Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob
Speaker 1: Lamb and we have a fun one. This one originally
Speaker 1: published five thirty one, twenty twenty four. This is our
Speaker 1: discussion of the super weird, super stylish nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 1: super criminal ROMP Black Lizard. This is a real gem
Speaker 1: from Weird Japanese Cinema. Tremendously enjoyed this one ever since
Speaker 1: we recorded this episode. This is a film that keeps
Speaker 1: jumping back into my mind. I keep thinking back on it.
Speaker 1: It's just so stylish, so fun, pretty much one of
Speaker 1: a kind. So without further ado, let's dive right into
Speaker 1: that episode.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick. And hey, folks, I said
Speaker 3: this on yesterday's episode, but I want to say again
Speaker 3: if I sound unusual in today's episode, if I sound
Speaker 3: a little hoarse, it is because I've got a bit
Speaker 3: of a cold. But a bit of a cold could
Speaker 3: not stop me from talking about today's movie on Weird House,
Speaker 3: which is nineteen sixty eight's Black Lizard.
Speaker 1: We should have worked it into the picture and so
Speaker 1: that you sound like you do because a strange woman
Speaker 1: with demon yellow eyes threw a constricting snake at your neck, right,
Speaker 1: But it's more mundane are the causes here. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we have yet another cult favorite gem from Japanese cinema today,
Speaker 1: and it follows the traditions of Danger Diabolic in that
Speaker 1: it is another super criminal film, full of style, full
Speaker 1: of visual bizazz. It's campy, it's bizarre, but also I
Speaker 1: think with a lot of interesting depth. As you dig
Speaker 1: into it, we're going to be talking about nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: eight's Black Lizard. Today's film is also notable in that
Speaker 1: it is entirely centered around a charismatic drag performance. The
Speaker 1: title character, Black Lizard or Chorro Tokagi, is a stylish
Speaker 1: female super criminal played in this film by prominent drag performer,
Speaker 1: really famous and legendary drag performer Akihiro Miwa, who will
Speaker 1: have more information about here in a bit, but a
Speaker 1: true legend, a cultural figure of note, and it's all
Speaker 1: played out seriously and thoughtfully, never for a giggle in
Speaker 1: a wink. I've seen descriptions of this film as a comedy.
Speaker 1: I think the current Internet Movie Database summary, for example,
Speaker 1: says it's a comedy in the summary, and I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's one hundred percent accurate. It is
Speaker 1: a tremendously fun film. It is certainly camp, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't really seem to play for laughs. But again, it
Speaker 1: is tremendously fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are funny things in it. It certainly has
Speaker 3: an over the top sensibility, but I would say it
Speaker 3: plays a lot more as kind of a serious tragic
Speaker 3: romance and as a crime thriller more certainly more than
Speaker 3: as a comedy. I would say it is no more
Speaker 3: a comedy than Danger Diabolic as a comedy, and also
Speaker 3: in Diabolic there are funny scenes and an absurd gratuitousness.
Speaker 3: There's similar movies in a lot of ways, but neither
Speaker 3: one really has the moment to moment focus on laughs
Speaker 3: that a comedy usually does.
Speaker 1: All right, elevator pitch for this film, I want to
Speaker 1: approach it two ways. One, I would say it's the
Speaker 1: forbidden love of a super criminal and an ace detective
Speaker 1: realized in a stylish sixties counterculture Japanese cinema festival for
Speaker 1: the Eyes. But I also think that there's one line
Speaker 1: in particular in translation here. Of course, we both watched
Speaker 1: it with subtitles. I don't think a dub exists, and
Speaker 1: I don't think I would want the dub. I think
Speaker 1: I would want the subtitles. But there's one great line
Speaker 1: where our main character, a CATCHI, the number one detective
Speaker 1: in Japan, is speaking to Black Lizard, the super criminal,
Speaker 1: and says, Black Lizard, you were an old fashioned romanticist
Speaker 1: in this age soiled by corruption and murder. You believe
Speaker 1: that crime should wear a gorgeous gown with a train
Speaker 1: fifteen feet long, just like the primordial dreams of lizards.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, like those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's I mean. If you love that line,
Speaker 1: you'll love this film. This film perfectly delivers on like
Speaker 1: the glorious, poetic weirdness of that statement. All right now.
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to find what I could one hundred
Speaker 1: percent feel certain about concerning a trailer in Japanese or otherwise.
Speaker 1: So what I did find was a trailer that was
Speaker 1: uploaded by Brooklyn's Spectacle Theater, which I've never been to,
Speaker 1: but it looks amazing. It's a collectively run screening space
Speaker 1: run by movie loving volunteers, and they play a lot
Speaker 1: of just great looking stuff, including some films that we've
Speaker 1: covered on Weird House before. Like just at the time
Speaker 1: of this recording, I'm like, oh, what are they playing
Speaker 1: this week at this place? And they're playing Doctor of Doom,
Speaker 1: which is a wonderful Mexican luchadora film that we've covered
Speaker 1: in the past. So so go check them out Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Spectacle Theater. We're going to borrow part of the trailer
Speaker 1: they uploaded. Again. I'm not sure if this is part
Speaker 1: of an original trailer part of a trailer that they made,
Speaker 1: but either way, it'll give you just a little sonic
Speaker 1: taste of Black Lizard.
Speaker 4: You know that I've got a hunt lifecated data on
Speaker 4: gen Shun.
Speaker 1: All right now, if you want to go out and
Speaker 1: watch Black Lizard before proceeding with the rest of this episode. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sad to say this one is tragically hard to
Speaker 1: find right now as of this recording, as of this moment,
Speaker 1: despite the film having had an official international and US release,
Speaker 1: even if a limited one back in nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: even though it had subsequent re releases in Japan and
Speaker 1: and abroad over the decades to follow. It might have
Speaker 1: been released on VHS at one point, as Michael Weldon,
Speaker 1: who loved it, references a tape in his Psychotronic Video
Speaker 1: guide book. I'm not sure if he's referring to a
Speaker 1: legit tape or or you know, more of a gray
Speaker 1: market sort of thing. But yeah, it's a real shame
Speaker 1: because this is a fabulous film with a cult following.
Speaker 1: It has cultural significance, historical significance as well, and it
Speaker 1: deserves to be seen by more film fans and the
Speaker 1: best quality possible. If you look around, you can find
Speaker 1: some sources for it. But I also have to stress
Speaker 1: that this is the nineteen sixty eight Black Lizard or
Speaker 1: Coro Toakagi film, not to be confused with other films
Speaker 1: titled Black Lizard, including an unrelated Shaw Brothers Hong Kong
Speaker 1: film titled Black Lizard from nineteen eighty one, or a
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two Japanese film titled Black Lizard that is
Speaker 1: actually an earlier adaptation of the same novel in the
Speaker 1: same play. I've seen part of the sixty two film,
Speaker 1: and it's also quite stylish and quite good. I was
Speaker 1: about like twenty minutes into it before I realized, oh,
Speaker 1: I have the wrong movie. I need to find I
Speaker 1: need to look around a little art. I think the
Speaker 1: sixty two win is actually maybe you can stream it
Speaker 1: through Criterion Collection. So, but it would not be a
Speaker 1: loss to watch the sixty two version. You're going to
Speaker 1: hit a lot of the same plot points we're hitting here.
Speaker 1: But we are talking about the nineteen sixty eight adaptation
Speaker 1: here today.
Speaker 3: Now when it comes to the sixty eight version, the
Speaker 3: director is actually somebody quite familiar on Weird House.
Speaker 1: That's right, it's Kenji of Fukusaku, who lived nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: through two thousand and three. He directed nineteen seventy eight's
Speaker 1: Message from Space.
Speaker 3: Ah and nice best of the Star Wars repol.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a one we covered early on on
Speaker 1: Weird House, and he also directed nineteen sixty eight so
Speaker 1: The Green Slime, which we covered far more recently. Both
Speaker 1: very enjoyable films in their own distinct ways and also
Speaker 1: rather different from today's entry. Yes, now, Fukusako has sixty
Speaker 1: eight directorial credits on IMDb, and probably the big one
Speaker 1: for a lot of listeners, as I've mentioned before, is
Speaker 1: two thousand's Battle Royale, which was a huge late career
Speaker 1: hit for him to the extent that it can. To
Speaker 1: a casual fan, you might, you know, only focus on that.
