Outreach
Video Lending Library
Japan
- Program Title: the Mystery of Rampo
- EASC Code: JM-05
- Series Title:
- Region/Country: Japan
- Language: Japanese
- Subtitles: English
- Subject: Movie & TV Drama
- Program Type: Feature
- Media Type: VHS
- Director:
- Producer:
- Release Date: 1994
- Running Time: 91 min.
- Color or BW: Color
- Program Abstract: "The subject of this feature by former Japanese producer Kazuyoshi Okuyama is promising: the life and times of the famous Japanese mystery writer Edogawa Rampo. The film mixes Rampo's biography with one of his stories in a way that initially suggests Hammett and Naked Lunch, but it ultimately gives in to the scattershot sleaze of Mishima--it's a sort of Lifestyles of the Rich and Decadent that bypasses early references to Vertigo and Last Year at Marienbad to become a tale of obsessive love that ultimately drowns in its mannerist self-infatuation. We're treated to one effect after another rather than a coherent story, and the resulting spectacle is striking but tacky. With Naoto Takenaka, Michiko Hada, and Mikijiro Hira; Yuhei Enoki collaborated on the script." --Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Chicago Reader
- Data Entry Date: 1/27/1999
