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Kyofu Kikei Ningen
Horrors of the Malformed Men
Edogawa Rampo Taizen: Kyofu Kikei Ningen
Japan 1969
produced by Toei
directed by Teruo Ishii
starring Teruo Yoshida, Teruko Yumi, Asao Koike, Tatsumi Hijikata, Minoru Ohki, Mitsuko Aoi, Mie Hanabusa, Yukie Kagawa, Yumiko Katayama, Katsura Kiyama, Michiko Kobata, Hideo Ko, Masaomi Kondo, Reiko Mikasa, Miki Obana, Toshio Oita, Akira Oizumi, Kyomi Sakura, Kichijiro Ueda, Toru Yuri
screenplay by Teruo Ishii, Masahiro Kakefuda, based on stories by Edogawa Rampo, music by Masao Yagi
Kogoro Akechi
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Medical student Hitomi (Teruo Yoshida) has for some reason been put
into the loonie bin. True he has only fragmentary memories of some key
occurences in his life, but he doesn't consider himself insane. Then
though he has to kill a dwarf in self-defense, and consequently he makes
an escape to avoid trouble - but wouldn't you know it, he becomes Japan's
most wanted anyways, especially after he is accused of a second murder he
didn't even commit.
With nothing to lose, Hitomi decides to find out about his past and to
this end he returns to the place he thinks he has originated from - and
interestingly, at this place he learns about a man, Genzaboru, who has
just died who resembles him to the t, including birthmarks and all that
stuff ... so he decides to take the dead man's place, even if he has to
convince both a wife and a mistress of his identity. However, soon enough,
murder strikes his/Genzaboru's house, and to not again become a fugitive,
Hitomi decides to take up investigations on his own, investigations that
take him to the secluded island of Jogoro (Tatsumi Hijikata),
Genzaboru's malformed father, who has gone quite insane some time ago
(actually after his wife Toki cheated on him and from that union bore
Genzaboru) and now plans to turn his secluded island into his own paradise
- a paradise for malformed men.
Thing is, Hitomi now learns that he is Jogoro's other son whom Jogoro
sent to medical school to become a surgeon to make him more and more
malformed men because he wants to have his revenge on pretty much everyone
- and to this end, he has also turned young Hidiko into an artificial
Siamese twin. Hitomi is however able to save Hidiko, and the two become
lovers - only to then learn that Hidiko is actually Jogoro's daughter and
she and Hitomi are thus in a incestuous relationship.
It seems everything is lost when detective Kogoro Akechi (Minoru Ohki)
arrives on the island, faces Jogoro and drives him into suicide. Still,
Hidiko and Hitomi just can't give up their love even if they know it is
dead wrong, so in a way Jogoro has had his revenge ...
In plain writing, this film, made up of several stories by famed
Japanese horror writer Edogawa Rampo, might sound nothijng but a
convoluted mess, but on film the whole convoluted and perverted story
works extremely well, a bizarre horror story that is closer in structure
the logic of a nightmare than any genre conventions and that thus takes
its viewers on a truly wild trip. Only the ending with Edogawa
Rampo's recurring detective character Kogoro Akechi is a bit
of a letdown, since it features the character as a rather unmotivated deus
ex machina - but believe me, Horrors of the Malformed Men is one
film one does not watch for its ending.
Highly recommended.
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