Speaker 1: But other films of note include at least the Japanese
Speaker 1: portion of nineteen seventies Tora, Tora Tora. He apparently was
Speaker 1: brought in after Kurosawa backed out nineteen seventy three's Battles
Speaker 1: Without Honor and Humanity. He directed a number of action
Speaker 1: yakuza and samurai movies, as well as the high budget
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty sci fi film Virus, which featured a host
Speaker 1: of Japanese and American actors. He also directed the two
Speaker 1: thousand and two video game like PlayStation video game clock
Speaker 1: Tower three, which I think I did play, and in
Speaker 1: doing so, this was my earliest exposure to Fukusaku's work.
Speaker 3: Is that like a horror game?
Speaker 1: Yeah, if it's the one I'm thinking of, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of like creeping around and trying to avoid like killers,
Speaker 1: you know, like mass killers that you can't actually directly
Speaker 1: stand again, So in a way, it's kind of a
Speaker 1: similar vibe to like the Alien Isolation game that came
Speaker 1: many many years later. I don't remember anything about it
Speaker 1: where I'm like, oh wow. Of course Fukusaku was involved
Speaker 1: in this, you know anyway. Fukusaku's a director, often a
Speaker 1: so siated with the Japanese new wave cinema movement of
Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies, but he was also a big
Speaker 1: commercial success, highly acclaimed both in Japan and by filmmakers
Speaker 1: around the world. I've seen the likes of Tarantino, Paul
Speaker 1: Schraeder and others talk about how much they admire his work.
Speaker 1: All right now, in terms of the writing here, they'll
Speaker 1: basically be like three levels because the original source for
Speaker 1: this is a novel by Rampo ed Ogawa, who lived
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety four through nineteen sixty five. This was the
Speaker 1: pen name of Japanese author Tero Hirari crafted This pen name,
Speaker 1: Rampo Edugawa was apparently crafted to resemble Edgar Allan Po
Speaker 1: or Po, Edgar Allan So PO. Edgar Allan Rampo ed
Speaker 1: Ogawa So and Edgar Allan Po, along with Arthur Conan
Speaker 1: Doyle and others, were our big influence on Rampo's work.
Speaker 1: I have to admit I was really not familiar with
Speaker 1: Rampo prior to this. I don't know if you'd ever
Speaker 1: run across discussion of his work before.
Speaker 3: Joe possibly, but not that I recall.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, apparently a huge name in the world of
Speaker 1: Japanese mystery, detective and horror fiction, known for such works
Speaker 1: as The Boy Detective's Club, The Fiend with Twenty Faces,
Speaker 1: and of course The Black Lizard. Had His many short
Speaker 1: stories include The Caterpillar and The Human Chair. Film and
Speaker 1: TV adaptations of his work go back as far as
Speaker 1: I believe nineteen twenty seven, and while he did write
Speaker 1: I think just one screenplay, pretty much all of the
Speaker 1: cinematic and TV treatments of his work were adapted by
Speaker 1: other writers in the adaptations I've continued in film and
Speaker 1: TV and manga and anime. Some of the more famous
Speaker 1: adaptations include nineteen sixty nine's Blind Beast and Horrors of
Speaker 1: Malformed Men. So some of these are titles I'm familiar with,
Speaker 1: but I didn't really know much about the Rampo connection,
Speaker 1: and then twenty tens Caterpillar and Hiss. Previously mentioned Black
Speaker 1: Lizard was adapted numerous times as a play, and then
Speaker 1: two separate adaptations of that play, the nineteen sixty two
Speaker 1: film and this nineteen sixty eight one.
Speaker 3: Okay, so that's the original novel. But there's another intermediary
Speaker 3: literary source, which is the play which is eventually adapted
Speaker 3: into the movie.
Speaker 1: Yes, and the play here was adapted by another rather
Speaker 1: famous figure in Japanese culture. This is Yukio Mishima, who
Speaker 1: lived nineteen twenty five through nineteen seventy. So he wrote
Speaker 1: the stage adaptation upon which this is based. And there's
Speaker 1: a lot to potentially unpacked here with Yukyo Mashima. You
Speaker 1: could do a whole podcast just on this guy. He's
Speaker 1: ultimately a very controversial figure. Mishima was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor,
Speaker 1: and model. Is a highly successful writer. Is said to
Speaker 1: affused modern Western trends with traditional Japanese elements, with a
Speaker 1: general focus on beauty, eroticism, and death. In his private
Speaker 1: life and revealed in some of his writings, he was
Speaker 1: apparently bisexual and often dealt with themes of same sex love.
Speaker 1: He was also a shintos and an ultra right wing
Speaker 1: nationalist who founded a militia known as the Shield Society,
Speaker 1: and on November twenty fifth, nineteen seventy, this, of course
Speaker 1: is the year of his death, he essentially attempted a
Speaker 1: coup with four members of the militia invading a Japanese
Speaker 1: military base, taking the commandant hostage, and trying to encourage
Speaker 1: the Japanese Self Defense Forces to overthrow the government and
Speaker 1: restore the full rule of the Emperor wow In. This
Speaker 1: attempt culminated in Mashima's own death via sepuku and yeah again,
Speaker 1: he's remained a very controversial figure because of all of this,
Speaker 1: though on the other hand, there's always been a lot
Speaker 1: of interest in him in his work in and out
Speaker 1: of Japan. American director Paul Schrader, for example, directed a
Speaker 1: biopic in nineteen eighty five titled Mishima A Life in
Speaker 1: Four Chapters, starring ken Ogata in the lead role. We
Speaker 1: were actually chatting about this with our excellent producer JJ
Speaker 1: Possway off Mike before we went in here, because I
Speaker 1: don't think either of us have seen this particular Paul
Speaker 1: Schrader film, but JJ has and said that it's really
Speaker 1: worth saying. It's quite excellent.
Speaker 3: Now, if I'm not mistaken, Mishima appears bodily in Black
Speaker 3: Lizard as well, doesn't he.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, Mishima himself was in addition to all
Speaker 1: these other things, he was an actor and a model.
Speaker 1: He was a noted bodybuilder and has a very memorable
Speaker 1: non speaking role in this film. I mean, you could
Speaker 1: say it's a cameo, but I don't know when a
Speaker 1: cameo has like this much weight, I don't want to
Speaker 1: dismiss it as such.
Speaker 3: He's the So there is a sequence later in the
Speaker 3: movie with these frozen human figures. They're sort of described,
Speaker 3: I think as stuffed bodies, though there's a something almost
Speaker 3: supernatural implied about the way that they're frozen, because they're
Speaker 3: clearly just they're not mannequins, they're human bodies, and their
Speaker 3: human body is just kind of like trembling. You can
Speaker 3: see them moving a little bit. And he's one of them, right,
Speaker 3: He's the one who's like in the middle of a
Speaker 3: knife fight with another guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, it's it's the classic, like
Speaker 1: you know, wax museum effect of having people being really
Speaker 1: still pretending to be models or some sort of preservation
Speaker 1: of formerly living humans. So it does have that inherent
Speaker 1: creepiness that we often touch on. But yeah, this is him.
Speaker 1: It's a very pivotal scene as well. We'll get to.
Speaker 1: It's also notable in that Yeah, this can't be relegated
Speaker 1: as a cameo because a lot of times the poster
Speaker 1: art has Mashima on the poster alongside the star, which
Speaker 1: generally you don't do with your cameo appearances. Like the
Speaker 1: detective Acecchi, who is in many respects the protagonist of
Speaker 1: the picture, is not on the poster or not on
Speaker 1: many of the posters that I was looking at, So yeah,
Speaker 1: worth keeping in mind. As for Mishima, he has at
Speaker 1: least some other acting credits, including the nineteen sixty yakuza
Speaker 1: film Afraid to Die, in which he starred, and nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six's Patriotism, which he also wrote and co directed.
Speaker 1: All Right, and then the screenplay based on the play
Speaker 1: based on the novel. The credit here is Masashigi Narusawa,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twenty five through twenty twenty one. An
Speaker 1: award winning screenwriter and director. His films include nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: six's Street of Shame sixty eight's Curse of the Blood.
Speaker 1: He was active from nineteen fifty through seventy five, with
Speaker 1: a final Rampo adaptation airing on TV in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 1: All Right, so that's the director. That's the folks involved.
Speaker 1: In the writing of the picture. But now we have
Speaker 1: to talk about are the true star of this and
Speaker 1: that is Akihiro Miwa playing Black Lizard. This is just
Speaker 1: a fabulous performance. This is one of those performances where
Speaker 1: Miwa is almost constantly the screen and is it a
Speaker 1: light whenever he is on screen?
Speaker 3: I agree, Miwa makes this movie what it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, Miwa was born in nineteen thirty five and
Speaker 1: as of this recording is still alive, and it's it's
Speaker 1: essential to note that here in this starring role as
Speaker 1: Black Lizard, the title character, the Master Criminal, we have
Speaker 1: one of, if not the most famous Japanese drag performers
Speaker 1: of the fifties and sixties, if not of all time.
