Rampo Noir (2005) Arrow Player Review

Rampo Noir (2005) Arrow Player Review

Four filmmakers from completely different backgrounds bring their radically personal takes to the stories of Japan’s celebrated master of the macabre, Edogawa Rampo (HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN, BLIND BEAST).

Produced by the same team behind Ichi the Killer and Uzumaki and featuring a cast of Japan’s top stars including Tadanobu Asano (MABOROSHI, SILENCE) and Ryuhei Matsuda (BLUE SPRING, GOHATTO).

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).

Arthouse-leaning anthology oddity RAMPO NOIR kicks off with next to no sound which took me out of the viewing experience from the start, as I spent a few minutes attempting to fix, what it soon transpired, did not need to be fixed. I also found this hard to connect to on an emotional level and visually it was not as inspired as it could have been or likes to think it is.

RAMPO NOIR is cold, detached, and lacking flavour. It aspires to be intellectual but instead plays out as vapid and dull. Other reviewers have described RAMPO NOIR as ‘disturbing,’ ‘grotesque’ and ‘erotic,’ what I saw failed to match such enticing and lurid descriptions, instead it’s all very run-of-the-meal weighted under the delusion of being something more significant than what it is.

WATCH THE TRAILER HERE

Rampo Noir is out now on ARROW and on Limited Edition Blu-ray