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Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob

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Speaker 1: Lamb and we have a fun one. This one originally

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Speaker 1: published five thirty one, twenty twenty four. This is our

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Speaker 1: discussion of the super weird, super stylish nineteen sixty eight

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Speaker 1: super criminal ROMP Black Lizard. This is a real gem

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Speaker 1: from Weird Japanese Cinema. Tremendously enjoyed this one ever since

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Speaker 1: we recorded this episode. This is a film that keeps

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Speaker 1: jumping back into my mind. I keep thinking back on it.

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Speaker 1: It's just so stylish, so fun, pretty much one of

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Speaker 1: a kind. So without further ado, let's dive right into

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Speaker 1: that episode.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick. And hey, folks, I said

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Speaker 3: this on yesterday's episode, but I want to say again

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Speaker 3: if I sound unusual in today's episode, if I sound

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Speaker 3: a little hoarse, it is because I've got a bit

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Speaker 3: of a cold. But a bit of a cold could

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Speaker 3: not stop me from talking about today's movie on Weird House,

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Speaker 3: which is nineteen sixty eight's Black Lizard.

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Speaker 1: We should have worked it into the picture and so

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Speaker 1: that you sound like you do because a strange woman

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Speaker 1: with demon yellow eyes threw a constricting snake at your neck, right,

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Speaker 1: But it's more mundane are the causes here. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: we have yet another cult favorite gem from Japanese cinema today,

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Speaker 1: and it follows the traditions of Danger Diabolic in that

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Speaker 1: it is another super criminal film, full of style, full

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Speaker 1: of visual bizazz. It's campy, it's bizarre, but also I

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Speaker 1: think with a lot of interesting depth. As you dig

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Speaker 1: into it, we're going to be talking about nineteen sixty

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Speaker 1: eight's Black Lizard. Today's film is also notable in that

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Speaker 1: it is entirely centered around a charismatic drag performance. The

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Speaker 1: title character, Black Lizard or Chorro Tokagi, is a stylish

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Speaker 1: female super criminal played in this film by prominent drag performer,

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Speaker 1: really famous and legendary drag performer Akihiro Miwa, who will

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Speaker 1: have more information about here in a bit, but a

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Speaker 1: true legend, a cultural figure of note, and it's all

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Speaker 1: played out seriously and thoughtfully, never for a giggle in

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Speaker 1: a wink. I've seen descriptions of this film as a comedy.

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Speaker 1: I think the current Internet Movie Database summary, for example,

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Speaker 1: says it's a comedy in the summary, and I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I don't think that's one hundred percent accurate. It is

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Speaker 1: a tremendously fun film. It is certainly camp, but it

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Speaker 1: doesn't really seem to play for laughs. But again, it

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Speaker 1: is tremendously fun.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there are funny things in it. It certainly has

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Speaker 3: an over the top sensibility, but I would say it

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Speaker 3: plays a lot more as kind of a serious tragic

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Speaker 3: romance and as a crime thriller more certainly more than

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Speaker 3: as a comedy. I would say it is no more

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Speaker 3: a comedy than Danger Diabolic as a comedy, and also

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Speaker 3: in Diabolic there are funny scenes and an absurd gratuitousness.

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Speaker 3: There's similar movies in a lot of ways, but neither

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Speaker 3: one really has the moment to moment focus on laughs

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Speaker 3: that a comedy usually does.

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Speaker 1: All right, elevator pitch for this film, I want to

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Speaker 1: approach it two ways. One, I would say it's the

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Speaker 1: forbidden love of a super criminal and an ace detective

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Speaker 1: realized in a stylish sixties counterculture Japanese cinema festival for

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Speaker 1: the Eyes. But I also think that there's one line

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Speaker 1: in particular in translation here. Of course, we both watched

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Speaker 1: it with subtitles. I don't think a dub exists, and

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Speaker 1: I don't think I would want the dub. I think

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Speaker 1: I would want the subtitles. But there's one great line

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Speaker 1: where our main character, a CATCHI, the number one detective

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Speaker 1: in Japan, is speaking to Black Lizard, the super criminal,

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Speaker 1: and says, Black Lizard, you were an old fashioned romanticist

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Speaker 1: in this age soiled by corruption and murder. You believe

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Speaker 1: that crime should wear a gorgeous gown with a train

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Speaker 1: fifteen feet long, just like the primordial dreams of lizards.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, like those.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's I mean. If you love that line,

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Speaker 1: you'll love this film. This film perfectly delivers on like

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Speaker 1: the glorious, poetic weirdness of that statement. All right now.

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Speaker 1: I wasn't able to find what I could one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent feel certain about concerning a trailer in Japanese or otherwise.

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Speaker 1: So what I did find was a trailer that was

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Speaker 1: uploaded by Brooklyn's Spectacle Theater, which I've never been to,

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Speaker 1: but it looks amazing. It's a collectively run screening space

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Speaker 1: run by movie loving volunteers, and they play a lot

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Speaker 1: of just great looking stuff, including some films that we've

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Speaker 1: covered on Weird House before. Like just at the time

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Speaker 1: of this recording, I'm like, oh, what are they playing

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Speaker 1: this week at this place? And they're playing Doctor of Doom,

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Speaker 1: which is a wonderful Mexican luchadora film that we've covered

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Speaker 1: in the past. So so go check them out Brooklyn

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Speaker 1: Spectacle Theater. We're going to borrow part of the trailer

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Speaker 1: they uploaded. Again. I'm not sure if this is part

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Speaker 1: of an original trailer part of a trailer that they made,

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Speaker 1: but either way, it'll give you just a little sonic

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Speaker 1: taste of Black Lizard.

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Speaker 4: You know that I've got a hunt lifecated data on

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Speaker 4: gen Shun.

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Speaker 1: All right now, if you want to go out and

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Speaker 1: watch Black Lizard before proceeding with the rest of this episode. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm sad to say this one is tragically hard to

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Speaker 1: find right now as of this recording, as of this moment,

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Speaker 1: despite the film having had an official international and US release,

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Speaker 1: even if a limited one back in nineteen sixty nine,

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Speaker 1: even though it had subsequent re releases in Japan and

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Speaker 1: and abroad over the decades to follow. It might have

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Speaker 1: been released on VHS at one point, as Michael Weldon,

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Speaker 1: who loved it, references a tape in his Psychotronic Video

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Speaker 1: guide book. I'm not sure if he's referring to a

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Speaker 1: legit tape or or you know, more of a gray

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Speaker 1: market sort of thing. But yeah, it's a real shame

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Speaker 1: because this is a fabulous film with a cult following.

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Speaker 1: It has cultural significance, historical significance as well, and it

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Speaker 1: deserves to be seen by more film fans and the

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Speaker 1: best quality possible. If you look around, you can find

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Speaker 1: some sources for it. But I also have to stress

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Speaker 1: that this is the nineteen sixty eight Black Lizard or

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Speaker 1: Coro Toakagi film, not to be confused with other films

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Speaker 1: titled Black Lizard, including an unrelated Shaw Brothers Hong Kong

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Speaker 1: film titled Black Lizard from nineteen eighty one, or a

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two Japanese film titled Black Lizard that is

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Speaker 1: actually an earlier adaptation of the same novel in the

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Speaker 1: same play. I've seen part of the sixty two film,

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Speaker 1: and it's also quite stylish and quite good. I was

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Speaker 1: about like twenty minutes into it before I realized, oh,

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Speaker 1: I have the wrong movie. I need to find I

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Speaker 1: need to look around a little art. I think the

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Speaker 1: sixty two win is actually maybe you can stream it

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Speaker 1: through Criterion Collection. So, but it would not be a

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Speaker 1: loss to watch the sixty two version. You're going to

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Speaker 1: hit a lot of the same plot points we're hitting here.

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Speaker 1: But we are talking about the nineteen sixty eight adaptation

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Speaker 1: here today.

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Speaker 3: Now when it comes to the sixty eight version, the

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Speaker 3: director is actually somebody quite familiar on Weird House.

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Speaker 1: That's right, it's Kenji of Fukusaku, who lived nineteen thirty

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Speaker 1: through two thousand and three. He directed nineteen seventy eight's

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Speaker 1: Message from Space.

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Speaker 3: Ah and nice best of the Star Wars repol.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a one we covered early on on

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Speaker 1: Weird House, and he also directed nineteen sixty eight so

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Speaker 1: The Green Slime, which we covered far more recently. Both

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Speaker 1: very enjoyable films in their own distinct ways and also

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Speaker 1: rather different from today's entry. Yes, now, Fukusako has sixty

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Speaker 1: eight directorial credits on IMDb, and probably the big one

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Speaker 1: for a lot of listeners, as I've mentioned before, is

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Speaker 1: two thousand's Battle Royale, which was a huge late career

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Speaker 1: hit for him to the extent that it can. To

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Speaker 1: a casual fan, you might, you know, only focus on that.

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Speaker 1: But other films of note include at least the Japanese

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Speaker 1: portion of nineteen seventies Tora, Tora Tora. He apparently was

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Speaker 1: brought in after Kurosawa backed out nineteen seventy three's Battles

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Speaker 1: Without Honor and Humanity. He directed a number of action

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Speaker 1: yakuza and samurai movies, as well as the high budget

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty sci fi film Virus, which featured a host

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Speaker 1: of Japanese and American actors. He also directed the two

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Speaker 1: thousand and two video game like PlayStation video game clock

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Speaker 1: Tower three, which I think I did play, and in

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Speaker 1: doing so, this was my earliest exposure to Fukusaku's work.

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Speaker 3: Is that like a horror game?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, if it's the one I'm thinking of, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of like creeping around and trying to avoid like killers,

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Speaker 1: you know, like mass killers that you can't actually directly

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Speaker 1: stand again, So in a way, it's kind of a

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Speaker 1: similar vibe to like the Alien Isolation game that came

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Speaker 1: many many years later. I don't remember anything about it

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Speaker 1: where I'm like, oh wow. Of course Fukusaku was involved

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Speaker 1: in this, you know anyway. Fukusaku's a director, often a

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Speaker 1: so siated with the Japanese new wave cinema movement of

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Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies, but he was also a big

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Speaker 1: commercial success, highly acclaimed both in Japan and by filmmakers

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Speaker 1: around the world. I've seen the likes of Tarantino, Paul

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Speaker 1: Schraeder and others talk about how much they admire his work.

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Speaker 1: All right now, in terms of the writing here, they'll

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Speaker 1: basically be like three levels because the original source for

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Speaker 1: this is a novel by Rampo ed Ogawa, who lived

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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety four through nineteen sixty five. This was the

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Speaker 1: pen name of Japanese author Tero Hirari crafted This pen name,

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Speaker 1: Rampo Edugawa was apparently crafted to resemble Edgar Allan Po

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Speaker 1: or Po, Edgar Allan So PO. Edgar Allan Rampo ed

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Speaker 1: Ogawa So and Edgar Allan Po, along with Arthur Conan

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Speaker 1: Doyle and others, were our big influence on Rampo's work.

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Speaker 1: I have to admit I was really not familiar with

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Speaker 1: Rampo prior to this. I don't know if you'd ever

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Speaker 1: run across discussion of his work before.

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Speaker 3: Joe possibly, but not that I recall.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, apparently a huge name in the world of

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Speaker 1: Japanese mystery, detective and horror fiction, known for such works

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Speaker 1: as The Boy Detective's Club, The Fiend with Twenty Faces,

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Speaker 1: and of course The Black Lizard. Had His many short

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Speaker 1: stories include The Caterpillar and The Human Chair. Film and

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Speaker 1: TV adaptations of his work go back as far as

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Speaker 1: I believe nineteen twenty seven, and while he did write

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Speaker 1: I think just one screenplay, pretty much all of the

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Speaker 1: cinematic and TV treatments of his work were adapted by

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Speaker 1: other writers in the adaptations I've continued in film and

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Speaker 1: TV and manga and anime. Some of the more famous

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Speaker 1: adaptations include nineteen sixty nine's Blind Beast and Horrors of

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Speaker 1: Malformed Men. So some of these are titles I'm familiar with,

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Speaker 1: but I didn't really know much about the Rampo connection,

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Speaker 1: and then twenty tens Caterpillar and Hiss. Previously mentioned Black

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Speaker 1: Lizard was adapted numerous times as a play, and then

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Speaker 1: two separate adaptations of that play, the nineteen sixty two

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Speaker 1: film and this nineteen sixty eight one.