Speaker 1: Drag culture does still seem to be going strong in Japan.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm assuming the only Western comparison would be
Speaker 1: like someone like Rue Paul, Like this would be like
Speaker 1: having Rue Paul appear as the title character in your
Speaker 1: super criminal picture. Maybe there's a better comparison to be
Speaker 1: made right in if you've got one. Anyway, MIA's cabaret
Speaker 1: career goes back to I believe nineteen fifty two, and
Speaker 1: he rose to popularity transcending eventually from stage to film, TV, music, writing,
Speaker 1: and directing. He put out five albums between nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: three and nineteen ninety five, all centered around his drag persona.
Speaker 1: He also became an outspoken voice on political and social
Speaker 1: issues in Japan, and he worked his way up to
Speaker 1: this glorious leading role through often smaller appearances sometimes it's
Speaker 1: like a singer or background character, and number of films,
Speaker 1: and then followed this one up with nineteen sixty nine's
Speaker 1: Black Rose or Black Rose Mansion, which was also directed
Speaker 1: by Fukusaku's I haven't seen it, but it's apparently classified
Speaker 1: as kind of like a dark romantic drama.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: While there's some additional live action roles after this, MEA's
Speaker 1: biggest contributions moving forward after this point are mostly voice
Speaker 1: roles in animated projects, but boy did include some big ones.
Speaker 1: He voiced the three hundred year old wolf goddess Moro
Speaker 1: Nokmi in Miyazaki's nineteen ninety seven masterpiece Princess Mana. If
Speaker 1: you've only seen the dubbed version, this would be the
Speaker 1: character that Gillian Anderson dubs. You know, this big wolf
Speaker 1: goddess creature. He also voices the Witch of the Waste
Speaker 1: in Miyazaki's two thousand and four film Howell's Moving Castle,
Speaker 1: and for you Pokemon fans out there, he also voiced
Speaker 1: a Pokemon by the name of Okay, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: on this one, Arsius or Archius. I asked my son
Speaker 1: about this real quick, and he was like, people might
Speaker 1: get mad at you. But he was like, they may
Speaker 1: say Archias or man, they may say Arsius, but be
Speaker 1: prepared to be corrected. So okay, I am prepared. But anyway,
Speaker 1: this is like an important Pokemon, like the title Pokemon
Speaker 1: and the two thousand and nine TV movie Arcius and
Speaker 1: the Jewel of Life.
Speaker 3: If people are going to be mad at us, I
Speaker 3: hope it's about Pokemon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm always happy to be corrected.
Speaker 3: But to come back to Black Lizard, Aki hero Miwa
Speaker 3: is phenomenal in this movie, so much like passion and
Speaker 3: charisma in this performance.
Speaker 1: Absolutely every scene, and also so many costume and hair changes. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is definitely one of those pictures where we will
Speaker 1: call out the costume designer because you know, any new
Speaker 1: scene with Black Lizard, you're gonna get a new costume.
Speaker 1: You make it an entirely different hair going on as well.
Speaker 3: It's great. It's also a surprise for like a crime thriller,
Speaker 3: it is a surprisingly dialogue heavy film, and I think
Speaker 3: that may be based on the fact that it was Uh.
Speaker 3: This is adapted from a stage play, so there are
Speaker 3: fewer just straight action scenes than you might imagine. A
Speaker 3: lot of it's just sort of dialogue and uh, and
Speaker 3: and there is there are a lot of thrills, but
Speaker 3: a lot of the thrills are like twists that are
Speaker 3: revealed through dialogue.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, so it's talkier than you might expect,
Speaker 1: But luckily the dialogue is often just tremendous. We already
Speaker 1: quoted a little of it, and you know, it often
Speaker 1: has that flavor and a weird character to it. And
Speaker 1: uh and yeah, and when the when we do have
Speaker 1: punctuations of actual act, it generally is also really weird
Speaker 1: and jaw dropping. All right, now, it's important to talk
Speaker 1: about the ace detective. This is Detective Akechi, played by
Speaker 1: Issau Kimura, who lived nineteen twenty three through nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing here is that, yeah, Detective Akechi is
Speaker 1: in many of your sex the actual protagonist of the film,
Speaker 1: and is essentially Rampo's Sherlock Holmes character appearing in multiple
Speaker 1: novels and short stories. So while many viewers may watch
Speaker 1: this and you just see the sort of you know,
Speaker 1: typical noir detective character, you know, a little bit tortured,
Speaker 1: a little bit jaded, smoking and drinking, trying to solve
Speaker 1: the crime, maybe falling a little bit in love here
Speaker 1: and there. So while many viewers I just dismiss that
Speaker 1: this character is like the detective figure in Japanese pop culture,
Speaker 1: and was in fact the first recurring detective character in
Speaker 1: Japanese fiction. So he's a big deal and has been
Speaker 1: played by numerous actors over the years, including Tadanobu Asano,
Speaker 1: who have played of course, is the star of Ichi
Speaker 1: the Killer and also had a really great role in
Speaker 1: the recent Fax adaptation of Showgun. He was in two
Speaker 1: thousand and five's Rampo Noir.
Speaker 3: So a catchy we are told is Japan's number one detective.
Speaker 3: But he also I don't know, it makes a lot
Speaker 3: more sense to me knowing that this is a recurring
Speaker 3: character because there's a sort of prologue in the film
Speaker 3: that's almost like, well here I am, I'm in the club.
Speaker 3: Now sucked into this crime, and it makes more sense
Speaker 3: if this is kind of a character we would recognize.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and in a way, it kind of gives you
Speaker 1: more license to let that character become secondary because he
Speaker 1: does have this iconic place already, you know, in the
Speaker 1: same way that you can have a Sherlock Holmes film
Speaker 1: certainly these days and allow secondary characters to sort of
Speaker 1: take the forefront.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally so.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Kamu right here playing the role frequently worked in
Speaker 1: supporting roles in Akira Kurosawa films, including fifty four to
Speaker 1: seven Samurai and fifty seven's Throne of Blood. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think his performance here certainly hits all the world weary
Speaker 1: noir detective notes that you'd expect. And I suppose this
Speaker 1: in many ways this helps like ground the flashier elements
Speaker 1: of the picture as well. But he's good. It's a
Speaker 1: good performance.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: All right, this is all going to picture, This is
Speaker 1: all going to center around in many respects, A damsel
Speaker 1: in frequent distress, a youngly, a young woman that Black
Speaker 1: Lizard tries to kidnap multiple times. Her name is Sane
Speaker 1: and she is played by Kiko Matsuka, and she was
Speaker 1: born in nineteen forty seven. She was in a number
Speaker 1: of sixties and seventies films, including an uncredited role as
Speaker 1: a diver girl in nineteen sixty seven's Bond film You
Speaker 1: Only Live Twice. Her other credits include nineteen sixty eight's
Speaker 1: The Living Skeleton, Black Rose Mansion, and a Rampo TV
Speaker 1: series in nineteen seventy right. Another important secondary character is
Speaker 1: the is the despondent musician Yunichi a'm Amiya played by
Speaker 1: Yusuku Kuwazu, who lived nineteen thirty five through twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: This apparently is his best known role, but his credits
Speaker 1: include nineteen sixty one's Killers on Parade, nineteen ninety three's
Speaker 1: Godzilla Versus Mega Godzilla two, and nineteen eighty eight nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight s GAMMEA three Revenge of Iris. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a solid performance. This is tragic character in this film,
Speaker 1: but also props to anyone who was ever in both
Speaker 1: a Godzilla and a Gamera movie.
Speaker 3: That's right. Yeah, this is a very sad, pathetic, abject
Speaker 3: role and this guy does well with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, as we'll discuss, like even when he has
Speaker 1: his moments of seeming bravery like there's still this wrinkle
Speaker 1: to them that makes it even more tragic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all revealed that it's just the ultimately even
Speaker 3: more pathetic than you would have thought. Yeah.
Speaker 1: See. Another fun secondary character is private Detective Keniji Matoba,
Speaker 1: who I guess is like he's not the number one
Speaker 1: detective Aketchi is the number one detective. This is somebody
Speaker 1: further down the list that has no problem with at
Speaker 1: all with the possibility of making a fool out of
Speaker 1: a ketchee or you know, or coming in to clean
Speaker 1: up a catchy's mess.
Speaker 3: You can just see this guy's displeasure with the full
Speaker 3: knowledge that he is the number four detective.
