Rampo Noir (2005) Streaming Now on ARROW

Posted on by Jim Cox

Don’t miss the Japanese horror anthology that celebrates legendary writer Edogawa Rampo (Blind Beast, Horror of Malformed Men), Rampo Noir (2005).

This month, don’t miss Rampo Noir streaming on ARROW – a stylistic tour-de-force that vividly evokes the “erotic grotesque” worlds created by Japan’s pioneering proponent of horror and mystery fiction.

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), Rampo Noir is a stylistic tour de force that vividly evokes the “erotic grotesque” worlds created by Japan’s pioneering proponent of horror and mystery fiction.

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 out now on ARROW and on Limited Edition Blu-ray

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