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Manji Actor: Yasuzo Masumura Number of Items: 1 Format: Color, Widescreen Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Running Time: 92 minutes Studio: Wea Corp Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2004-05-04 Buy from Amazon

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 "Wonderful black comedy of obsessive desire" It probably helps if you know a little bit about Japanese culture and manners to appreciate some of the things the characters say and do - but even the uninformed will have no trouble knowing when these people go beyond the pale of acceptable conduct. This is a fairly broad, but very satisfying, adaptation of a Tanizaki story - one of his delightfully morbid sex farces. It is beautifully filmed, striking a very pleasing balance between humor and tragedy. The actress playing the Osaka housewife gone potty over one of Tanizaki's westernized bitch-beauties is particularly good. This is one of those wonderful stories that starts out as one thing, becomes something else entirely, and then ends up as another thing altogether. I should probably make it clear that, while I thought this movie was a stitch, another person I saw it with had an entirely different, more serious reaction to what went on in the film. A history of bad relationships probably makes a difference in how comical you find this material. Fantomas does a fine job as usual, and this is possibly the best of the four Masumura titles they released - although 'Giants and Toys' and especially 'Blind Beast' are well worth seeing. ('Afraid to Die' is pretty much a curio with some interesting elements, but not up to the level of the other titles by a long shot.) My only real complaint was with the liner notes, starting with the tiresome explaination that the character that makes the movie's Japanese title is not a Nazi swastica. While I understand the mortal fear that motivates such disclaimers, it amazes me that anyone interested in watching this movie wouldn't figure that out if they didn't already know. (This comes up in any localized product bearing that particular Chinese character, and I'm a little tired of it. It's a symbol that appears in Indian iconography without raising eyebrows - so why call attention to it?) The author goes on to make a comparison between Masumura and (I believe) Orson Welles based on the fact that they both had a certain stock of players they liked to use. Yeah? Then I guess Edward D. Wood belongs in the same class, because he did that, too. But that is nitpicking. This is a great little movie from start to finish. See it! See it! See it!