Speaker 1: Yeah he is played. Yeah, so he's a rival stern
Speaker 1: faced private detective played here by award winning actor co Nishimura,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twenty three through nineteen ninety seven, best
Speaker 1: known for his roles in such Kurosawa films as nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties The Bad Sleep Well sixty one's Yo Jimbo nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three is High and Low, and he was also
Speaker 1: greatly praised and awarded for his starring role in the
Speaker 1: bear movie Matagi from nineteen eighty two. So he was
Speaker 1: definitely the Star of Matagi in eighty two. But yeahs
Speaker 1: these Kirosawa films several, some of which I haven't seen
Speaker 1: and others I haven't seen in a long time. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure exactly off the top of my head how
Speaker 1: far of the cast he is in those, but I
Speaker 1: love his performance hereies kind of like a Japanese Christopher Lee.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's very, very stern.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, Sanya's dad is also important. Iwasa played by
Speaker 1: bun Usami who lived nineteen eleven through nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1: His credits include nineteen seventies to Tour Tora in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty eight's The Man in the Moonlight Mask.
Speaker 3: This is sort of our rich Mark, the guy who
Speaker 3: is targeted by Black Lizard for both the kidnapping of
Speaker 3: his daughter and the stealing of his precious jewels.
Speaker 1: Right, and you know, he's rather proud about the fact
Speaker 1: that he can afford Japan's number one detective. So it's
Speaker 1: a fun, fun role. But he's also like, you know,
Speaker 1: you're of course you're going to get taken advantage off
Speaker 1: by super criminals.
Speaker 3: He also complains immediately about the cost of Japan's number
Speaker 3: one detective when his daughter is discovered to have been kidnapped. Yeah, like,
Speaker 3: throw back the blankets on the bed and it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: it's just a mannequin in there. He's like, you know
Speaker 3: how much money I paid you to protect her?
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. We also already alluded to the snake woman
Speaker 1: with the yellow demon eyes. We'll come back to her,
Speaker 1: just not a lot about her, but just to credit
Speaker 1: the actor. This is Toshiko Kobayashi, who lived nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: two through twenty sixteen. Oh okay, So we've recently received
Speaker 1: a listener mail from someone saying, hey, you guys need
Speaker 1: to single out the costume folks, the costume designers more. Well,
Speaker 1: this is certainly a movie to do it on. We
Speaker 1: have so many great costumes, especially for Black Lizard, and
Speaker 1: the costume designer on this was Masako Watanabi. She's worth
Speaker 1: singling out in part because, again, the costumes here are amazing,
Speaker 1: but she's also a notable manga comic writer and artist
Speaker 1: for such titles that I'm not familiar with, as Master
Speaker 1: of Morley, Jack Ryerdan's Baby, and Heidi. So if you
Speaker 1: know more about about her and her work, write in
Speaker 1: and we'll get the full details from you all right,
Speaker 1: and then finally the music. Oh, we have another huge
Speaker 1: name here. This is a guy with a number of
Speaker 1: credits in Japan film wise, but in general though just
Speaker 1: a musical icon is Sautomita, who lived nineteen thirty two
Speaker 1: through twenty sixteen. This is a name that I think
Speaker 1: is going to register with a number of you. Not
Speaker 1: so much for film though he does have associations with
Speaker 1: various films. But this is this guy was one of
Speaker 1: the pioneers of electronic music and space music, both in
Speaker 1: Japan and ultimately internationally as well.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: His work prior to this film included the TV series
Speaker 1: Mighty Jack, which I believe was featured on Mystery Science
Speaker 1: Theater three thousand. But yeah, the interesting thing is that
Speaker 1: around the same time of this picture is when and
Speaker 1: again the score for this movie for Black Lizard is
Speaker 1: not particularly I don't think it's electronic. I think it's
Speaker 1: very traditional when you say, but around the same time
Speaker 1: as he would have been working on this film, he
Speaker 1: heard Wendy Carlos's nineteen sixty eight album Switched on Bock
Speaker 1: for the first time and was reportedly enraptured. I heard
Speaker 1: I read one account, which said like, basically, he's like,
Speaker 1: give me a ticket to New York and like flies
Speaker 1: to the United States just so he can bring back
Speaker 1: a mug synthesizer. He's like, I've got to get my
Speaker 1: hands on this. Like he just saw the tremendous potential
Speaker 1: and then started experimenting with synths and goes on to
Speaker 1: again have become this pioneer of electronic and space music,
Speaker 1: known for such works as nineteen seventy two's Electric Samurai
Speaker 1: Switched on Rock, which I think was released in the US,
Speaker 1: and seventy four nineteen seventy six is The Planets, which
Speaker 1: I was listening to while finishing up my notes here.
Speaker 3: Is that an electronic adaptation of Holst's The Planet You.
Speaker 1: Know, I'm not sure. I listened to the whole thing,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure off him. They didn't have holes
Speaker 1: credited on the tracks on Spotify, which may mean nothing,
Speaker 1: but a number of his works are synth treatments, electronic
Speaker 1: treatments of pre existing works, like I know he did
Speaker 1: a version of John Williams Star Wars theme song for example. Anyway,
Speaker 1: he's an international legend. You'll find loads of his work
Speaker 1: wherever you get your music. Again, I don't think we
Speaker 1: really hear any electronic stylings in The Black Lizard's score,
Speaker 1: as I think he flied to acquire his first synth
Speaker 1: in around seventy two. But still it's an amazing connection.
Speaker 1: So we get like pre electronic to me to hear
Speaker 1: he'd go on to score such films as two thousand
Speaker 1: and four as The Hidden Blade, and I've read he
Speaker 1: was apparently Ridley Scott's first pick to score Alien would
Speaker 1: that I've worked? I don't know, but it's an interesting connection.
Speaker 3: Okay, is it time just talk about the plot?
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's jump into it.
Speaker 3: Well, warning, this plot has twists and reveals of plenty,
Speaker 3: so if you do want to experience the movie without
Speaker 3: having anything spoiled, I guess you should pause here and
Speaker 3: go watch it before you listen to this part of
Speaker 3: the episode. Now we open with the kind of prologue
Speaker 3: before we get into the main caper that will involve
Speaker 3: most of the movie. There's like a hippie technicolor acid
Speaker 3: freak out sex party opening. It's like a go go club.
Speaker 3: We've seen this in movies from the sixties. Before they
Speaker 3: try to put you right in the middle of a
Speaker 3: swing in happening Go Go Club to get your mind
Speaker 3: right where it needs to be for the feeling of
Speaker 3: the movie.
Speaker 1: And with strong cabaret elements. I think as well, like
Speaker 1: this is where this is where the counterculture happens. This
Speaker 1: is where the bohemian vibe is strong.
Speaker 3: That's right. So it's a feeling of the sixties, a
Speaker 3: feeling of cultural and sexual energy. But I think also Rob,
Speaker 3: I don't know if you detected the same thing. There's
Speaker 3: kind of a point of view the camera takes that
Speaker 3: implies some kind of distance or hesitation, maybe like it's
Speaker 3: it's celebrating everything that's going on in the club, but
Speaker 3: it's also a little bit afraid. Maybe it's like this
Speaker 3: this is an alluring but also a dangerous and confusing
Speaker 3: frontier of freedom and pleasure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as we'll see, there's danger here and there's sadness
Speaker 1: here as well.
Speaker 3: In fact, that sort of point of view of the
Speaker 3: camera maybe the point of view of the character we're
Speaker 3: about to meet. Because we go to this this man,
Speaker 3: a lonely looking man sitting at a table overlooking the
Speaker 3: dance floor in this freak Out Go Go Club, and
Speaker 3: we hear his voiceover. He says I came here by
Speaker 3: mere chance a friend said he would guide me to
Speaker 3: a secret club. We never see the friend, by the way,
Speaker 3: do we know? He says this was a world unknown
Speaker 3: to me until a gaudy crime dragged me into it.
Speaker 3: And then suddenly everything stops. The action freezes and darkness
Speaker 3: falls over the go go club, and then there is
Speaker 3: somber humming music, and then we see Black Lizard in
Speaker 3: three forms. First the character so we see Akihiro Miwa
Speaker 3: in jewels with a cigarette holder, and then the image
Speaker 3: of a Black Lizard silhouette, and then the title Black Lizard.
Speaker 3: Now I warned there would be spoilers. Technically, the character
Speaker 3: we are meeting here is not revealed to be Black Lizard,
Speaker 3: the titular criminal, until a twist that comes later. But
Speaker 3: I was in no suspense at all about this, and
Speaker 3: I wonder if the audience is supposed to be in
Speaker 3: suspense at all. It seems to me one hundred percent
Speaker 3: clear from the very first frame of seeing Black Lizard
Speaker 3: that she is Black Lizard.
