Features: DVD
Maverick filmmaker Seijun Suzuki spent the 1960's concocting astonishing masterpieces of yakuza psychedelia and with the ambitiously stunning Taisho Trilogy, Suzuki reincarnated himself as a master auteur of modern Japanese cinema. This boxed set includes ZIGEUNERWEISEN, KAGERO-ZA and YUMEJI.ZIGEUNERWEISEN: A stunning film about decadence and nihilism in the 1920's, the film centers on the relationship between four people, drawn together by unseen strings of fate, and nearly driven mad by their own fears and desires. When a professor on vacation meets a former classmate, both become smitten - and later, dangerously obssessed - with a local geisha. KAGERO-ZA: Based on a story by Kyoka Izumi, whose writings influenced a number of playwrights and filmmakers, this film is another wildly inventive installment in the jump-cut, luridly hued, crazy-quilt pantheon of Seijun Suzuki. YUMEJI: The final film in the TAISHO TRILOGY. Sensual and absurdist, the film spins a ghost story around the character and work of real-life painter and poet Yumeji Takehisa (1884-1934). The eponymous character is conjured by Suzuki as a chronic philanderer and dreamer (played by former rock star Kenji Sawada).
"[Kagero] Filled with luminous images and fierce eroticism." London Film Festival
"[Weisen] Playful, sensuous and performed and shot with elan." Time Out Film Guide
Editor's Note
ZIGEUNERWEISEN: Visually astonishing and eternally haunting, this film represents the director's break from his characteristically campy yakuza flicks, delving into material that addresses the mysteries of death and desire. While on vacation, somber professor Aochi encounters his childhood friend, Nakasago, a handsome drifter down on his luck. Both men fall in love with Koine, a geisha, and though they go on to marry other women, their passions for Koine grow into all-consuming obsession. Suzuki's film was nominated for Best Picture and Best Director at the 1981 Japanese Academy Awards, and is the first in his revered Taisho Trilogy. KAGERO-ZA: The second of director Seijun Suzuki's wildly daring and much-acclaimed Taisho Trilogy, KAGERO-ZA, like its predecessor ZIGEUNERWEISEN, is set in Tokyo in the early 1920s. The haunting, episodic narrative follows a playwright and his growing obsession with a beautiful woman who floats in and out of his life. He first encounters her when she asks for his company on her way to the hospital, as she is afraid of the Chinese Lantern Plant vendor--the plant is said to contain female souls. He refuses, but his desire for the woman gradually overpowers him, so that by the time he realizes she is luring him to his demise, it is too late to stop her. YUMEJI: The third in maverick director Seijun Suzuki's Taisho Trilogy, this absurdist, mysterious ghost story takes its name from the real-life painter Yumeji Takehisa. Yumeji (Kenji Sawada) strays from his lover when he falls for the beautiful and freshly widowed Tomoyo (Tomoko Mariya), whose husband was slain by the jealous Onimatsu (Kazuhiko Hasegawa). Yumeji pursues Tomoyo despite the evident danger, which grows even more pronounced when Wakiya (Kazuhiko Hasegawa), Tomoyo's murdered husband, returns from the dead.
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