The Taisho Trilogy

Filmmaker Seijun Suzuki was essentially blackballed from the Japanese film industry after making some of the most outrageous crime films of the 1960s. The Taisho Trilogy—set in Japan's Taisho era (1912-1926)—marked the director's comeback. The set kicks off with Zigeunerweisen (1980)—an historical drama melded with a ghost story—about a German language professor (Toshiya Fujita) and a vagabond former classmate/possible serial killer (Yoshio Harada) who both fall for a beautiful geisha (Naoko Otani), becoming obsessed to the point where one of them marries a lookalike. The story is marked by paranoia, treachery, and perhaps a supernatural haunting, taking a macabre turn in the final act. Kagero-za (1981), also a tale of erotic obsession, concerns a playwright (Yusaka Matsuda) attracted to a lovely woman (Michiyo Okusu), following a trail of messages that lead him across the country and into surreal situations. The final film, Yumeji (1991), is another ghost story in which rock star Kenji Sawada plays real-life painter and poet Takehisa Yumeji in a romantic fantasy about a man in love with a widow (Tomoko Mariya) who is haunted by her dead husband. Suzuki directs here with a far more introspective style than the wild anything-goes cinematic insanity of his earlier cult films, but his storytelling is just as demanding and he delivers intense imagery, vivid colors, and dynamic compositions. Presenting all three films in a Blu-ray/DVD Combo set, extras include video introductions to each film by film critic Tony Rayns, a “making-of” featurette, and a vintage interview with Suzuki. Foreign film aficionados with a taste for the challenging will likely appreciate. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)