Speaker 1: I think so. Like from what I watched the sixty
Speaker 1: two adaptation, I felt like it was maybe a little
Speaker 1: less obvious, but here it's clear and been part of
Speaker 1: that may be the fact that, yeah, you have me,
Speaker 1: this famous individual playing this title character, and you know
Speaker 1: there are gonna be several twists in the film that
Speaker 1: I think most viewers will see coming a mile away.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't feel like a limitation. In a film
Speaker 1: like this, a twist may be telegraphed, but what sort
Speaker 1: of feast will the film make of the twist?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's a dark, mysterious melody as the credits play.
Speaker 3: I think this may be Black Lizard singing. Actually, I
Speaker 3: think so.
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure when I first watched it, but then afterwards,
Speaker 1: when I was diving more into me was musical credentials. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I assume this is his actual singing voice, because yeah,
Speaker 1: he put out all these albums and so forth. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it belts out a tune.
Speaker 3: So Black Lizard. After the credits, Black Lizard navigates the
Speaker 3: club and comes up to meet the lonely man sitting
Speaker 3: at the table above, and Black Lizard says, this is
Speaker 3: an unusual night, an oppressive night, a night made for crime.
Speaker 3: I love a night like this. Sleep won't come easily tonight,
Speaker 3: and you so, the lonely man tells her He's impressed
Speaker 3: by her words. He's like, wow, you are a poetess,
Speaker 3: And Black Lizard says, are you a critic? Because beauty
Speaker 3: fails to intoxicate you? Your eyes tell me that.
Speaker 1: And this is a catchy she's talking to This is
Speaker 1: the number one detective, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, But then Black Lizard backs off of a catchy
Speaker 3: and goes to visit a different man at the bar.
Speaker 3: She goes up to this sad looking guy and says,
Speaker 3: thinking of death? Are you? And she then seemingly telekinetically
Speaker 3: moves his whiskey glass to the edge of the table
Speaker 3: until it falls and shatters. I'm not sure what's going
Speaker 3: on here, but I like it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a great weird moment that is important
Speaker 1: because we come back to it. But I guess it's
Speaker 1: like a here as a metaphor or a splash of
Speaker 1: magical realism, because there's nothing else to indicate that this
Speaker 1: character has any kind of telekinetic powers. I think it's
Speaker 1: just to convey the charismatic power of the Black Lizard.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know the inevitable trajectory of unobtainable obsessions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the film plays it marvelously vague, but again, it is
Speaker 1: important because we'll come back to it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's an ambiguous question about the presence of the
Speaker 3: supernatural in this film. The movie is, you know, ninety
Speaker 3: nine percent grounded in realism, but there are a few
Speaker 3: things in it that are like, wait, was that magic
Speaker 3: or not? I can't tell. So there's the whiskey glass telekinesis.
Speaker 3: There's the lady with yellow eyes who the snake Lady later,
Speaker 3: who sometimes seems to maybe do magic or I don't
Speaker 3: know what's going on with her snake eyes. The statues
Speaker 3: at the end of the movie, which are people, They
Speaker 3: appear to be frozen in some way that almost suggests magic,
Speaker 3: but it's not clear.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there are a few moments like that, and
Speaker 1: it keeps things wild and unpredictable as well.
Speaker 3: Anyway, the man at the table, who was allegedly thinking
Speaker 3: of death leaves the club with black Lizard, and then
Speaker 3: we smash cut to a newspaper headline that tells us
Speaker 3: a quote despondent young musician has died by suicide, and
Speaker 3: then we also see a different article in the newspaper
Speaker 3: that a corpse was stolen from a medical dissection room
Speaker 3: at the Morgue right, yes, Okay, So then detective at
Speaker 3: Catchy is suddenly there. He is at the morgue looking
Speaker 3: into it and finds there is a toy black lizard
Speaker 3: at the scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, peels it right off the floor there.
Speaker 3: And then also, what is the deal with all these
Speaker 3: cadavers floating in like a tank of dark green liquid?
Speaker 3: This is so weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I found this creepy, But I don't know, like,
Speaker 1: maybe this is actually how it was done. At the time,
Speaker 1: I have no idea, and I have to admit I
Speaker 1: was reluctant to go down the gooulish avenue of researching it.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know, I'm just gonna accept
Speaker 1: it as is. Maybe I'll come back and look into
Speaker 1: it later. But at least within the context of the film,
Speaker 1: this is just where they put recently dead bodies instead
Speaker 1: of having like freezers, the sort of freezer drawer scene
Speaker 1: that we're accustomed to. Instead we have the vat scene
Speaker 1: that we have here.
Speaker 3: But anyway, okay, so all this is sort of prologue
Speaker 3: to the main caper of the film, which is the
Speaker 3: loss of kidnapping and the Star of Egypt.
Speaker 1: I only looked this up just before we came in
Speaker 1: to record. But the Star of Egypt is an actual diamond.
Speaker 1: I was reading about it on Christie's. It first appeared
Speaker 1: on the London Market in nineteen thirty nine. There's a
Speaker 1: listing for it on Christie's. I think it recently sold
Speaker 1: for several million dollars, so it's it's a real thing,
Speaker 1: not just a made up gym.
Speaker 3: So we get into act one here with the main plot,
Speaker 3: and it is that Detective Atketchi has been hired by
Speaker 3: a rich man named Iwasa to protect his daughter Senne,
Speaker 3: who has been threatened with kidnapping. I think they get
Speaker 3: a note in the mail or something saying that she's
Speaker 3: going to be kidnapped, and so they hide out in
Speaker 3: a hotel room under the supervision of a ketchee who
Speaker 3: intends to set a trap for the would be kidnappers.
Speaker 1: That's right, number one detective in Japan, the most expensive,
Speaker 1: only the best for this guy's daughter.
Speaker 3: Now, technically, even though we we said it's clear who
Speaker 3: Black Lizard is at this point in the plot, Black
Speaker 3: Lizard is has not been revealed and is in disguise
Speaker 3: as a woman named Midori Kawa. And so this is
Speaker 3: how she's known to a catchy from the club. You know,
Speaker 3: he knows her as Midori Kawa. And then we go
Speaker 3: to the hotel lounge where Sinay is hanging out. And
Speaker 3: then also Midori Kawa and a handsome, well dressed man
Speaker 3: named Yamakawa are getting to know Sinay. They like they're
Speaker 3: talking to her in the hotel bar. For some reason,
Speaker 3: Sinay has been permitted to hang out at the bar
Speaker 3: by herself even though she's being targeted by kidnappers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's weird. It was the same way in
Speaker 1: the sixty two versions, so I guess it's straight from
Speaker 1: the play and or book. Maybe the bar is considered
Speaker 1: a safe public zone, or maybe Medora Kaba is just
Speaker 1: seeming it's just such a long time trusted client of
Speaker 1: dads that you know, she's perfectly safe as long as
Speaker 1: she's with her.
Speaker 3: But Midori Kawa is being so creepy Sa Like, she's like, hey,
Speaker 3: did you play volleyball in college? I would like to
Speaker 3: possess your body as a doll.
Speaker 1: Yeah, She's like, if I told you had a beautiful body,
Speaker 1: would you hold it against me? If I preserved you
Speaker 1: in a perfect soul of state? More poetic than that
Speaker 1: but yeah, yeah, but Black Lizard is always hitting on folks.
Speaker 3: Yes, So midri Kawa and her accomplice they lure Sinne
Speaker 3: back to a room in the hotel, I think, on
Speaker 3: the promise of showing her like an antique doll. They're like, oh,
Speaker 3: we have this interesting artifact, and she's like, okay, I'll
Speaker 3: go look at it. But of course they kidnap her.
Speaker 3: They like chloroform her and then stuff her into a trunk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Black Lizard is also like, go ahead and
Speaker 1: take her clothes off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for no particular reason.
Speaker 1: Well didn't she does he change into those clothes. There's
Speaker 1: kind of an initial fake out that I think maybe
Speaker 1: initially she replaces Snae in Sona's clothes with her back
Speaker 1: turned to her father, and then they end up replacing
Speaker 1: her in bed with the very dummy that you know
Speaker 1: would have been the doll in the box originally. That's
Speaker 1: why it is okay, yeah, but it is also played for,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, for more alluring purposes here too.