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Speaker 3: Okay, so that's the original novel. But there's another intermediary

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Speaker 3: literary source, which is the play which is eventually adapted

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Speaker 3: into the movie.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and the play here was adapted by another rather

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Speaker 1: famous figure in Japanese culture. This is Yukio Mishima, who

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Speaker 1: lived nineteen twenty five through nineteen seventy. So he wrote

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Speaker 1: the stage adaptation upon which this is based. And there's

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Speaker 1: a lot to potentially unpacked here with Yukyo Mashima. You

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Speaker 1: could do a whole podcast just on this guy. He's

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Speaker 1: ultimately a very controversial figure. Mishima was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor,

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Speaker 1: and model. Is a highly successful writer. Is said to

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Speaker 1: affused modern Western trends with traditional Japanese elements, with a

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Speaker 1: general focus on beauty, eroticism, and death. In his private

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Speaker 1: life and revealed in some of his writings, he was

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Speaker 1: apparently bisexual and often dealt with themes of same sex love.

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Speaker 1: He was also a shintos and an ultra right wing

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Speaker 1: nationalist who founded a militia known as the Shield Society,

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Speaker 1: and on November twenty fifth, nineteen seventy, this, of course

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Speaker 1: is the year of his death, he essentially attempted a

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Speaker 1: coup with four members of the militia invading a Japanese

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Speaker 1: military base, taking the commandant hostage, and trying to encourage

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Speaker 1: the Japanese Self Defense Forces to overthrow the government and

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Speaker 1: restore the full rule of the Emperor wow In. This

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Speaker 1: attempt culminated in Mashima's own death via sepuku and yeah again,

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Speaker 1: he's remained a very controversial figure because of all of this,

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Speaker 1: though on the other hand, there's always been a lot

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Speaker 1: of interest in him in his work in and out

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Speaker 1: of Japan. American director Paul Schrader, for example, directed a

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Speaker 1: biopic in nineteen eighty five titled Mishima A Life in

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Speaker 1: Four Chapters, starring ken Ogata in the lead role. We

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Speaker 1: were actually chatting about this with our excellent producer JJ

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Speaker 1: Possway off Mike before we went in here, because I

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Speaker 1: don't think either of us have seen this particular Paul

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Speaker 1: Schrader film, but JJ has and said that it's really

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Speaker 1: worth saying. It's quite excellent.

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Speaker 3: Now, if I'm not mistaken, Mishima appears bodily in Black

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Speaker 3: Lizard as well, doesn't he.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, Mishima himself was in addition to all

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Speaker 1: these other things, he was an actor and a model.

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Speaker 1: He was a noted bodybuilder and has a very memorable

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Speaker 1: non speaking role in this film. I mean, you could

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Speaker 1: say it's a cameo, but I don't know when a

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Speaker 1: cameo has like this much weight, I don't want to

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Speaker 1: dismiss it as such.

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Speaker 3: He's the So there is a sequence later in the

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Speaker 3: movie with these frozen human figures. They're sort of described,

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Speaker 3: I think as stuffed bodies, though there's a something almost

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Speaker 3: supernatural implied about the way that they're frozen, because they're

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Speaker 3: clearly just they're not mannequins, they're human bodies, and their

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Speaker 3: human body is just kind of like trembling. You can

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Speaker 3: see them moving a little bit. And he's one of them, right,

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Speaker 3: He's the one who's like in the middle of a

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Speaker 3: knife fight with another guy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, it's it's the classic, like

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Speaker 1: you know, wax museum effect of having people being really

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Speaker 1: still pretending to be models or some sort of preservation

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Speaker 1: of formerly living humans. So it does have that inherent

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Speaker 1: creepiness that we often touch on. But yeah, this is him.

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Speaker 1: It's a very pivotal scene as well. We'll get to.

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Speaker 1: It's also notable in that Yeah, this can't be relegated

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Speaker 1: as a cameo because a lot of times the poster

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Speaker 1: art has Mashima on the poster alongside the star, which

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Speaker 1: generally you don't do with your cameo appearances. Like the

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Speaker 1: detective Acecchi, who is in many respects the protagonist of

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Speaker 1: the picture, is not on the poster or not on

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Speaker 1: many of the posters that I was looking at, So yeah,

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Speaker 1: worth keeping in mind. As for Mishima, he has at

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Speaker 1: least some other acting credits, including the nineteen sixty yakuza

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Speaker 1: film Afraid to Die, in which he starred, and nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty six's Patriotism, which he also wrote and co directed.

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Speaker 1: All Right, and then the screenplay based on the play

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Speaker 1: based on the novel. The credit here is Masashigi Narusawa,

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Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twenty five through twenty twenty one. An

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Speaker 1: award winning screenwriter and director. His films include nineteen fifty

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Speaker 1: six's Street of Shame sixty eight's Curse of the Blood.

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Speaker 1: He was active from nineteen fifty through seventy five, with

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Speaker 1: a final Rampo adaptation airing on TV in nineteen eighty.

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Speaker 1: All Right, so that's the director. That's the folks involved.

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Speaker 1: In the writing of the picture. But now we have

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Speaker 1: to talk about are the true star of this and

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Speaker 1: that is Akihiro Miwa playing Black Lizard. This is just

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Speaker 1: a fabulous performance. This is one of those performances where

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Speaker 1: Miwa is almost constantly the screen and is it a

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Speaker 1: light whenever he is on screen?

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Speaker 3: I agree, Miwa makes this movie what it is.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So, Miwa was born in nineteen thirty five and

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Speaker 1: as of this recording is still alive, and it's it's

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Speaker 1: essential to note that here in this starring role as

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Speaker 1: Black Lizard, the title character, the Master Criminal, we have

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Speaker 1: one of, if not the most famous Japanese drag performers

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Speaker 1: of the fifties and sixties, if not of all time.

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Speaker 1: Drag culture does still seem to be going strong in Japan.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm assuming the only Western comparison would be

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Speaker 1: like someone like Rue Paul, Like this would be like

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Speaker 1: having Rue Paul appear as the title character in your

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Speaker 1: super criminal picture. Maybe there's a better comparison to be

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Speaker 1: made right in if you've got one. Anyway, MIA's cabaret

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Speaker 1: career goes back to I believe nineteen fifty two, and

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Speaker 1: he rose to popularity transcending eventually from stage to film, TV, music, writing,

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Speaker 1: and directing. He put out five albums between nineteen seventy

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Speaker 1: three and nineteen ninety five, all centered around his drag persona.

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Speaker 1: He also became an outspoken voice on political and social

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Speaker 1: issues in Japan, and he worked his way up to

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Speaker 1: this glorious leading role through often smaller appearances sometimes it's

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Speaker 1: like a singer or background character, and number of films,

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Speaker 1: and then followed this one up with nineteen sixty nine's

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Speaker 1: Black Rose or Black Rose Mansion, which was also directed

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Speaker 1: by Fukusaku's I haven't seen it, but it's apparently classified

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Speaker 1: as kind of like a dark romantic drama.

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Speaker 3: Now.

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Speaker 1: While there's some additional live action roles after this, MEA's

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Speaker 1: biggest contributions moving forward after this point are mostly voice

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Speaker 1: roles in animated projects, but boy did include some big ones.

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Speaker 1: He voiced the three hundred year old wolf goddess Moro

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Speaker 1: Nokmi in Miyazaki's nineteen ninety seven masterpiece Princess Mana. If

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Speaker 1: you've only seen the dubbed version, this would be the

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Speaker 1: character that Gillian Anderson dubs. You know, this big wolf

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Speaker 1: goddess creature. He also voices the Witch of the Waste

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Speaker 1: in Miyazaki's two thousand and four film Howell's Moving Castle,

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Speaker 1: and for you Pokemon fans out there, he also voiced

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Speaker 1: a Pokemon by the name of Okay, I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: on this one, Arsius or Archius. I asked my son

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Speaker 1: about this real quick, and he was like, people might

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Speaker 1: get mad at you. But he was like, they may

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Speaker 1: say Archias or man, they may say Arsius, but be

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Speaker 1: prepared to be corrected. So okay, I am prepared. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: this is like an important Pokemon, like the title Pokemon

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Speaker 1: and the two thousand and nine TV movie Arcius and

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Speaker 1: the Jewel of Life.

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Speaker 3: If people are going to be mad at us, I

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Speaker 3: hope it's about Pokemon.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm always happy to be corrected.

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Speaker 3: But to come back to Black Lizard, Aki hero Miwa

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Speaker 3: is phenomenal in this movie, so much like passion and

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Speaker 3: charisma in this performance.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely every scene, and also so many costume and hair changes. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This is definitely one of those pictures where we will

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Speaker 1: call out the costume designer because you know, any new

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Speaker 1: scene with Black Lizard, you're gonna get a new costume.

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Speaker 1: You make it an entirely different hair going on as well.

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Speaker 3: It's great. It's also a surprise for like a crime thriller,

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Speaker 3: it is a surprisingly dialogue heavy film, and I think

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Speaker 3: that may be based on the fact that it was Uh.

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Speaker 3: This is adapted from a stage play, so there are

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Speaker 3: fewer just straight action scenes than you might imagine. A

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Speaker 3: lot of it's just sort of dialogue and uh, and

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Speaker 3: and there is there are a lot of thrills, but

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Speaker 3: a lot of the thrills are like twists that are

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Speaker 3: revealed through dialogue.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, so it's talkier than you might expect,

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Speaker 1: But luckily the dialogue is often just tremendous. We already

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Speaker 1: quoted a little of it, and you know, it often

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Speaker 1: has that flavor and a weird character to it. And

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Speaker 1: uh and yeah, and when the when we do have

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Speaker 1: punctuations of actual act, it generally is also really weird

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Speaker 1: and jaw dropping. All right, now, it's important to talk

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Speaker 1: about the ace detective. This is Detective Akechi, played by

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Speaker 1: Issau Kimura, who lived nineteen twenty three through nineteen eighty one.

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Speaker 1: The interesting thing here is that, yeah, Detective Akechi is

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Speaker 1: in many of your sex the actual protagonist of the film,

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Speaker 1: and is essentially Rampo's Sherlock Holmes character appearing in multiple

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Speaker 1: novels and short stories. So while many viewers may watch

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Speaker 1: this and you just see the sort of you know,

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Speaker 1: typical noir detective character, you know, a little bit tortured,

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Speaker 1: a little bit jaded, smoking and drinking, trying to solve

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Speaker 1: the crime, maybe falling a little bit in love here

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Speaker 1: and there. So while many viewers I just dismiss that

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Speaker 1: this character is like the detective figure in Japanese pop culture,

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Speaker 1: and was in fact the first recurring detective character in

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Speaker 1: Japanese fiction. So he's a big deal and has been

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Speaker 1: played by numerous actors over the years, including Tadanobu Asano,

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Speaker 1: who have played of course, is the star of Ichi

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Speaker 1: the Killer and also had a really great role in

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Speaker 1: the recent Fax adaptation of Showgun. He was in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and five's Rampo Noir.

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Speaker 3: So a catchy we are told is Japan's number one detective.

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Speaker 3: But he also I don't know, it makes a lot

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Speaker 3: more sense to me knowing that this is a recurring

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Speaker 3: character because there's a sort of prologue in the film

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Speaker 3: that's almost like, well here I am, I'm in the club.

