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Writer Kobayashi (Lily Franky) and private detective Kogoro Akechi
(Shinya Tsukamoto) join forces to investigate in two cases that at first
glance seem to have nothing to do with each other:
First there is Michiko, the young stepdaughter of Yurie Yamano (Reika
Hashimoto) - the secret love of Kobayashi -, who seems to have
mysteriously disappeared from her room ... even though Kogoro soon proves
that her disappearance was anything but mysterious but had to do with
garbage disposal.
The second case has to do with the disappearance of famous Moulin Rouge
dancer Ranko Miziuki (Mutsumi Fujita), who one day was abducted into the
surreal world of the Blind Beast (Hisayoshi Hirayama), a blind
masseur who regularly abducts women to cover them in plaster and make
surreal pieces of art out of them.
And somehow a dollmaker (Kenpachiro Satsuma), a dwarf (Little Franky),
a priest, and several bodyparts found all over the city have to do with
either one or even both cases.
EVentually, Ogoro finds out that Michiko was accidently killed by -
Michiko (Tomoko Matsumoto) of all people, who actually killed her maid,
but assumed her role to avoid a scandal. But unfortunately, the dwarf -
who likes to wear stilts, dress up and pretend he's a priest - has gotten
wind of this and secured the body to force Yurie into sexual submission.
And to make a point, he had Michiko's (well, her maid's) bodyparts found
all over the city. However, when blind beast, who is not only a masseur
but also a mad sculptor, learned about this, his killings became more and
more atrocious, just to keep up with the dwarf.
Ultimately, the blind beast, like all artists, wants recognition and
asks Kogoro to bring famed critic Dr Tange (Tetsuro Tamba) to his studio
to judge his work, afterwards he will give himself up.
Dr Tange, seeing Blind Beast's sculptures, is shocked and destroys his
latest masterpiece - only to find out that Blind Beast has become part of
the masterpiece himself and covered not only his victims but also himself
in plaster ...
That's one unusual film: a blend of body horror and classic murder
mystery that's also a rollercoaster ride through the weird and wonderful
surreal world of Japanese horror writer Edogawa Rampo - which seems to be
the perfect playground for (in)famous cult director Teruo Ishii ... so
what you get is a disturbed, disturbing yet entertaining work of art. It
could have been a masterpiece, too, but unfortunately obvious budgetary
restrictions and the unmistakable driect-to-video look of the whole film
keep it from being really great. It's good still, it just could have been
so much more ...
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