Speaker 3: So also somewhere in here, Yamakawa is revealed to be
Speaker 3: Unichi a'ma mia. This was the same guy, the despondent
Speaker 3: young man at the club earlier. Right, yes, yeah, this
Speaker 3: is now Black Lizard's accomplice. And of course we know
Speaker 3: Midori Kawa is Black Lizard, but we are to understand
Speaker 3: the detective Aketchi does not know. So they pull a
Speaker 3: clever maneuver. Amamia takes Sannae inside the trunk and boards
Speaker 3: a train going to some other city while Black Lizard
Speaker 3: stays at the hotel, and she tricks Iwase into thinking
Speaker 3: that Sanae is totally safe in the hotel room. First,
Speaker 3: she like throws her voice and poses as her, like
Speaker 3: pretending to be her from the other room, and I
Speaker 3: guess Iwase is He's like, I don't know, he's not
Speaker 3: thrown off by the fact that this is not his
Speaker 3: daughter's voice.
Speaker 1: Right or it's a perfect replicaver voice somehow, I don't know.
Speaker 1: At any rate, it works.
Speaker 3: And then she tricks him into thinking that Senne is
Speaker 3: in her bed in the hotel room. It will later
Speaker 3: be revealed that it's a huge doll under the blankings.
Speaker 3: But he oh, but Black Lizard has a message delivered
Speaker 3: stating that Sene will be kidnapped exactly at midnight. So
Speaker 3: while it was a sleeps soundly thinking that Sennae is
Speaker 3: asleep nearby, a Catchee stands guard in the living room
Speaker 3: of the hotel suite, passing the time by hanging out
Speaker 3: with Black Lizard, not knowing who she is, and this
Speaker 3: leads to a great dialogue scene where Black Lizard, again
Speaker 3: in disguises, Midori Kawa and Detective at catchy play cards
Speaker 3: and talk about crime and love and their careers and
Speaker 3: their character. A lot of really fun dialogue here. Just
Speaker 3: one example is they start talking about what it takes
Speaker 3: to make a criminal, and Aketche says, consider three women.
Speaker 3: A man gives a woman a bouquet of roses. A
Speaker 3: caterpillar crawls out from between the petals. Disgusted, the woman
Speaker 3: throws the bouquet into the fireplace. Akechi says, this woman
Speaker 3: does not have what it takes to be a criminal.
Speaker 3: Now consider a second woman, same thing. She gets the flowers,
Speaker 3: caterpillar crawls out of the flower. Instead of throwing the
Speaker 3: flowers into the fire, she plucks out the caterpillar and
Speaker 3: throws it alone into the flames. Akechi says, she also
Speaker 3: is not a criminal. But consider a third woman. She
Speaker 3: sees the caterpillar crawl out of the blossom. She throws
Speaker 3: neither the flowers nor the insect. Instead, she pushes the
Speaker 3: man who gave her the flowers into the flames. Akechi says,
Speaker 3: this woman can be a criminal, but ironically she is
Speaker 3: the most tenderhearted of the three.
Speaker 1: I'd be lying, I said that understood what the point
Speaker 1: is here, But I still love it, and I do
Speaker 1: want to see a line of Black Lizard Valentine's Day
Speaker 1: cards based on this and other quotes from the film.
Speaker 3: I think a Ketchee is making some kind of point
Speaker 3: about like passion and boldness, that it's like the same thing,
Speaker 3: the same thing that makes someone that have the deepest
Speaker 3: kind of love is also what makes someone the most
Speaker 3: like violent and dangerous.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so maybe we're getting back into the territory
Speaker 1: here of, you know, of believing that crime should wear
Speaker 1: a gorgeous gown with a train fifteen feet long, both
Speaker 1: stylistically but also in terms of passion somehow.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. They also talk. So they start playing cards
Speaker 3: and they put a wager up. A Ketchy is like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: you know you're rich. I can't really bet against you
Speaker 3: because you've got all this money, And Black Lizard says, well,
Speaker 3: I'll bet all my jewels, but you have to bet
Speaker 3: your career as a detective. So I guess if Black
Speaker 3: Lizard wins the card game, aketche will no longer get
Speaker 3: to be Japan's number one detective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a great scene, and I love the
Speaker 1: way it was shot too. They're like playing on a
Speaker 1: glass countertop, I believe, and so we get some wonderful
Speaker 1: shots from below up through the card game as it's
Speaker 1: taking place. And yeah, it's I believe. It's in this
Speaker 1: scene that we get a lot of contemplation about the
Speaker 1: idea that a catchy is like the negative photo of
Speaker 1: a criminal. Yeah, and in a way, even though although
Speaker 1: Aketchi doesn't know that he's playing cards with the Black Lizards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is very much a we're much the same you
Speaker 1: and I speech that has become a standard trope, but
Speaker 1: it's constructed in a fresh way. It has a very
Speaker 1: fresh feeling to it.
Speaker 3: This is better than most I mean it, this comes
Speaker 3: before things that would make the same point later. I think,
Speaker 3: you know, this is sort of the same point made
Speaker 3: in like Manhunter about the Thomas Harris character Will Graham.
Speaker 3: It's like that he is able to think like a
Speaker 3: killer or think like a criminal, and that's what makes
Speaker 3: him a great detective. And Black Lizards saying the same
Speaker 3: thing to a catchy here. It's that like, in order
Speaker 3: to be a great detective, you must be able to
Speaker 3: think like a criminal.
Speaker 1: Now, is this the place? I may be skipping around?
Speaker 1: I may be thinking about something earlier or later. But
Speaker 1: there's one part where Black Lizard has an extended monologue
Speaker 1: anguishing over the fact that beauty must age and that
Speaker 1: is the ultimate tragedy, and therefore she pines for a
Speaker 1: soulless existence and the heart made of pure, made as
Speaker 1: pure and unbreakable as a diamond, both in her in
Speaker 1: herself but also in others.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, it might be the scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, either way, the quest for the diamond Heart is
Speaker 1: one of the central themes of the film that we
Speaker 1: come back to again and again.
Speaker 3: And this is the scene where Black Lizard and the
Speaker 3: catchy do seem to be falling in love. Yes, but
Speaker 3: then remember the thing it was supposed to be. He's
Speaker 3: standing guard there until the kidnapping, which is supposed to
Speaker 3: come at midnight, and midnight comes and nothing happens. What
Speaker 3: gives absence at this point is revealed. They go in
Speaker 3: and like pull back the covers on the bed and oh,
Speaker 3: it's just a doll in there. But it's a double
Speaker 3: twist because we find out a catchy knew all along.
Speaker 3: He lets his men run into the room and he
Speaker 3: reveals that he knew that Senna had already been taken
Speaker 3: and he had his men collect the trunk and bring
Speaker 3: her back. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Again, Black Lizard really does feel like the main character,
Speaker 1: and all of this in part because we're generally clued
Speaker 1: into what her plans are far more than a catchy's.
Speaker 1: Like a catchy ultimately ends up being like two steps
Speaker 1: ahead of even the viewer. And I guess this corresponds
Speaker 1: to the often observed soft rule of caper films, and
Speaker 1: that you lay out all the beats of the caper
Speaker 1: that's going to ultimately fail, but you reveal the beats
Speaker 1: of a successful caper in its very real time execution. Again,
Speaker 1: a catchy is essentially Sherlock Holmes here. He is a master,
Speaker 1: you know, figuring out the criminal scheme and then trying
Speaker 1: to be ahead of that. And I wonder too if
Speaker 1: that adds to why we might be rooting for Black Lizard,
Speaker 1: because it's like, if you don't know who a catchy is,
Speaker 1: he's just another detective. But if you know that he's
Speaker 1: the master detective, then you kind of know the fixes
Speaker 1: in from the beginning, like this is an unbeatable adversary
Speaker 1: for Black Lizard, and therefore maybe we root for her
Speaker 1: a little bit more.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, later in the story they do try to
Speaker 3: get ahead of that by showing a ketchee like doing
Speaker 3: something sneaky and you think that he's being caught getting
Speaker 3: one over on Black Lizard, and then she gets one
Speaker 3: over on him. But then there's like a triple twist
Speaker 3: where it's like, oh, no, he actually was there all along. Yes,
Speaker 3: but anyway, so Black Lizard escapes this trap by stealing
Speaker 3: a ketchy's gun from his coat pocket, using it to
Speaker 3: escape the hotel room, and then she gets out of
Speaker 3: the hotel by disguising herself as a man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a fun sequence, And I guess really
Speaker 1: the only nod that we see to me was drag performance,
Speaker 1: I suppose.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So on to fight another day. So this sort
Speaker 3: of gives way to Act two of the movie, the
Speaker 3: previous plot having been foiled. We cut to the home
Speaker 3: of Iwasea, where Black Lizard is determined to strike again.
Speaker 3: So this middle sequence of the movie involves Black Lizard's
Speaker 3: second attempt at kidnapping Sinne and using the leverage of
Speaker 3: her kidnapping to acquire the jeweled necklace, the Star of Egypt.