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Speaker 3: Now sucked into this crime, and it makes more sense

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Speaker 3: if this is kind of a character we would recognize.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and in a way, it kind of gives you

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Speaker 1: more license to let that character become secondary because he

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Speaker 1: does have this iconic place already, you know, in the

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Speaker 1: same way that you can have a Sherlock Holmes film

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Speaker 1: certainly these days and allow secondary characters to sort of

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Speaker 1: take the forefront.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, totally so.

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Speaker 1: Anyway, Kamu right here playing the role frequently worked in

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Speaker 1: supporting roles in Akira Kurosawa films, including fifty four to

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Speaker 1: seven Samurai and fifty seven's Throne of Blood. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: think his performance here certainly hits all the world weary

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Speaker 1: noir detective notes that you'd expect. And I suppose this

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Speaker 1: in many ways this helps like ground the flashier elements

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Speaker 1: of the picture as well. But he's good. It's a

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Speaker 1: good performance.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: All right, this is all going to picture, This is

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Speaker 1: all going to center around in many respects, A damsel

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Speaker 1: in frequent distress, a youngly, a young woman that Black

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Speaker 1: Lizard tries to kidnap multiple times. Her name is Sane

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Speaker 1: and she is played by Kiko Matsuka, and she was

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Speaker 1: born in nineteen forty seven. She was in a number

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Speaker 1: of sixties and seventies films, including an uncredited role as

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Speaker 1: a diver girl in nineteen sixty seven's Bond film You

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Speaker 1: Only Live Twice. Her other credits include nineteen sixty eight's

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Speaker 1: The Living Skeleton, Black Rose Mansion, and a Rampo TV

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Speaker 1: series in nineteen seventy right. Another important secondary character is

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Speaker 1: the is the despondent musician Yunichi a'm Amiya played by

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Speaker 1: Yusuku Kuwazu, who lived nineteen thirty five through twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 1: This apparently is his best known role, but his credits

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Speaker 1: include nineteen sixty one's Killers on Parade, nineteen ninety three's

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Speaker 1: Godzilla Versus Mega Godzilla two, and nineteen eighty eight nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety eight s GAMMEA three Revenge of Iris. So, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's a solid performance. This is tragic character in this film,

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Speaker 1: but also props to anyone who was ever in both

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Speaker 1: a Godzilla and a Gamera movie.

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Speaker 3: That's right. Yeah, this is a very sad, pathetic, abject

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Speaker 3: role and this guy does well with it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, as we'll discuss, like even when he has

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Speaker 1: his moments of seeming bravery like there's still this wrinkle

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Speaker 1: to them that makes it even more tragic.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all revealed that it's just the ultimately even

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Speaker 3: more pathetic than you would have thought. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: See. Another fun secondary character is private Detective Keniji Matoba,

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Speaker 1: who I guess is like he's not the number one

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Speaker 1: detective Aketchi is the number one detective. This is somebody

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Speaker 1: further down the list that has no problem with at

429
00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:16,679
Speaker 1: all with the possibility of making a fool out of

430
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:18,440
Speaker 1: a ketchee or you know, or coming in to clean

431
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:19,640
Speaker 1: up a catchy's mess.

432
00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:23,200
Speaker 3: You can just see this guy's displeasure with the full

433
00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:25,639
Speaker 3: knowledge that he is the number four detective.

434
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:29,800
Speaker 1: Yeah he is played. Yeah, so he's a rival stern

435
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 1: faced private detective played here by award winning actor co Nishimura,

436
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twenty three through nineteen ninety seven, best

437
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 1: known for his roles in such Kurosawa films as nineteen

438
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:45,879
Speaker 1: sixties The Bad Sleep Well sixty one's Yo Jimbo nineteen

439
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:48,000
Speaker 1: sixty three is High and Low, and he was also

440
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,480
Speaker 1: greatly praised and awarded for his starring role in the

441
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 1: bear movie Matagi from nineteen eighty two. So he was

442
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:59,840
Speaker 1: definitely the Star of Matagi in eighty two. But yeahs

443
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 1: these Kirosawa films several, some of which I haven't seen

444
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:05,880
Speaker 1: and others I haven't seen in a long time. I'm

445
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:07,720
Speaker 1: not sure exactly off the top of my head how

446
00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:11,719
Speaker 1: far of the cast he is in those, but I

447
00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 1: love his performance hereies kind of like a Japanese Christopher Lee.

448
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's very, very stern.

449
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, Sanya's dad is also important. Iwasa played by

450
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 1: bun Usami who lived nineteen eleven through nineteen eighty one.

451
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:30,200
Speaker 1: His credits include nineteen seventies to Tour Tora in nineteen

452
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:32,240
Speaker 1: fifty eight's The Man in the Moonlight Mask.

453
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 3: This is sort of our rich Mark, the guy who

454
00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:39,199
Speaker 3: is targeted by Black Lizard for both the kidnapping of

455
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:42,200
Speaker 3: his daughter and the stealing of his precious jewels.

456
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,280
Speaker 1: Right, and you know, he's rather proud about the fact

457
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:48,160
Speaker 1: that he can afford Japan's number one detective. So it's

458
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: a fun, fun role. But he's also like, you know,

459
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 1: you're of course you're going to get taken advantage off

460
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:53,800
Speaker 1: by super criminals.

461
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 3: He also complains immediately about the cost of Japan's number

462
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:01,960
Speaker 3: one detective when his daughter is discovered to have been kidnapped. Yeah, like,

463
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:04,480
Speaker 3: throw back the blankets on the bed and it's like, oh,

464
00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 3: it's just a mannequin in there. He's like, you know

465
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:08,640
Speaker 3: how much money I paid you to protect her?

466
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. We also already alluded to the snake woman

467
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:15,679
Speaker 1: with the yellow demon eyes. We'll come back to her,

468
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: just not a lot about her, but just to credit

469
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 1: the actor. This is Toshiko Kobayashi, who lived nineteen thirty

470
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 1: two through twenty sixteen. Oh okay, So we've recently received

471
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 1: a listener mail from someone saying, hey, you guys need

472
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:41,000
Speaker 1: to single out the costume folks, the costume designers more. Well,

473
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:43,159
Speaker 1: this is certainly a movie to do it on. We

474
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:46,640
Speaker 1: have so many great costumes, especially for Black Lizard, and

475
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:52,200
Speaker 1: the costume designer on this was Masako Watanabi. She's worth

476
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:55,680
Speaker 1: singling out in part because, again, the costumes here are amazing,

477
00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:59,399
Speaker 1: but she's also a notable manga comic writer and artist

478
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:02,879
Speaker 1: for such titles that I'm not familiar with, as Master

479
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 1: of Morley, Jack Ryerdan's Baby, and Heidi. So if you

480
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 1: know more about about her and her work, write in

481
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: and we'll get the full details from you all right,

482
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 1: and then finally the music. Oh, we have another huge

483
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:20,119
Speaker 1: name here. This is a guy with a number of

484
00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 1: credits in Japan film wise, but in general though just

485
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:28,120
Speaker 1: a musical icon is Sautomita, who lived nineteen thirty two

486
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 1: through twenty sixteen. This is a name that I think

487
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: is going to register with a number of you. Not

488
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 1: so much for film though he does have associations with

489
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 1: various films. But this is this guy was one of

490
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 1: the pioneers of electronic music and space music, both in

491
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 1: Japan and ultimately internationally as well.

492
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:47,240
Speaker 3: Uh huh.

493
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 1: His work prior to this film included the TV series

494
00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 1: Mighty Jack, which I believe was featured on Mystery Science

495
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 1: Theater three thousand. But yeah, the interesting thing is that

496
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 1: around the same time of this picture is when and

497
00:29:01,680 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 1: again the score for this movie for Black Lizard is

498
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 1: not particularly I don't think it's electronic. I think it's

499
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:12,120
Speaker 1: very traditional when you say, but around the same time

500
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 1: as he would have been working on this film, he

501
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: heard Wendy Carlos's nineteen sixty eight album Switched on Bock

502
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 1: for the first time and was reportedly enraptured. I heard

503
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: I read one account, which said like, basically, he's like,

504
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 1: give me a ticket to New York and like flies

505
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 1: to the United States just so he can bring back

506
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 1: a mug synthesizer. He's like, I've got to get my

507
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 1: hands on this. Like he just saw the tremendous potential

508
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: and then started experimenting with synths and goes on to

509
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 1: again have become this pioneer of electronic and space music,

510
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 1: known for such works as nineteen seventy two's Electric Samurai

511
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:51,360
Speaker 1: Switched on Rock, which I think was released in the US,

512
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:54,560
Speaker 1: and seventy four nineteen seventy six is The Planets, which

513
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:57,160
Speaker 1: I was listening to while finishing up my notes here.

514
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:01,480
Speaker 3: Is that an electronic adaptation of Holst's The Planet You.

515
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:04,040
Speaker 1: Know, I'm not sure. I listened to the whole thing,

516
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure off him. They didn't have holes

517
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 1: credited on the tracks on Spotify, which may mean nothing,

518
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 1: but a number of his works are synth treatments, electronic

519
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 1: treatments of pre existing works, like I know he did

520
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 1: a version of John Williams Star Wars theme song for example. Anyway,

521
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 1: he's an international legend. You'll find loads of his work

522
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 1: wherever you get your music. Again, I don't think we

523
00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 1: really hear any electronic stylings in The Black Lizard's score,

524
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 1: as I think he flied to acquire his first synth

525
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 1: in around seventy two. But still it's an amazing connection.

526
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 1: So we get like pre electronic to me to hear

527
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:44,440
Speaker 1: he'd go on to score such films as two thousand

528
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:46,640
Speaker 1: and four as The Hidden Blade, and I've read he

529
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:50,480
Speaker 1: was apparently Ridley Scott's first pick to score Alien would

530
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:53,160
Speaker 1: that I've worked? I don't know, but it's an interesting connection.

531
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 3: Okay, is it time just talk about the plot?

532
00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's jump into it.

533
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 3: Well, warning, this plot has twists and reveals of plenty,

534
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 3: so if you do want to experience the movie without

535
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 3: having anything spoiled, I guess you should pause here and

536
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 3: go watch it before you listen to this part of

537
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:10,920
Speaker 3: the episode. Now we open with the kind of prologue

538
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 3: before we get into the main caper that will involve

539
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 3: most of the movie. There's like a hippie technicolor acid

540
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 3: freak out sex party opening. It's like a go go club.

541
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 3: We've seen this in movies from the sixties. Before they

542
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 3: try to put you right in the middle of a

543
00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 3: swing in happening Go Go Club to get your mind

544
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 3: right where it needs to be for the feeling of

545
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:35,760
Speaker 3: the movie.

546
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 1: And with strong cabaret elements. I think as well, like

547
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:42,200
Speaker 1: this is where this is where the counterculture happens. This

548
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 1: is where the bohemian vibe is strong.

549
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:48,520
Speaker 3: That's right. So it's a feeling of the sixties, a

550
00:31:48,560 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 3: feeling of cultural and sexual energy. But I think also Rob,

551
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:54,640
Speaker 3: I don't know if you detected the same thing. There's

552
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 3: kind of a point of view the camera takes that

553
00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 3: implies some kind of distance or hesitation, maybe like it's

554
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 3: it's celebrating everything that's going on in the club, but

555
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:08,440
Speaker 3: it's also a little bit afraid. Maybe it's like this

556
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 3: this is an alluring but also a dangerous and confusing

557
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:13,960
Speaker 3: frontier of freedom and pleasure.

558
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, as we'll see, there's danger here and there's sadness

559
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 1: here as well.

