If you enjoyed seeing the great Tadanobu Asano win a Golden Globe for his role in Shōgun, you're in luck – one of his more bizarre movies, the cult Japanese horror anthology Rampo Noir, is now streaming on Arrow Player.
In Rampo Noir, four celebrated filmmakers each take on a story by Japan's master of the macabre, Edogawa Ranpo (say it fast and the pun will make sense!), a pioneer of the so-called “erotique grotesque” genre.
In Mars’s Canal, by music video director and visual artist Suguru Takeuchi, a lone man encounters the other side of his psyche beyond the reflective surface of a circular pond set in a desolate landscape. Japanese New Wave auteur and longtime director of the Ultraman series Akio Jissoji (This Transient Life, Mandala) harnesses his distinctive stylistic sheen in his story of a mad mirror maker, Mirror Hell.
Caterpillar sees the singular vision of cult director Hisayasu Sato (The Bedroom, Naked Blood) at its most grotesque, in his portrait of a wounded war veteran who returns from the frontline as little more than a bloody torso, helpless to defend himself against the increasingly perverted caprices of an embittered wife. Finally, a famous actor is subjected to the obsessive attentions of her limo driver in “Crawling Bugs”, the directorial debut of internationally acclaimed manga artist Atsushi Kaneko (Bambi and Her Pink Gun).
Rampo Noir is also available on limited edition Blu-ray from Arrow, available right here.