Speaker 3: So we meet a large cast of Hinchman here, hired
Speaker 3: by Iwasa to protect the family. The gang is commanded
Speaker 3: by a new private detective, Matoba. And so there's like
Speaker 3: a furniture delivery truck that arrives at the house and
Speaker 3: we see the whole gang run out to like menace them.
Speaker 3: The delivery guys seem very frightened, but then they decide
Speaker 3: it's okay. You know, it's a beautiful new futon that
Speaker 3: Iwasa did apparently actually orders. They bring it inside. They
Speaker 3: talk about how it cost a bazillion bucks and so forth,
Speaker 3: and the whole time Matoba is there just looking like
Speaker 3: he's just a statue.
Speaker 1: He's great, just scowling the whole time.
Speaker 3: Now, I think at this point we're supposed to believe
Speaker 3: Aketchy has been dismissed from the case, or maybe he
Speaker 3: actually has been.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if he's Liken been completely pushed
Speaker 1: out but yeah, it's Matoba is now seemingly in charge
Speaker 1: of things and uh, and he seems a little eric
Speaker 1: that a catch, he's even showing up. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: you failed, dude, I'm I'm I'm top now.
Speaker 3: But later that night there is an attack from inside
Speaker 3: the house. I think it's Matoba catches Iwasa's housekeeper, Hena
Speaker 3: sending secret coded messages to someone via radio. She's like
Speaker 3: talking into a radio saying like the sea is a
Speaker 3: flame and stuff like that. But the tables are turned.
Speaker 3: How exactly is it revealed? Is it that Hena and
Speaker 3: the big lug hinchman guy uh both gang up on Matoba.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if Matoba vetted these henchmen, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like they all were in the pocket of Black Lizard.
Speaker 1: We'll find out. So, yeah, everybody's looking at working for
Speaker 1: Black Lizard here except for Matoba.
Speaker 3: And this was the first reveal of Hena's like powers
Speaker 3: and snake associations. What's the deal with this lady?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: I mean this is again. Is it magic? Is it
Speaker 1: metaphor what's going on here? I don't know, but it's
Speaker 1: tremendous because we see, Yeah, her eyes glitter yellow Demon's fire.
Speaker 1: She flings constricting snakes as a weapon. So we've watched
Speaker 1: movies with projectile snakes before on the show, namely nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one's Venom, where we get to see Kloskinski like
Speaker 1: struggle with a rubber snake. And it's the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that can easily look very rubber and fake. But
Speaker 1: I totally bought her and her snake bolos as a
Speaker 1: legitimate threat. So she leaps out cool lighting on her
Speaker 1: face and eyes lands this constricting snake right Aroundba's neck,
Speaker 1: and the actor Nishi Mura just sells the living daylights
Speaker 1: out of it, just thrashing around against the walls trying
Speaker 1: to pull the snake off of his throat.
Speaker 3: Oh but it doesn't end there, right, everybody comes out
Speaker 3: because of the commotion, and then they find what they
Speaker 3: find black Lizard's calling card.
Speaker 1: Here, right, there's the rubber lizard, but it is on
Speaker 1: the palm of a disembodied hand that is on the couch,
Speaker 1: which is now bloodied. They're gonna have to get rid
Speaker 1: of that thing. And then they find Matoba in the bathtub,
Speaker 1: like seemingly dead. I don't know, I can't remember if
Speaker 1: he still has a snake on his neck or not,
Speaker 1: but he has a bloody stump. This is clearly his
Speaker 1: hand out there, left on the couch with the with
Speaker 1: the calling card on it. But then there's several you know,
Speaker 1: guys looking in on the scene. And then Matoba rises
Speaker 1: up out of the tub like a like a rampaging
Speaker 1: zombie and comes rushing towards them with the stump, and
Speaker 1: they all freak out and slam the door on him
Speaker 1: as he thrust his bloody stump out through the door
Speaker 1: after him, and then he finally busts through into the hallway,
Speaker 1: slumps against the wall, slumps down and dies. Just a legit,
Speaker 1: jaw dropping sequence for.
Speaker 3: Me, that that scene is true, deeply crazy. I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's it's really good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like there's a lot of dialogue, but then
Speaker 1: when the movie busts out these action sequences like this,
Speaker 1: it's just they.
Speaker 3: Really go for it. But as you mentioned, this is
Speaker 3: all part of the plot. The uh. Of course, the
Speaker 3: attack gets blood all over the expensive new futon and
Speaker 3: in the middle of Sine having been kidnapped again and
Speaker 3: all that. Uh, they're like, oh wow, well get the
Speaker 3: get this bloody futon out of the house. Yeah, what
Speaker 3: do you know?
Speaker 1: And this is and we know what's up right, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is another most twists. You know that they hit
Speaker 1: her in that couch, but it doesn't matter like this.
Speaker 1: This all plays out like a like a myth, like
Speaker 1: a like a fairy tale, and you just follow it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there is. They're setting up an exchange at
Speaker 3: the pier. So Black Lizard promises that Sina will be
Speaker 3: returned safely if iwasa gives up the Star of Egypt
Speaker 3: at a drop off point at the port, and he does.
Speaker 3: He shows up with the jewels, but Black Lizard is
Speaker 3: treacherous and does not return his daughter because it seems
Speaker 3: like Black Lizard wants Sinnay even more than she wants
Speaker 3: the jewels.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so she's just going to keep them both. So sorry,
Speaker 1: you've been double crossed. But Black Lizard gets what Black Lizard.
Speaker 3: Wants and this leads to a chase with like private
Speaker 3: detectives and cars and these motorcycle henchmen with smoke screens.
Speaker 3: These movies of the time really loved a like multi
Speaker 3: colored smoke screen getaway that's in danger diabolic as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this whole sequence was very danger diabolic. But they
Speaker 1: and this is one of those things you have to note,
Speaker 1: they get away but sort of don't, like we have
Speaker 1: to again do all the math of Aketche's scheming and
Speaker 1: counter scheming versus Black lizards scheming and counter scheming. The
Speaker 1: viewer is just along for the ride.
Speaker 3: So Black Lizard escapes to her steamership with both Sennae
Speaker 3: and the jewels. But will Aketchi be able to save
Speaker 3: the day? And here we go to a scene in
Speaker 3: Black Lizard's cabin on the boat that can you describe
Speaker 3: this realm?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we know the deal with this futon. This
Speaker 1: is how they just kidnapped her successfully for the second time. Uh,
Speaker 1: And here's the couch that the futon in Black Lizard's
Speaker 1: chambers and she begins to realize what we the viewers
Speaker 1: suspect that Aketchie has hidden himself in that futon, and
Speaker 1: so she starts speaking to him in there. She has
Speaker 1: her her her gang come in and like strap the
Speaker 1: new straps around the futon so that he can't get out,
Speaker 1: and then she sends the gang back outside and she
Speaker 1: kind of gets this like this this tender sequence where
Speaker 1: she speaks to Aketchi, imprisoned in the futonveals her love
Speaker 1: to him, as well as her great fear of that love,
Speaker 1: fear for what will change in her, because it is
Speaker 1: all the antithesis of the diamond heart.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like, if I give into my love for you,
Speaker 1: then then I'm changing in a frightening way, and I
Speaker 1: can't have that, you know. And also you're my enemy,
Speaker 1: so either way, I'm gonna have to kill you, and
Speaker 1: so that's what she seemingly does. She runs the couch
Speaker 1: through with a sword from the wall. Blood drips out
Speaker 1: onto the floor. At that Up until that point, I
Speaker 1: wasn't sure it even had anyone in there, because that's
Speaker 1: the thing, you know, a catch. He's not in there really,
Speaker 1: you know, he is a tape recorder or something. But
Speaker 1: blood comes out, and then she has the gang throw
Speaker 1: the skewered, strapped sofa overboard into the ocean.
Speaker 3: We see it like disappearing rapidly into the dark water
Speaker 3: behind the ship. It's a very evocative shot.
Speaker 1: And she's out there on the deck, you know, feeling
Speaker 1: a bit melancholy by herself. And then a new character emerges,
Speaker 1: who we quickly learn is a trusted hunchback com minion
Speaker 1: of hers and he kind of like you know, saunters
Speaker 1: up onto the deck there, and he apologizes to her
Speaker 1: for not having been there when all this went down.
Speaker 1: He says, I was asleep. He offers some comfort and
Speaker 1: she's like, that's nice. I appreciate it, but I need
Speaker 1: some time alone. And of course this is one of
Speaker 1: those moments.