560
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 3: In fact, that sort of point of view of the

561
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:22,120
Speaker 3: camera maybe the point of view of the character we're

562
00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 3: about to meet. Because we go to this this man,

563
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 3: a lonely looking man sitting at a table overlooking the

564
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 3: dance floor in this freak Out Go Go Club, and

565
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 3: we hear his voiceover. He says I came here by

566
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:39,920
Speaker 3: mere chance a friend said he would guide me to

567
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:43,280
Speaker 3: a secret club. We never see the friend, by the way,

568
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 3: do we know? He says this was a world unknown

569
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 3: to me until a gaudy crime dragged me into it.

570
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:55,760
Speaker 3: And then suddenly everything stops. The action freezes and darkness

571
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 3: falls over the go go club, and then there is

572
00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 3: somber humming music, and then we see Black Lizard in

573
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 3: three forms. First the character so we see Akihiro Miwa

574
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:10,480
Speaker 3: in jewels with a cigarette holder, and then the image

575
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 3: of a Black Lizard silhouette, and then the title Black Lizard.

576
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 3: Now I warned there would be spoilers. Technically, the character

577
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 3: we are meeting here is not revealed to be Black Lizard,

578
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:26,960
Speaker 3: the titular criminal, until a twist that comes later. But

579
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:30,080
Speaker 3: I was in no suspense at all about this, and

580
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 3: I wonder if the audience is supposed to be in

581
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 3: suspense at all. It seems to me one hundred percent

582
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:39,040
Speaker 3: clear from the very first frame of seeing Black Lizard

583
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:40,720
Speaker 3: that she is Black Lizard.

584
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 1: I think so. Like from what I watched the sixty

585
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:45,840
Speaker 1: two adaptation, I felt like it was maybe a little

586
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 1: less obvious, but here it's clear and been part of

587
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 1: that may be the fact that, yeah, you have me,

588
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 1: this famous individual playing this title character, and you know

589
00:33:56,960 --> 00:33:58,720
Speaker 1: there are gonna be several twists in the film that

590
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 1: I think most viewers will see coming a mile away.

591
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:03,760
Speaker 1: But it doesn't feel like a limitation. In a film

592
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 1: like this, a twist may be telegraphed, but what sort

593
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:07,959
Speaker 1: of feast will the film make of the twist?

594
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's a dark, mysterious melody as the credits play.

595
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:16,279
Speaker 3: I think this may be Black Lizard singing. Actually, I

596
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 3: think so.

597
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure when I first watched it, but then afterwards,

598
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:21,879
Speaker 1: when I was diving more into me was musical credentials. Yeah,

599
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:25,040
Speaker 1: I assume this is his actual singing voice, because yeah,

600
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:28,279
Speaker 1: he put out all these albums and so forth. So yeah,

601
00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:29,959
Speaker 1: it belts out a tune.

602
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 3: So Black Lizard. After the credits, Black Lizard navigates the

603
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:36,000
Speaker 3: club and comes up to meet the lonely man sitting

604
00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 3: at the table above, and Black Lizard says, this is

605
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 3: an unusual night, an oppressive night, a night made for crime.

606
00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:48,280
Speaker 3: I love a night like this. Sleep won't come easily tonight,

607
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 3: and you so, the lonely man tells her He's impressed

608
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:54,719
Speaker 3: by her words. He's like, wow, you are a poetess,

609
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:58,280
Speaker 3: And Black Lizard says, are you a critic? Because beauty

610
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:01,239
Speaker 3: fails to intoxicate you? Your eyes tell me that.

611
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 1: And this is a catchy she's talking to This is

612
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:06,400
Speaker 1: the number one detective, right.

613
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:09,320
Speaker 3: Yes, But then Black Lizard backs off of a catchy

614
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:11,120
Speaker 3: and goes to visit a different man at the bar.

615
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 3: She goes up to this sad looking guy and says,

616
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 3: thinking of death? Are you? And she then seemingly telekinetically

617
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:21,960
Speaker 3: moves his whiskey glass to the edge of the table

618
00:35:22,120 --> 00:35:25,319
Speaker 3: until it falls and shatters. I'm not sure what's going

619
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 3: on here, but I like it.

620
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a great weird moment that is important

621
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:34,319
Speaker 1: because we come back to it. But I guess it's

622
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:36,719
Speaker 1: like a here as a metaphor or a splash of

623
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:41,359
Speaker 1: magical realism, because there's nothing else to indicate that this

624
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:45,319
Speaker 1: character has any kind of telekinetic powers. I think it's

625
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:48,840
Speaker 1: just to convey the charismatic power of the Black Lizard.

626
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:53,719
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know the inevitable trajectory of unobtainable obsessions. Yeah,

627
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:57,560
Speaker 1: the film plays it marvelously vague, but again, it is

628
00:35:57,600 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 1: important because we'll come back to it.

629
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:02,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's an ambiguous question about the presence of the

630
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 3: supernatural in this film. The movie is, you know, ninety

631
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:11,000
Speaker 3: nine percent grounded in realism, but there are a few

632
00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:13,680
Speaker 3: things in it that are like, wait, was that magic

633
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:16,800
Speaker 3: or not? I can't tell. So there's the whiskey glass telekinesis.

634
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:20,839
Speaker 3: There's the lady with yellow eyes who the snake Lady later,

635
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:23,839
Speaker 3: who sometimes seems to maybe do magic or I don't

636
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:27,440
Speaker 3: know what's going on with her snake eyes. The statues

637
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:30,120
Speaker 3: at the end of the movie, which are people, They

638
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:34,120
Speaker 3: appear to be frozen in some way that almost suggests magic,

639
00:36:34,239 --> 00:36:35,080
Speaker 3: but it's not clear.

640
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:35,919
Speaker 4: Yeah.

641
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:37,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there are a few moments like that, and

642
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:40,359
Speaker 1: it keeps things wild and unpredictable as well.

643
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 3: Anyway, the man at the table, who was allegedly thinking

644
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 3: of death leaves the club with black Lizard, and then

645
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:50,239
Speaker 3: we smash cut to a newspaper headline that tells us

646
00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:55,560
Speaker 3: a quote despondent young musician has died by suicide, and

647
00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:59,560
Speaker 3: then we also see a different article in the newspaper

648
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:04,640
Speaker 3: that a corpse was stolen from a medical dissection room

649
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:09,440
Speaker 3: at the Morgue right, yes, Okay, So then detective at

650
00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 3: Catchy is suddenly there. He is at the morgue looking

651
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:15,960
Speaker 3: into it and finds there is a toy black lizard

652
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 3: at the scene.

653
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, peels it right off the floor there.

654
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 3: And then also, what is the deal with all these

655
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:25,200
Speaker 3: cadavers floating in like a tank of dark green liquid?

656
00:37:25,320 --> 00:37:26,320
Speaker 3: This is so weird.

657
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:29,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I found this creepy, But I don't know, like,

658
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:32,359
Speaker 1: maybe this is actually how it was done. At the time,

659
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:34,400
Speaker 1: I have no idea, and I have to admit I

660
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 1: was reluctant to go down the gooulish avenue of researching it.

661
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:39,760
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know, I'm just gonna accept

662
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 1: it as is. Maybe I'll come back and look into

663
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 1: it later. But at least within the context of the film,

664
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 1: this is just where they put recently dead bodies instead

665
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 1: of having like freezers, the sort of freezer drawer scene

666
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:53,400
Speaker 1: that we're accustomed to. Instead we have the vat scene

667
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 1: that we have here.

668
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:57,480
Speaker 3: But anyway, okay, so all this is sort of prologue

669
00:37:57,520 --> 00:37:59,680
Speaker 3: to the main caper of the film, which is the

670
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:02,840
Speaker 3: loss of kidnapping and the Star of Egypt.

671
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 1: I only looked this up just before we came in

672
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 1: to record. But the Star of Egypt is an actual diamond.

673
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 1: I was reading about it on Christie's. It first appeared

674
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:15,640
Speaker 1: on the London Market in nineteen thirty nine. There's a

675
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 1: listing for it on Christie's. I think it recently sold

676
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 1: for several million dollars, so it's it's a real thing,

677
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 1: not just a made up gym.

678
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:29,120
Speaker 3: So we get into act one here with the main plot,

679
00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 3: and it is that Detective Atketchi has been hired by

680
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:37,160
Speaker 3: a rich man named Iwasa to protect his daughter Senne,

681
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:42,239
Speaker 3: who has been threatened with kidnapping. I think they get

682
00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:44,279
Speaker 3: a note in the mail or something saying that she's

683
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 3: going to be kidnapped, and so they hide out in

684
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:50,319
Speaker 3: a hotel room under the supervision of a ketchee who

685
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:53,399
Speaker 3: intends to set a trap for the would be kidnappers.

686
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:56,800
Speaker 1: That's right, number one detective in Japan, the most expensive,

687
00:38:56,960 --> 00:38:58,319
Speaker 1: only the best for this guy's daughter.

688
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:01,120
Speaker 3: Now, technically, even though we we said it's clear who

689
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:04,000
Speaker 3: Black Lizard is at this point in the plot, Black

690
00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 3: Lizard is has not been revealed and is in disguise

691
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:11,440
Speaker 3: as a woman named Midori Kawa. And so this is

692
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:13,759
Speaker 3: how she's known to a catchy from the club. You know,

693
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:17,000
Speaker 3: he knows her as Midori Kawa. And then we go

694
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:21,480
Speaker 3: to the hotel lounge where Sinay is hanging out. And

695
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:24,960
Speaker 3: then also Midori Kawa and a handsome, well dressed man

696
00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:28,799
Speaker 3: named Yamakawa are getting to know Sinay. They like they're

697
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 3: talking to her in the hotel bar. For some reason,

698
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:34,319
Speaker 3: Sinay has been permitted to hang out at the bar

699
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:37,279
Speaker 3: by herself even though she's being targeted by kidnappers.

700
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's weird. It was the same way in

701
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 1: the sixty two versions, so I guess it's straight from

702
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:45,520
Speaker 1: the play and or book. Maybe the bar is considered

703
00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:49,239
Speaker 1: a safe public zone, or maybe Medora Kaba is just

704
00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 1: seeming it's just such a long time trusted client of

705
00:39:52,640 --> 00:39:55,799
Speaker 1: dads that you know, she's perfectly safe as long as

706
00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:56,279
Speaker 1: she's with her.

707
00:39:56,800 --> 00:40:01,359
Speaker 3: But Midori Kawa is being so creepy Sa Like, she's like, hey,

708
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 3: did you play volleyball in college? I would like to

709
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:05,640
Speaker 3: possess your body as a doll.

710
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:08,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, She's like, if I told you had a beautiful body,

711
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 1: would you hold it against me? If I preserved you

712
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 1: in a perfect soul of state? More poetic than that

713
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:20,720
Speaker 1: but yeah, yeah, but Black Lizard is always hitting on folks.

714
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:25,920
Speaker 3: Yes, So midri Kawa and her accomplice they lure Sinne

715
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 3: back to a room in the hotel, I think, on

716
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:33,279
Speaker 3: the promise of showing her like an antique doll. They're like, oh,

717
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:35,960
Speaker 3: we have this interesting artifact, and she's like, okay, I'll

718
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:39,520
Speaker 3: go look at it. But of course they kidnap her.

719
00:40:39,560 --> 00:40:42,520
Speaker 3: They like chloroform her and then stuff her into a trunk.

720
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:45,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Black Lizard is also like, go ahead and

721
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:46,600
Speaker 1: take her clothes off.

722
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, for no particular reason.

723
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 1: Well didn't she does he change into those clothes. There's

724
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:53,879
Speaker 1: kind of an initial fake out that I think maybe

725
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 1: initially she replaces Snae in Sona's clothes with her back

726
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 1: turned to her father, and then they end up replacing

727
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:05,360
Speaker 1: her in bed with the very dummy that you know

728
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:07,879
Speaker 1: would have been the doll in the box originally. That's

729
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:10,759
Speaker 1: why it is okay, yeah, but it is also played for,

730
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:13,960
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, for more alluring purposes here too.

