreciated thriller, a late Christmas gift for fans of Raimi’s atmospheric storytelling.

Arrow also welcomes the visually stunning Rampo Noir, an anthology of four tales inspired by Japan’s celebrated master of the macabre,...

HONG KONG -- Rampo Noir -- literally Rampo hell -- consists of four short films based on the literature of Edogawa Rampo, who is a Japanese Edgar Allan Poe or HP Lovecraft, depending on your tastes. Rampo's work has been the source for Japanese films over the last several decades such as Masumura Yasuzo's Blind Beast and Tsukamoto Shinya's Gemini. This anthology, visually arresting and deliciously cryptic, is difficult to lump with the rest of the J-horror catalogue thematically, technically or artistically. Consequently, only the most adventurous distributor is likely to release for Rampo Noir, which might be a hard sell in parts of Japan much less overseas.

In the opening segment, Mars Canal by first time filmmaker Takeuchi, a naked man (Asano Tadanobu, one of Japan's best working actors) staggers in a bleak, hard gray landscape before collapsing at the rim of a reflective crater. We learn nothing about him, only that he had a violent fight with someone at some point in time. Soundless until an undefined noise becomes overwhelming, Mars Canal sets the arty tone for the rest of the film.

Asano appears in both Mirror Hell (by veteran filmmaker Jissoji) and The Caterpillar (by Sato, notorious for Naked Blood) as regular Rampo character Detective Akechi. In the former, he's investigating a series of deaths apparently related to a painfully handsome mirror craftsman, Toru (Narimiya Hiroki). In the latter, he's a bystander who watches as a photographer (Matsuda Ryuhei) discovers the truth about the gruesome relationship between a bitter, oversexed woman (Okamoto Yukiko) and her war-wounded stump of a husband (Omori Nao).

The closing segment, Crawling Bugs from manga artist Kaneko, has Asano as a chauffeur called Masaki, who becomes obsessed with his charge, a famous actress (Ogawa Tamaki).

The assumption will be that given the material and the filmmakers involved, Rampo Noir will be a grotesque, stomach-churning example of Asian trash/extreme cinema. Nothing could be farther from reality. The film is actually a beautiful, funny, disturbing look at love in many of its forms and manifestations, at reality and unreality, perception and beauty. The way each of the characters expresses love is the most extreme thing about the film.

The art direction flawlessly runs bleak, garish and cold as required, and the recurring use of mirrors and reflective surfaces binds the four stories together; one of the best uses of that motif being in Toru's breakdown following his emergence from a mirror-lined sphere. The combination of his narcissism and his over-confidence in his own power is the best example of all Rampo's threads coming together in one tight tale. Manga artist Kaneko shows off his artistic roots through elaborate, color-saturated fantasies that Masaki carries out. More than one viewer is going to find it all very pretentious, but there will be just as many fans of the film to revel in the surreal, otherworldliness of it all.

RAMPO NOIR

Ganeon Entertainment, Micott & Basara, Kadokawa Herald Pictures, Toei TV

Credits:

Director: Takeuchi Suguru, Jissoji Akio, Sato Hisayasu, Kaneko Atsushi

Writer: Takeuchi Suguru, Jissoji Akio, Yumeno Shiro, Kaneko Atsushi

Producer: Miyazaki Dai

Director of photography: Takeuchi Suguru, Hachimaki Tsuneari, Ashizawa Akiko, Yamamoto Hideo

Production designer: Kitamura Michiko

Music: Puppypet

Editor: Abe Naoko, Shinozaki Hiroshi, Saitou Ryota, Yousuke Yafune, Kunihiko Ukai, Kaneko Naoki.

Cast:

The Man/Detective Akechi/Masaki: Asano Tadanobu

Toru: Narimiya Hiroki

Hirai: Matsuda Ryuhei

Sunaga Tokiko: Okamoto Yukiko

Sunaga: Omori Nao

Kinoshita: Ogawa Tamaki

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 134 minutes...