731
00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:17,759
Speaker 3: So also somewhere in here, Yamakawa is revealed to be

732
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:21,800
Speaker 3: Unichi a'ma mia. This was the same guy, the despondent

733
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:25,239
Speaker 3: young man at the club earlier. Right, yes, yeah, this

734
00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:28,279
Speaker 3: is now Black Lizard's accomplice. And of course we know

735
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:32,120
Speaker 3: Midori Kawa is Black Lizard, but we are to understand

736
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:35,960
Speaker 3: the detective Aketchi does not know. So they pull a

737
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:41,280
Speaker 3: clever maneuver. Amamia takes Sannae inside the trunk and boards

738
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 3: a train going to some other city while Black Lizard

739
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:48,120
Speaker 3: stays at the hotel, and she tricks Iwase into thinking

740
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:51,160
Speaker 3: that Sanae is totally safe in the hotel room. First,

741
00:41:51,239 --> 00:41:55,440
Speaker 3: she like throws her voice and poses as her, like

742
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 3: pretending to be her from the other room, and I

743
00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 3: guess Iwase is He's like, I don't know, he's not

744
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 3: thrown off by the fact that this is not his

745
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:04,680
Speaker 3: daughter's voice.

746
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 1: Right or it's a perfect replicaver voice somehow, I don't know.

747
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:09,200
Speaker 1: At any rate, it works.

748
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 3: And then she tricks him into thinking that Senne is

749
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:15,480
Speaker 3: in her bed in the hotel room. It will later

750
00:42:15,560 --> 00:42:18,279
Speaker 3: be revealed that it's a huge doll under the blankings.

751
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:23,280
Speaker 3: But he oh, but Black Lizard has a message delivered

752
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 3: stating that Sene will be kidnapped exactly at midnight. So

753
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 3: while it was a sleeps soundly thinking that Sennae is

754
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:35,560
Speaker 3: asleep nearby, a Catchee stands guard in the living room

755
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:38,879
Speaker 3: of the hotel suite, passing the time by hanging out

756
00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 3: with Black Lizard, not knowing who she is, and this

757
00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:45,319
Speaker 3: leads to a great dialogue scene where Black Lizard, again

758
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:49,360
Speaker 3: in disguises, Midori Kawa and Detective at catchy play cards

759
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:54,080
Speaker 3: and talk about crime and love and their careers and

760
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:57,279
Speaker 3: their character. A lot of really fun dialogue here. Just

761
00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:00,840
Speaker 3: one example is they start talking about what it takes

762
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 3: to make a criminal, and Aketche says, consider three women.

763
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 3: A man gives a woman a bouquet of roses. A

764
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 3: caterpillar crawls out from between the petals. Disgusted, the woman

765
00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 3: throws the bouquet into the fireplace. Akechi says, this woman

766
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:20,480
Speaker 3: does not have what it takes to be a criminal.

767
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:24,280
Speaker 3: Now consider a second woman, same thing. She gets the flowers,

768
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 3: caterpillar crawls out of the flower. Instead of throwing the

769
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:31,040
Speaker 3: flowers into the fire, she plucks out the caterpillar and

770
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 3: throws it alone into the flames. Akechi says, she also

771
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:38,360
Speaker 3: is not a criminal. But consider a third woman. She

772
00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:41,720
Speaker 3: sees the caterpillar crawl out of the blossom. She throws

773
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:45,400
Speaker 3: neither the flowers nor the insect. Instead, she pushes the

774
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 3: man who gave her the flowers into the flames. Akechi says,

775
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:53,920
Speaker 3: this woman can be a criminal, but ironically she is

776
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:55,919
Speaker 3: the most tenderhearted of the three.

777
00:43:56,520 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 1: I'd be lying, I said that understood what the point

778
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:02,920
Speaker 1: is here, But I still love it, and I do

779
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:05,239
Speaker 1: want to see a line of Black Lizard Valentine's Day

780
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:07,479
Speaker 1: cards based on this and other quotes from the film.

781
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:10,479
Speaker 3: I think a Ketchee is making some kind of point

782
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 3: about like passion and boldness, that it's like the same thing,

783
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 3: the same thing that makes someone that have the deepest

784
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:20,839
Speaker 3: kind of love is also what makes someone the most

785
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:22,480
Speaker 3: like violent and dangerous.

786
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:25,880
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so maybe we're getting back into the territory

787
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:29,719
Speaker 1: here of, you know, of believing that crime should wear

788
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:32,719
Speaker 1: a gorgeous gown with a train fifteen feet long, both

789
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:36,040
Speaker 1: stylistically but also in terms of passion somehow.

790
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. They also talk. So they start playing cards

791
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:44,200
Speaker 3: and they put a wager up. A Ketchy is like, oh, well,

792
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:46,600
Speaker 3: you know you're rich. I can't really bet against you

793
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:49,640
Speaker 3: because you've got all this money, And Black Lizard says, well,

794
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:51,520
Speaker 3: I'll bet all my jewels, but you have to bet

795
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 3: your career as a detective. So I guess if Black

796
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:58,319
Speaker 3: Lizard wins the card game, aketche will no longer get

797
00:44:58,360 --> 00:44:59,960
Speaker 3: to be Japan's number one detective.

798
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a great scene, and I love the

799
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 1: way it was shot too. They're like playing on a

800
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:06,760
Speaker 1: glass countertop, I believe, and so we get some wonderful

801
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:10,000
Speaker 1: shots from below up through the card game as it's

802
00:45:10,040 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 1: taking place. And yeah, it's I believe. It's in this

803
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:16,880
Speaker 1: scene that we get a lot of contemplation about the

804
00:45:17,040 --> 00:45:20,279
Speaker 1: idea that a catchy is like the negative photo of

805
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:24,520
Speaker 1: a criminal. Yeah, and in a way, even though although

806
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:29,080
Speaker 1: Aketchi doesn't know that he's playing cards with the Black Lizards. Yeah,

807
00:45:29,120 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 1: this is very much a we're much the same you

808
00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:34,160
Speaker 1: and I speech that has become a standard trope, but

809
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 1: it's constructed in a fresh way. It has a very

810
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 1: fresh feeling to it.

811
00:45:39,320 --> 00:45:42,440
Speaker 3: This is better than most I mean it, this comes

812
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:45,239
Speaker 3: before things that would make the same point later. I think,

813
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:47,879
Speaker 3: you know, this is sort of the same point made

814
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:52,480
Speaker 3: in like Manhunter about the Thomas Harris character Will Graham.

815
00:45:52,680 --> 00:45:55,759
Speaker 3: It's like that he is able to think like a

816
00:45:55,920 --> 00:45:58,960
Speaker 3: killer or think like a criminal, and that's what makes

817
00:45:59,040 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 3: him a great detective. And Black Lizards saying the same

818
00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:03,560
Speaker 3: thing to a catchy here. It's that like, in order

819
00:46:03,680 --> 00:46:06,440
Speaker 3: to be a great detective, you must be able to

820
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:07,720
Speaker 3: think like a criminal.

821
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:10,800
Speaker 1: Now, is this the place? I may be skipping around?

822
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:13,040
Speaker 1: I may be thinking about something earlier or later. But

823
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:16,960
Speaker 1: there's one part where Black Lizard has an extended monologue

824
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:20,880
Speaker 1: anguishing over the fact that beauty must age and that

825
00:46:21,080 --> 00:46:23,719
Speaker 1: is the ultimate tragedy, and therefore she pines for a

826
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 1: soulless existence and the heart made of pure, made as

827
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:30,759
Speaker 1: pure and unbreakable as a diamond, both in her in

828
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:32,840
Speaker 1: herself but also in others.

829
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, it might be the scene.

830
00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:39,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, either way, the quest for the diamond Heart is

831
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:42,360
Speaker 1: one of the central themes of the film that we

832
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:43,600
Speaker 1: come back to again and again.

833
00:46:44,160 --> 00:46:46,279
Speaker 3: And this is the scene where Black Lizard and the

834
00:46:46,320 --> 00:46:49,560
Speaker 3: catchy do seem to be falling in love. Yes, but

835
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:52,399
Speaker 3: then remember the thing it was supposed to be. He's

836
00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:55,000
Speaker 3: standing guard there until the kidnapping, which is supposed to

837
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:58,480
Speaker 3: come at midnight, and midnight comes and nothing happens. What

838
00:46:58,680 --> 00:47:02,960
Speaker 3: gives absence at this point is revealed. They go in

839
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:05,239
Speaker 3: and like pull back the covers on the bed and oh,

840
00:47:05,320 --> 00:47:08,400
Speaker 3: it's just a doll in there. But it's a double

841
00:47:08,520 --> 00:47:12,320
Speaker 3: twist because we find out a catchy knew all along.

842
00:47:13,200 --> 00:47:15,600
Speaker 3: He lets his men run into the room and he

843
00:47:15,719 --> 00:47:18,720
Speaker 3: reveals that he knew that Senna had already been taken

844
00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 3: and he had his men collect the trunk and bring

845
00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:22,279
Speaker 3: her back. Yeah.

846
00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:24,480
Speaker 1: Again, Black Lizard really does feel like the main character,

847
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:26,840
Speaker 1: and all of this in part because we're generally clued

848
00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:30,320
Speaker 1: into what her plans are far more than a catchy's.

849
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:33,880
Speaker 1: Like a catchy ultimately ends up being like two steps

850
00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:36,799
Speaker 1: ahead of even the viewer. And I guess this corresponds

851
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:40,560
Speaker 1: to the often observed soft rule of caper films, and

852
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:42,840
Speaker 1: that you lay out all the beats of the caper

853
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:45,640
Speaker 1: that's going to ultimately fail, but you reveal the beats

854
00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:51,959
Speaker 1: of a successful caper in its very real time execution. Again,

855
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:55,080
Speaker 1: a catchy is essentially Sherlock Holmes here. He is a master,

856
00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:59,520
Speaker 1: you know, figuring out the criminal scheme and then trying

857
00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:01,799
Speaker 1: to be ahead of that. And I wonder too if

858
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:04,600
Speaker 1: that adds to why we might be rooting for Black Lizard,

859
00:48:04,680 --> 00:48:07,239
Speaker 1: because it's like, if you don't know who a catchy is,

860
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:10,040
Speaker 1: he's just another detective. But if you know that he's

861
00:48:10,120 --> 00:48:12,880
Speaker 1: the master detective, then you kind of know the fixes

862
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:15,840
Speaker 1: in from the beginning, like this is an unbeatable adversary

863
00:48:15,920 --> 00:48:17,920
Speaker 1: for Black Lizard, and therefore maybe we root for her

864
00:48:17,960 --> 00:48:18,640
Speaker 1: a little bit more.

865
00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:21,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, later in the story they do try to

866
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:25,919
Speaker 3: get ahead of that by showing a ketchee like doing

867
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 3: something sneaky and you think that he's being caught getting

868
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:35,440
Speaker 3: one over on Black Lizard, and then she gets one

869
00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:37,920
Speaker 3: over on him. But then there's like a triple twist

870
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:40,839
Speaker 3: where it's like, oh, no, he actually was there all along. Yes,

871
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 3: but anyway, so Black Lizard escapes this trap by stealing

872
00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:49,160
Speaker 3: a ketchy's gun from his coat pocket, using it to

873
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:52,200
Speaker 3: escape the hotel room, and then she gets out of

874
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:54,799
Speaker 3: the hotel by disguising herself as a man.

875
00:48:55,280 --> 00:48:57,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a fun sequence, And I guess really

876
00:48:57,040 --> 00:48:59,920
Speaker 1: the only nod that we see to me was drag performance,

877
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:00,560
Speaker 1: I suppose.

878
00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:12,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, So on to fight another day. So this sort

879
00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:14,960
Speaker 3: of gives way to Act two of the movie, the

880
00:49:15,080 --> 00:49:18,319
Speaker 3: previous plot having been foiled. We cut to the home

881
00:49:18,440 --> 00:49:22,640
Speaker 3: of Iwasea, where Black Lizard is determined to strike again.

882
00:49:22,920 --> 00:49:25,720
Speaker 3: So this middle sequence of the movie involves Black Lizard's

883
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:30,279
Speaker 3: second attempt at kidnapping Sinne and using the leverage of

884
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:33,920
Speaker 3: her kidnapping to acquire the jeweled necklace, the Star of Egypt.

885
00:49:34,360 --> 00:49:37,640
Speaker 3: So we meet a large cast of Hinchman here, hired

886
00:49:37,719 --> 00:49:41,680
Speaker 3: by Iwasa to protect the family. The gang is commanded

887
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:45,880
Speaker 3: by a new private detective, Matoba. And so there's like

888
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:48,480
Speaker 3: a furniture delivery truck that arrives at the house and

889
00:49:48,560 --> 00:49:51,279
Speaker 3: we see the whole gang run out to like menace them.

890
00:49:52,680 --> 00:49:56,280
Speaker 3: The delivery guys seem very frightened, but then they decide

891
00:49:56,320 --> 00:49:58,640
Speaker 3: it's okay. You know, it's a beautiful new futon that

892
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:02,040
Speaker 3: Iwasa did apparently actually orders. They bring it inside. They

893
00:50:02,080 --> 00:50:04,479
Speaker 3: talk about how it cost a bazillion bucks and so forth,

894
00:50:04,840 --> 00:50:07,320
Speaker 3: and the whole time Matoba is there just looking like

895
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:08,880
Speaker 3: he's just a statue.

896
00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:11,319
Speaker 1: He's great, just scowling the whole time.

897
00:50:11,960 --> 00:50:14,800
Speaker 3: Now, I think at this point we're supposed to believe

898
00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:17,759
Speaker 3: Aketchy has been dismissed from the case, or maybe he

899
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:18,759
Speaker 3: actually has been.

900
00:50:19,520 --> 00:50:22,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if he's Liken been completely pushed

901
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:26,760
Speaker 1: out but yeah, it's Matoba is now seemingly in charge

902
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:29,799
Speaker 1: of things and uh, and he seems a little eric

903
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:32,000
Speaker 1: that a catch, he's even showing up. It's like, no,

904
00:50:32,120 --> 00:50:34,480
Speaker 1: you failed, dude, I'm I'm I'm top now.

905
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:38,360
Speaker 3: But later that night there is an attack from inside

906
00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:43,560
Speaker 3: the house. I think it's Matoba catches Iwasa's housekeeper, Hena

907
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:48,080
Speaker 3: sending secret coded messages to someone via radio. She's like

908
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:50,960
Speaker 3: talking into a radio saying like the sea is a

909
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:54,880
Speaker 3: flame and stuff like that. But the tables are turned.

910
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:57,320
Speaker 3: How exactly is it revealed? Is it that Hena and

911
00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:01,800
Speaker 3: the big lug hinchman guy uh both gang up on Matoba.

912
00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:05,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if Matoba vetted these henchmen, but yeah,

913
00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:07,760
Speaker 1: it's like they all were in the pocket of Black Lizard.

914
00:51:07,880 --> 00:51:10,759
Speaker 1: We'll find out. So, yeah, everybody's looking at working for

915
00:51:10,880 --> 00:51:12,960
Speaker 1: Black Lizard here except for Matoba.

916
00:51:13,239 --> 00:51:16,600
Speaker 3: And this was the first reveal of Hena's like powers

917
00:51:16,719 --> 00:51:19,520
Speaker 3: and snake associations. What's the deal with this lady?

918
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:19,960
Speaker 4: Oh?

919
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:22,719
Speaker 1: I mean this is again. Is it magic? Is it

920
00:51:23,640 --> 00:51:26,520
Speaker 1: metaphor what's going on here? I don't know, but it's

921
00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:31,680
Speaker 1: tremendous because we see, Yeah, her eyes glitter yellow Demon's fire.

922
00:51:32,360 --> 00:51:36,879
Speaker 1: She flings constricting snakes as a weapon. So we've watched

923
00:51:36,920 --> 00:51:40,480
Speaker 1: movies with projectile snakes before on the show, namely nineteen

924
00:51:40,520 --> 00:51:43,680
Speaker 1: eighty one's Venom, where we get to see Kloskinski like

925
00:51:43,719 --> 00:51:45,840
Speaker 1: struggle with a rubber snake. And it's the kind of

926
00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:49,120
Speaker 1: thing that can easily look very rubber and fake. But

927
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:52,320
Speaker 1: I totally bought her and her snake bolos as a

928
00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:56,400
Speaker 1: legitimate threat. So she leaps out cool lighting on her

929
00:51:56,440 --> 00:52:00,719
Speaker 1: face and eyes lands this constricting snake right Aroundba's neck,

930
00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:05,040
Speaker 1: and the actor Nishi Mura just sells the living daylights

931
00:52:05,080 --> 00:52:08,120
Speaker 1: out of it, just thrashing around against the walls trying

932
00:52:08,160 --> 00:52:10,000
Speaker 1: to pull the snake off of his throat.

933
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:13,000
Speaker 3: Oh but it doesn't end there, right, everybody comes out

934
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:16,360
Speaker 3: because of the commotion, and then they find what they

935
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:18,200
Speaker 3: find black Lizard's calling card.

936
00:52:18,280 --> 00:52:20,960
Speaker 1: Here, right, there's the rubber lizard, but it is on

937
00:52:21,120 --> 00:52:24,640
Speaker 1: the palm of a disembodied hand that is on the couch,

938
00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:26,480
Speaker 1: which is now bloodied. They're gonna have to get rid

939
00:52:26,520 --> 00:52:30,839
Speaker 1: of that thing. And then they find Matoba in the bathtub,

940
00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:34,400
Speaker 1: like seemingly dead. I don't know, I can't remember if

941
00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:35,719
Speaker 1: he still has a snake on his neck or not,

942
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:38,640
Speaker 1: but he has a bloody stump. This is clearly his

943
00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:41,560
Speaker 1: hand out there, left on the couch with the with

944
00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:45,279
Speaker 1: the calling card on it. But then there's several you know,

945
00:52:45,360 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 1: guys looking in on the scene. And then Matoba rises

946
00:52:48,080 --> 00:52:50,880
Speaker 1: up out of the tub like a like a rampaging

947
00:52:51,080 --> 00:52:54,840
Speaker 1: zombie and comes rushing towards them with the stump, and

948
00:52:55,200 --> 00:52:57,440
Speaker 1: they all freak out and slam the door on him

949
00:52:57,480 --> 00:53:00,439
Speaker 1: as he thrust his bloody stump out through the door

950
00:53:00,640 --> 00:53:04,160
Speaker 1: after him, and then he finally busts through into the hallway,

951
00:53:04,600 --> 00:53:08,680
Speaker 1: slumps against the wall, slumps down and dies. Just a legit,

952
00:53:08,920 --> 00:53:10,160
Speaker 1: jaw dropping sequence for.

953
00:53:10,239 --> 00:53:14,680
Speaker 3: Me, that that scene is true, deeply crazy. I don't know,

954
00:53:14,840 --> 00:53:15,839
Speaker 3: it's it's really good.

955
00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:18,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like there's a lot of dialogue, but then

956
00:53:18,040 --> 00:53:20,560
Speaker 1: when the movie busts out these action sequences like this,

957
00:53:20,719 --> 00:53:21,399
Speaker 1: it's just they.

958
00:53:21,400 --> 00:53:23,279
Speaker 3: Really go for it. But as you mentioned, this is

959
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:25,880
Speaker 3: all part of the plot. The uh. Of course, the

960
00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:30,840
Speaker 3: attack gets blood all over the expensive new futon and

961
00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:34,759
Speaker 3: in the middle of Sine having been kidnapped again and

962
00:53:34,920 --> 00:53:38,239
Speaker 3: all that. Uh, they're like, oh wow, well get the

963
00:53:38,360 --> 00:53:42,320
Speaker 3: get this bloody futon out of the house. Yeah, what

964
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:42,759
Speaker 3: do you know?

965
00:53:43,040 --> 00:53:44,960
Speaker 1: And this is and we know what's up right, I mean,

966
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 1: this is another most twists. You know that they hit

967
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:50,279
Speaker 1: her in that couch, but it doesn't matter like this.

968
00:53:50,520 --> 00:53:53,279
Speaker 1: This all plays out like a like a myth, like

969
00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:55,360
Speaker 1: a like a fairy tale, and you just follow it.

970
00:53:55,760 --> 00:53:59,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there is. They're setting up an exchange at

971
00:54:00,120 --> 00:54:03,120
Speaker 3: the pier. So Black Lizard promises that Sina will be

972
00:54:03,320 --> 00:54:07,040
Speaker 3: returned safely if iwasa gives up the Star of Egypt

973
00:54:07,120 --> 00:54:10,759
Speaker 3: at a drop off point at the port, and he does.

974
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 3: He shows up with the jewels, but Black Lizard is

975
00:54:13,719 --> 00:54:16,880
Speaker 3: treacherous and does not return his daughter because it seems

976
00:54:16,920 --> 00:54:20,120
Speaker 3: like Black Lizard wants Sinnay even more than she wants

977
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:20,760
Speaker 3: the jewels.

978
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:21,359
Speaker 4: Yeah.

979
00:54:21,560 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, so she's just going to keep them both. So sorry,

980
00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:29,359
Speaker 1: you've been double crossed. But Black Lizard gets what Black Lizard.

981
00:54:29,080 --> 00:54:32,080
Speaker 3: Wants and this leads to a chase with like private

982
00:54:32,160 --> 00:54:36,200
Speaker 3: detectives and cars and these motorcycle henchmen with smoke screens.

983
00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:39,280
Speaker 3: These movies of the time really loved a like multi

984
00:54:39,360 --> 00:54:43,160
Speaker 3: colored smoke screen getaway that's in danger diabolic as well.

985
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, this whole sequence was very danger diabolic. But they

986
00:54:48,520 --> 00:54:49,960
Speaker 1: and this is one of those things you have to note,

987
00:54:50,480 --> 00:54:52,920
Speaker 1: they get away but sort of don't, like we have

988
00:54:53,040 --> 00:54:56,759
Speaker 1: to again do all the math of Aketche's scheming and

989
00:54:56,840 --> 00:55:01,239
Speaker 1: counter scheming versus Black lizards scheming and counter scheming. The

990
00:55:01,360 --> 00:55:02,760
Speaker 1: viewer is just along for the ride.

991
00:55:03,080 --> 00:55:06,240
Speaker 3: So Black Lizard escapes to her steamership with both Sennae

992
00:55:06,520 --> 00:55:09,399
Speaker 3: and the jewels. But will Aketchi be able to save

993
00:55:09,480 --> 00:55:12,200
Speaker 3: the day? And here we go to a scene in

994
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:17,600
Speaker 3: Black Lizard's cabin on the boat that can you describe

995
00:55:17,680 --> 00:55:18,080
Speaker 3: this realm?

996
00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:20,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we know the deal with this futon. This

997
00:55:21,120 --> 00:55:25,719
Speaker 1: is how they just kidnapped her successfully for the second time. Uh,

998
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:29,400
Speaker 1: And here's the couch that the futon in Black Lizard's

999
00:55:29,680 --> 00:55:33,560
Speaker 1: chambers and she begins to realize what we the viewers

1000
00:55:33,600 --> 00:55:38,040
Speaker 1: suspect that Aketchie has hidden himself in that futon, and

1001
00:55:38,400 --> 00:55:41,319
Speaker 1: so she starts speaking to him in there. She has

1002
00:55:41,400 --> 00:55:44,960
Speaker 1: her her her gang come in and like strap the

1003
00:55:45,160 --> 00:55:47,879
Speaker 1: new straps around the futon so that he can't get out,

1004
00:55:48,680 --> 00:55:52,640
Speaker 1: and then she sends the gang back outside and she

1005
00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:55,439
Speaker 1: kind of gets this like this this tender sequence where

1006
00:55:55,800 --> 00:56:00,799
Speaker 1: she speaks to Aketchi, imprisoned in the futonveals her love

1007
00:56:00,880 --> 00:56:03,439
Speaker 1: to him, as well as her great fear of that love,

1008
00:56:03,560 --> 00:56:06,440
Speaker 1: fear for what will change in her, because it is

1009
00:56:06,520 --> 00:56:08,560
Speaker 1: all the antithesis of the diamond heart.

1010
00:56:09,080 --> 00:56:09,239
Speaker 4: You know.

1011
00:56:09,400 --> 00:56:11,560
Speaker 1: It's like, if I give into my love for you,

1012
00:56:11,920 --> 00:56:15,520
Speaker 1: then then I'm changing in a frightening way, and I

1013
00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:18,480
Speaker 1: can't have that, you know. And also you're my enemy,

1014
00:56:18,520 --> 00:56:21,560
Speaker 1: so either way, I'm gonna have to kill you, and

1015
00:56:21,880 --> 00:56:25,000
Speaker 1: so that's what she seemingly does. She runs the couch

1016
00:56:25,120 --> 00:56:28,359
Speaker 1: through with a sword from the wall. Blood drips out

1017
00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:30,719
Speaker 1: onto the floor. At that Up until that point, I

1018
00:56:30,760 --> 00:56:32,839
Speaker 1: wasn't sure it even had anyone in there, because that's

1019
00:56:32,880 --> 00:56:35,160
Speaker 1: the thing, you know, a catch. He's not in there really,

1020
00:56:35,320 --> 00:56:37,680
Speaker 1: you know, he is a tape recorder or something. But

1021
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:40,479
Speaker 1: blood comes out, and then she has the gang throw

1022
00:56:40,680 --> 00:56:44,080
Speaker 1: the skewered, strapped sofa overboard into the ocean.

1023
00:56:44,719 --> 00:56:47,640
Speaker 3: We see it like disappearing rapidly into the dark water

1024
00:56:47,760 --> 00:56:49,759
Speaker 3: behind the ship. It's a very evocative shot.

1025
00:56:50,360 --> 00:56:52,040
Speaker 1: And she's out there on the deck, you know, feeling

1026
00:56:52,040 --> 00:56:55,080
Speaker 1: a bit melancholy by herself. And then a new character emerges,

1027
00:56:55,600 --> 00:56:58,440
Speaker 1: who we quickly learn is a trusted hunchback com minion

1028
00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:03,840
Speaker 1: of hers and he kind of like you know, saunters

1029
00:57:03,920 --> 00:57:07,000
Speaker 1: up onto the deck there, and he apologizes to her

1030
00:57:07,040 --> 00:57:08,960
Speaker 1: for not having been there when all this went down.

1031
00:57:09,080 --> 00:57:11,759
Speaker 1: He says, I was asleep. He offers some comfort and

1032
00:57:11,840 --> 00:57:14,000
Speaker 1: she's like, that's nice. I appreciate it, but I need

1033
00:57:14,080 --> 00:57:16,240
Speaker 1: some time alone. And of course this is one of

1034
00:57:16,280 --> 00:57:17,000
Speaker 1: those moments.

1035
00:57:16,760 --> 00:57:21,120
Speaker 3: We're already like hmm, yeah about this guy. We're never

1036
00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:24,360
Speaker 3: seeing his face, Like his face is always downturned. Wonder

1037
00:57:24,440 --> 00:57:24,760
Speaker 3: about that.

1038
00:57:25,040 --> 00:57:28,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you will have your suspicions. Those suspicions may

1039
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:32,280
Speaker 1: prove correct. But again in this film, it doesn't matter.

1040
00:57:32,360 --> 00:57:34,360
Speaker 1: You're along for the ride because if this, if you

1041
00:57:34,440 --> 00:57:37,760
Speaker 1: suspect that this hunch back is actually a catchy okay,

1042
00:57:37,880 --> 00:57:40,560
Speaker 1: then the question is when will he dramatically reveal himself.

1043
00:57:40,640 --> 00:57:42,480
Speaker 1: And that's what we're on board for.

1044
00:57:43,080 --> 00:57:45,160
Speaker 3: So we're here at act three, where we make it

1045
00:57:45,240 --> 00:57:49,920
Speaker 3: all the way to Black Lizard's Fortress of fortress of

1046
00:57:50,960 --> 00:57:56,000
Speaker 3: I don't know of crimtude. Yeah, So the ship arrives

1047
00:57:56,120 --> 00:57:58,960
Speaker 3: and Rob, can you describe this place? I would kind

1048
00:57:59,000 --> 00:58:03,200
Speaker 3: of compare it to Bit to Scare Manga's Layer in

1049
00:58:03,280 --> 00:58:04,520
Speaker 3: the Men with the golden gun.

1050
00:58:05,520 --> 00:58:08,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it is. It is a campy de light

1051
00:58:08,400 --> 00:58:11,000
Speaker 1: that brings that to mind. It brings to mind the

1052
00:58:11,200 --> 00:58:17,040
Speaker 1: various layers of doctor fibes as well as danger diabolic fibes.

1053
00:58:17,080 --> 00:58:18,920
Speaker 1: Would very much approve of this because it's essentially a

1054
00:58:19,000 --> 00:58:23,600
Speaker 1: cabaret ballroom where we see the taxidermied or otherwise preserved.

1055
00:58:23,880 --> 00:58:26,000
Speaker 1: You know, the exact science of this doesn't matter. The

1056
00:58:26,080 --> 00:58:30,000
Speaker 1: preserved bodies of the beautiful ones that she's collected on display,

1057
00:58:30,160 --> 00:58:33,440
Speaker 1: these dolls, wax figures, however you want to make them.

1058
00:58:34,160 --> 00:58:37,480
Speaker 1: There are all these curtains, we see these often topless figures,

1059
00:58:38,280 --> 00:58:41,200
Speaker 1: and as always in these films, these are, of course films,

1060
00:58:41,200 --> 00:58:44,040
Speaker 1: these are of course live actors, frozen and still life,

1061
00:58:44,200 --> 00:58:46,720
Speaker 1: which just compounds the creepiness of the situation.

1062
00:58:47,320 --> 00:58:51,680
Speaker 3: So she's like going through here showing Sinnay all of

1063
00:58:51,800 --> 00:58:55,760
Speaker 3: these these frozen people, and it's leading up to the

1064
00:58:56,200 --> 00:58:58,760
Speaker 3: explanation that like, Sinay, I'm going to make you one

1065
00:58:58,840 --> 00:59:00,520
Speaker 3: of my frozen wax here.

1066
00:59:01,080 --> 00:59:03,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we see that one of the main tableaus,

1067
00:59:03,800 --> 00:59:06,280
Speaker 1: because they're all posed in dramatic poses, you know, it's

1068
00:59:06,280 --> 00:59:08,800
Speaker 1: like a wax museum. One of the tableaus concerns a

1069
00:59:08,880 --> 00:59:13,480
Speaker 1: pair of knife fighters with a particularly absolutely jacked combatant

1070
00:59:13,960 --> 00:59:18,080
Speaker 1: like just you know, rippling muscles stabbing his opponent in

1071
00:59:18,280 --> 00:59:22,600
Speaker 1: mid grapple. The shirtless stabber here is played by Mishima,

1072
00:59:23,160 --> 00:59:26,000
Speaker 1: and a brief backstory is kind of revealed visually where

1073
00:59:26,040 --> 00:59:28,680
Speaker 1: we It looks like these two men were made to

1074
00:59:28,800 --> 00:59:32,720
Speaker 1: fight to the death for Black Lizard's affections, and I

1075
00:59:32,800 --> 00:59:36,480
Speaker 1: guess both both victor and the defeated here end up

1076
00:59:37,440 --> 00:59:39,479
Speaker 1: being immortalized as a doll.

1077
00:59:39,760 --> 00:59:41,360
Speaker 3: I didn't know if there was a victor. It looked

1078
00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:43,640
Speaker 3: like they were both stabbing each other at the same time.

1079
00:59:43,800 --> 00:59:47,640
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, they well in a way, then I guess

1080
00:59:47,680 --> 00:59:51,320
Speaker 1: they both lost and boast both won because that's the thing.

1081
00:59:52,240 --> 00:59:54,480
Speaker 1: You lose and that you die, but you win to

1082
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:57,400
Speaker 1: a certain extent in that you are immortalized in Black

1083
00:59:57,480 --> 01:00:02,520
Speaker 1: Lizard's layer, and in this without life, without a soul,

1084
01:00:03,120 --> 01:00:05,000
Speaker 1: then you know you have come as close to the

1085
01:00:05,040 --> 01:00:10,200
Speaker 1: Diamond Heart as possible and therefore are deserving of her

1086
01:00:10,360 --> 01:00:11,160
Speaker 1: true affections.

1087
01:00:11,440 --> 01:00:13,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems that men are just sort of like

1088
01:00:13,920 --> 01:00:18,160
Speaker 3: lining up to die for Black Lizard and be preserved

1089
01:00:18,240 --> 01:00:21,480
Speaker 3: as a statue in her layer forever. They're ready for it.

1090
01:00:21,800 --> 01:00:23,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, and women too. I guess it's like men and

1091
01:00:24,000 --> 01:00:28,160
Speaker 1: women on display. But this is this moment where again

1092
01:00:28,400 --> 01:00:33,120
Speaker 1: it's far more than cameo because this the jacked stabber

1093
01:00:33,240 --> 01:00:37,600
Speaker 1: played by Mashima. Here she moves in and she kisses

1094
01:00:37,680 --> 01:00:40,240
Speaker 1: him on the lips, and what is I think the

1095
01:00:40,360 --> 01:00:43,480
Speaker 1: only kiss that we see in the picture. Could be

1096
01:00:43,520 --> 01:00:45,840
Speaker 1: wrong on that, but it certainly is the most important one,

1097
01:00:46,200 --> 01:00:48,800
Speaker 1: and it's a really powerful moment and a moment that

1098
01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:53,160
Speaker 1: is also very crushing for the musician I'm Amiya who

1099
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:56,240
Speaker 1: is watching on because this is what causes him to

1100
01:00:56,400 --> 01:00:59,240
Speaker 1: turn against Black Lizard, because he tries to help San

1101
01:00:59,360 --> 01:01:02,479
Speaker 1: a brief locking the master criminal in her own cell.

1102
01:01:03,080 --> 01:01:03,520
Speaker 3: But then we.

1103
01:01:03,600 --> 01:01:07,160
Speaker 1: Eventually learned that this kiss didn't so much as turn

1104
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:10,040
Speaker 1: him against Black Lizard. He's not like, oh, I'm really

1105
01:01:10,160 --> 01:01:13,560
Speaker 1: not into you, you know, kissing the preserved bodies of

1106
01:01:14,120 --> 01:01:17,640
Speaker 1: dead men. No, it made him turn against Black Lizard

1107
01:01:17,720 --> 01:01:21,000
Speaker 1: because he realized the only way to fulfill his obsession

1108
01:01:21,480 --> 01:01:24,680
Speaker 1: was through death. A bold action like this he hopes

1109
01:01:24,720 --> 01:01:27,720
Speaker 1: will result first in his death and then in his

1110
01:01:27,800 --> 01:01:29,960
Speaker 1: immortalization as one of her dolls.

1111
01:01:30,560 --> 01:01:34,880
Speaker 3: Right, so he's like, now I'm just the unappreciated lackey

1112
01:01:35,240 --> 01:01:39,200
Speaker 3: of Black Lizard, But he realizes that she truly loves

1113
01:01:39,320 --> 01:01:42,840
Speaker 3: her sort of stuffed statue figures, and the only way

1114
01:01:42,880 --> 01:01:45,160
Speaker 3: he can really be loved by her is to make

1115
01:01:45,320 --> 01:01:49,160
Speaker 3: her kill him in punishment for his treachery and turn

1116
01:01:49,280 --> 01:01:51,640
Speaker 3: him into a statue, and then he'll be loved by her.

1117
01:01:52,000 --> 01:01:56,360
Speaker 1: So that'm on me, Redemption Arch, he enters a very

1118
01:01:56,520 --> 01:02:01,240
Speaker 1: like like even more tragic and weird section because again,

1119
01:02:01,400 --> 01:02:04,640
Speaker 1: for Black Lizard, perfect love is soulless. It's the diamond heart,

1120
01:02:04,680 --> 01:02:06,680
Speaker 1: and the only place she truly knows where to find

1121
01:02:06,720 --> 01:02:09,640
Speaker 1: this is in her is in her dolls as a

1122
01:02:09,720 --> 01:02:12,040
Speaker 1: means of cultivating it as well in herself.

1123
01:02:12,440 --> 01:02:15,400
Speaker 3: Oh man, But there are some more twists that come

1124
01:02:15,480 --> 01:02:19,000
Speaker 3: in now. One of the weirdest choices I thought is

1125
01:02:19,520 --> 01:02:23,600
Speaker 3: so Sinay and Emma Mia are both kept in this

1126
01:02:23,720 --> 01:02:27,840
Speaker 3: prison cell. Emma discloses everything here. He's like, yeah, here's

1127
01:02:27,880 --> 01:02:29,560
Speaker 3: what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get turned

1128
01:02:29,560 --> 01:02:30,320
Speaker 3: into a statue.

1129
01:02:31,240 --> 01:02:31,360
Speaker 4: Uh.

1130
01:02:31,720 --> 01:02:36,480
Speaker 3: And then Sinay reveals I'm not actually sinnae Yes, I

1131
01:02:36,640 --> 01:02:39,600
Speaker 3: am a body double. I am a woman named Yoko

1132
01:02:40,240 --> 01:02:43,520
Speaker 3: who was hired by a Catchee to pretend to be

1133
01:02:43,720 --> 01:02:47,680
Speaker 3: Snae to keep her safe from Black Lizard. And I

1134
01:02:47,840 --> 01:02:50,040
Speaker 3: think this is not just for part of the movie.

1135
01:02:50,120 --> 01:02:54,080
Speaker 3: I think this character the entire film has actually just

1136
01:02:54,200 --> 01:02:56,320
Speaker 3: been this body double named Yoko.

1137
01:02:56,680 --> 01:02:58,720
Speaker 1: I believe, so that's the way I interpret it.

1138
01:02:58,880 --> 01:03:03,560
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, Also Yoko the body double and I'm Gonna

1139
01:03:03,560 --> 01:03:06,480
Speaker 3: be a they sort of bond over the fact that

1140
01:03:06,640 --> 01:03:10,520
Speaker 3: they are both both frauds in some way, and then

1141
01:03:10,640 --> 01:03:12,440
Speaker 3: they fall in love while imprisoned.

1142
01:03:12,680 --> 01:03:15,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so then we get the redemption art more

1143
01:03:15,120 --> 01:03:18,680
Speaker 1: or less back on track for our men. I'm amiya here,

1144
01:03:19,080 --> 01:03:21,720
Speaker 1: but from here we work our way into the big finish. Okay,

1145
01:03:21,760 --> 01:03:24,200
Speaker 1: that Hunchback reveal that we saw coming a mile away,

1146
01:03:24,600 --> 01:03:27,800
Speaker 1: it happens. It is a catchy. It's been a CATCHI

1147
01:03:27,880 --> 01:03:31,320
Speaker 1: the whole time. The actual hunchback was in the futon

1148
01:03:31,440 --> 01:03:34,520
Speaker 1: and was stabbed through. The Snake Woman goes in for

1149
01:03:34,600 --> 01:03:35,160
Speaker 1: the kill. Okay.

1150
01:03:35,240 --> 01:03:35,400
Speaker 4: Well.

1151
01:03:35,480 --> 01:03:38,520
Speaker 1: Also, Akechi's men, like the fuzz show up there on

1152
01:03:38,600 --> 01:03:40,120
Speaker 1: the scene. I don't know where they came from, but

1153
01:03:40,200 --> 01:03:43,560
Speaker 1: they know backups have arrived. Snake Woman goes in for

1154
01:03:43,640 --> 01:03:46,840
Speaker 1: the kill against a Ketchi, but Black Lizard stops her

1155
01:03:47,000 --> 01:03:51,040
Speaker 1: and kills Snake Woman dead. Black Lizard then retreats into

1156
01:03:51,120 --> 01:03:54,360
Speaker 1: her inner chambers. Aketchee follows. He pursues, but when he

1157
01:03:54,440 --> 01:03:57,720
Speaker 1: finds her, she has already taken a fatal poison, and

1158
01:03:57,840 --> 01:03:59,919
Speaker 1: so the two of them lounge together on her calp

1159
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:03,920
Speaker 1: like lovers, sharing a tender moment, and she observes that

1160
01:04:04,080 --> 01:04:07,440
Speaker 1: she has at last found the perfect diamond heart in

1161
01:04:07,560 --> 01:04:11,919
Speaker 1: a catchy because he was able to outsmarter and out

1162
01:04:12,080 --> 01:04:15,800
Speaker 1: double and triple cross her, you know, and then she

1163
01:04:16,000 --> 01:04:20,080
Speaker 1: dies in this Yeah, this this tragic and beautiful like

1164
01:04:20,160 --> 01:04:23,720
Speaker 1: Shakespearean moment. And then I'm a Mia and son or

1165
01:04:23,760 --> 01:04:27,080
Speaker 1: the fake sonn run off together. There now a couple.

1166
01:04:27,440 --> 01:04:30,080
Speaker 1: The case is solved, but we close out with a

1167
01:04:30,120 --> 01:04:32,920
Speaker 1: lot of stylish shots of Black Lizard as the credits roll,

1168
01:04:33,000 --> 01:04:34,880
Speaker 1: because it's you know, we got to leave everything on

1169
01:04:34,960 --> 01:04:36,640
Speaker 1: a stylish happy note.

1170
01:04:36,720 --> 01:04:40,320
Speaker 3: To a certain extent, I almost took the happy ending

1171
01:04:40,400 --> 01:04:44,480
Speaker 3: for Ama Mia and the Sanae body double Yoko. I

1172
01:04:44,560 --> 01:04:47,040
Speaker 3: almost took that as is, like it was supposed to

1173
01:04:47,120 --> 01:04:49,920
Speaker 3: be funny the way they're just allowed to run off together.

1174
01:04:50,760 --> 01:04:53,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, maybe that is a splash of comedy where

1175
01:04:53,320 --> 01:04:56,640
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, we're both fakes, but we're in love now.

1176
01:04:56,720 --> 01:04:58,560
Speaker 1: And then then they run off together, like, where are

1177
01:04:58,560 --> 01:05:02,160
Speaker 1: you guys going? You're on a criminal mastermind, Like you

1178
01:05:02,240 --> 01:05:05,560
Speaker 1: should probably hang around and leave with the police, But

1179
01:05:06,200 --> 01:05:06,520
Speaker 1: I don't know.

1180
01:05:06,920 --> 01:05:09,840
Speaker 3: Well, I thought Black Lizard was a rollicking good time.

1181
01:05:10,640 --> 01:05:13,440
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I had high hopes for this film, and it

1182
01:05:13,520 --> 01:05:16,200
Speaker 1: didn't disappoint. I was interested when I read about it

1183
01:05:16,680 --> 01:05:20,360
Speaker 1: in Fukusaku's filmography, when we talked about him previously, and

1184
01:05:20,520 --> 01:05:22,840
Speaker 1: then when I went and rented it at Video Drum

1185
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:25,560
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, John, one of the crew there, really

1186
01:05:25,640 --> 01:05:29,400
Speaker 1: talked it up, and again the film absolutely delivered. Maybe

1187
01:05:29,480 --> 01:05:32,640
Speaker 1: I'm a romanticist, but now I too believe that crime

1188
01:05:32,680 --> 01:05:35,720
Speaker 1: should wear a gorgeous gown with a train fifteen feet long,

1189
01:05:36,240 --> 01:05:38,320
Speaker 1: just like the primordial dreams of lizards.

1190
01:05:38,800 --> 01:05:41,440
Speaker 3: Well said, all right, well.

1191
01:05:41,320 --> 01:05:42,960
Speaker 1: We're going to go ahead and close it out here.

1192
01:05:44,160 --> 01:05:46,200
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed our chat about Black Lizard, and

1193
01:05:46,440 --> 01:05:48,720
Speaker 1: more importantly, I hope you enjoy Black Lizard. I hope

1194
01:05:48,720 --> 01:05:50,000
Speaker 1: you're able to get a hold of it, and I

1195
01:05:50,080 --> 01:05:52,960
Speaker 1: hope that, hopefully in the not too distant future, we

1196
01:05:53,080 --> 01:05:56,400
Speaker 1: see an actual like Blu Ray release for this film,

1197
01:05:56,480 --> 01:05:59,280
Speaker 1: it's very deserving of it, and hey, you might be

1198
01:05:59,360 --> 01:06:01,400
Speaker 1: lucky enough to see at a film festival somewhere, and

1199
01:06:01,680 --> 01:06:03,720
Speaker 1: if you give the chance, make sure you do it.

1200
01:06:04,440 --> 01:06:07,040
Speaker 1: Reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a

1201
01:06:07,160 --> 01:06:09,960
Speaker 1: science and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,

1202
01:06:10,000 --> 01:06:12,120
Speaker 1: but we do listener mail on Mondays, short form episodes

1203
01:06:12,160 --> 01:06:14,840
Speaker 1: on Wednesdays, and on Fridays. We set aside most serious

1204
01:06:14,880 --> 01:06:17,560
Speaker 1: concerns to just talk about a weird film on weird

1205
01:06:17,640 --> 01:06:19,880
Speaker 1: House Cinema. If you want to see a complete list

1206
01:06:19,920 --> 01:06:21,960
Speaker 1: of all the movies we've covered thus far, and sometimes

1207
01:06:22,000 --> 01:06:24,480
Speaker 1: a peek ahead at what's to come, go to letterbox

1208
01:06:24,560 --> 01:06:26,080
Speaker 1: dot com. It's l E T T E R B

1209
01:06:26,160 --> 01:06:28,720
Speaker 1: O x D dot com. Our username is weird House

1210
01:06:28,760 --> 01:06:30,360
Speaker 1: and we've got a wonderful list there that you can

1211
01:06:30,440 --> 01:06:34,000
Speaker 1: peruse and see what might be up your alley and

1212
01:06:34,080 --> 01:06:36,640
Speaker 1: what you want to add to your own to watch list.

1213
01:06:37,240 --> 01:06:41,240
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.

1214
01:06:41,400 --> 01:06:42,920
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1215
01:06:43,000 --> 01:06:45,560
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to saggest

1216
01:06:45,640 --> 01:06:47,680
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1217
01:06:48,120 --> 01:06:50,800
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1218
01:06:50,840 --> 01:06:51,880
Speaker 3: Your Mind dot com.

1219
01:06:58,600 --> 01:07:01,520
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is product of iHeartRadio. For

1220
01:07:01,640 --> 01:07:05,440
Speaker 2: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1221
01:07:05,560 --> 01:07:07,320
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