Speaker 3: We're already like hmm, yeah about this guy. We're never
Speaker 3: seeing his face, Like his face is always downturned. Wonder
Speaker 3: about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you will have your suspicions. Those suspicions may
Speaker 1: prove correct. But again in this film, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: You're along for the ride because if this, if you
Speaker 1: suspect that this hunch back is actually a catchy okay,
Speaker 1: then the question is when will he dramatically reveal himself.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're on board for.
Speaker 3: So we're here at act three, where we make it
Speaker 3: all the way to Black Lizard's Fortress of fortress of
Speaker 3: I don't know of crimtude. Yeah, So the ship arrives
Speaker 3: and Rob, can you describe this place? I would kind
Speaker 3: of compare it to Bit to Scare Manga's Layer in
Speaker 3: the Men with the golden gun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it is. It is a campy de light
Speaker 1: that brings that to mind. It brings to mind the
Speaker 1: various layers of doctor fibes as well as danger diabolic fibes.
Speaker 1: Would very much approve of this because it's essentially a
Speaker 1: cabaret ballroom where we see the taxidermied or otherwise preserved.
Speaker 1: You know, the exact science of this doesn't matter. The
Speaker 1: preserved bodies of the beautiful ones that she's collected on display,
Speaker 1: these dolls, wax figures, however you want to make them.
Speaker 1: There are all these curtains, we see these often topless figures,
Speaker 1: and as always in these films, these are, of course films,
Speaker 1: these are of course live actors, frozen and still life,
Speaker 1: which just compounds the creepiness of the situation.
Speaker 3: So she's like going through here showing Sinnay all of
Speaker 3: these these frozen people, and it's leading up to the
Speaker 3: explanation that like, Sinay, I'm going to make you one
Speaker 3: of my frozen wax here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we see that one of the main tableaus,
Speaker 1: because they're all posed in dramatic poses, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like a wax museum. One of the tableaus concerns a
Speaker 1: pair of knife fighters with a particularly absolutely jacked combatant
Speaker 1: like just you know, rippling muscles stabbing his opponent in
Speaker 1: mid grapple. The shirtless stabber here is played by Mishima,
Speaker 1: and a brief backstory is kind of revealed visually where
Speaker 1: we It looks like these two men were made to
Speaker 1: fight to the death for Black Lizard's affections, and I
Speaker 1: guess both both victor and the defeated here end up
Speaker 1: being immortalized as a doll.
Speaker 3: I didn't know if there was a victor. It looked
Speaker 3: like they were both stabbing each other at the same time.
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, they well in a way, then I guess
Speaker 1: they both lost and boast both won because that's the thing.
Speaker 1: You lose and that you die, but you win to
Speaker 1: a certain extent in that you are immortalized in Black
Speaker 1: Lizard's layer, and in this without life, without a soul,
Speaker 1: then you know you have come as close to the
Speaker 1: Diamond Heart as possible and therefore are deserving of her
Speaker 1: true affections.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems that men are just sort of like
Speaker 3: lining up to die for Black Lizard and be preserved
Speaker 3: as a statue in her layer forever. They're ready for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and women too. I guess it's like men and
Speaker 1: women on display. But this is this moment where again
Speaker 1: it's far more than cameo because this the jacked stabber
Speaker 1: played by Mashima. Here she moves in and she kisses
Speaker 1: him on the lips, and what is I think the
Speaker 1: only kiss that we see in the picture. Could be
Speaker 1: wrong on that, but it certainly is the most important one,
Speaker 1: and it's a really powerful moment and a moment that
Speaker 1: is also very crushing for the musician I'm Amiya who
Speaker 1: is watching on because this is what causes him to
Speaker 1: turn against Black Lizard, because he tries to help San
Speaker 1: a brief locking the master criminal in her own cell.
Speaker 3: But then we.
Speaker 1: Eventually learned that this kiss didn't so much as turn
Speaker 1: him against Black Lizard. He's not like, oh, I'm really
Speaker 1: not into you, you know, kissing the preserved bodies of
Speaker 1: dead men. No, it made him turn against Black Lizard
Speaker 1: because he realized the only way to fulfill his obsession
Speaker 1: was through death. A bold action like this he hopes
Speaker 1: will result first in his death and then in his
Speaker 1: immortalization as one of her dolls.
Speaker 3: Right, so he's like, now I'm just the unappreciated lackey
Speaker 3: of Black Lizard, But he realizes that she truly loves
Speaker 3: her sort of stuffed statue figures, and the only way
Speaker 3: he can really be loved by her is to make
Speaker 3: her kill him in punishment for his treachery and turn
Speaker 3: him into a statue, and then he'll be loved by her.
Speaker 1: So that'm on me, Redemption Arch, he enters a very
Speaker 1: like like even more tragic and weird section because again,
Speaker 1: for Black Lizard, perfect love is soulless. It's the diamond heart,
Speaker 1: and the only place she truly knows where to find
Speaker 1: this is in her is in her dolls as a
Speaker 1: means of cultivating it as well in herself.
Speaker 3: Oh man, But there are some more twists that come
Speaker 3: in now. One of the weirdest choices I thought is
Speaker 3: so Sinay and Emma Mia are both kept in this
Speaker 3: prison cell. Emma discloses everything here. He's like, yeah, here's
Speaker 3: what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get turned
Speaker 3: into a statue.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: And then Sinay reveals I'm not actually sinnae Yes, I
Speaker 3: am a body double. I am a woman named Yoko
Speaker 3: who was hired by a Catchee to pretend to be
Speaker 3: Snae to keep her safe from Black Lizard. And I
Speaker 3: think this is not just for part of the movie.
Speaker 3: I think this character the entire film has actually just
Speaker 3: been this body double named Yoko.
Speaker 1: I believe, so that's the way I interpret it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, Also Yoko the body double and I'm Gonna
Speaker 3: be a they sort of bond over the fact that
Speaker 3: they are both both frauds in some way, and then
Speaker 3: they fall in love while imprisoned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so then we get the redemption art more
Speaker 1: or less back on track for our men. I'm amiya here,
Speaker 1: but from here we work our way into the big finish. Okay,
Speaker 1: that Hunchback reveal that we saw coming a mile away,
Speaker 1: it happens. It is a catchy. It's been a CATCHI
Speaker 1: the whole time. The actual hunchback was in the futon
Speaker 1: and was stabbed through. The Snake Woman goes in for
Speaker 1: the kill. Okay.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: Also, Akechi's men, like the fuzz show up there on
Speaker 1: the scene. I don't know where they came from, but
Speaker 1: they know backups have arrived. Snake Woman goes in for
Speaker 1: the kill against a Ketchi, but Black Lizard stops her
Speaker 1: and kills Snake Woman dead. Black Lizard then retreats into
Speaker 1: her inner chambers. Aketchee follows. He pursues, but when he
Speaker 1: finds her, she has already taken a fatal poison, and
Speaker 1: so the two of them lounge together on her calp
Speaker 1: like lovers, sharing a tender moment, and she observes that
Speaker 1: she has at last found the perfect diamond heart in
Speaker 1: a catchy because he was able to outsmarter and out
Speaker 1: double and triple cross her, you know, and then she
Speaker 1: dies in this Yeah, this this tragic and beautiful like
Speaker 1: Shakespearean moment. And then I'm a Mia and son or
Speaker 1: the fake sonn run off together. There now a couple.
Speaker 1: The case is solved, but we close out with a
Speaker 1: lot of stylish shots of Black Lizard as the credits roll,
Speaker 1: because it's you know, we got to leave everything on
Speaker 1: a stylish happy note.
Speaker 3: To a certain extent, I almost took the happy ending
Speaker 3: for Ama Mia and the Sanae body double Yoko. I
Speaker 3: almost took that as is, like it was supposed to
Speaker 3: be funny the way they're just allowed to run off together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, maybe that is a splash of comedy where
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, we're both fakes, but we're in love now.
Speaker 1: And then then they run off together, like, where are
Speaker 1: you guys going? You're on a criminal mastermind, Like you
Speaker 1: should probably hang around and leave with the police, But
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Well, I thought Black Lizard was a rollicking good time.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I had high hopes for this film, and it
Speaker 1: didn't disappoint. I was interested when I read about it
Speaker 1: in Fukusaku's filmography, when we talked about him previously, and
Speaker 1: then when I went and rented it at Video Drum
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, John, one of the crew there, really
Speaker 1: talked it up, and again the film absolutely delivered. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm a romanticist, but now I too believe that crime
Speaker 1: should wear a gorgeous gown with a train fifteen feet long,
Speaker 1: just like the primordial dreams of lizards.
Speaker 3: Well said, all right, well.
Speaker 1: We're going to go ahead and close it out here.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed our chat about Black Lizard, and
Speaker 1: more importantly, I hope you enjoy Black Lizard. I hope
Speaker 1: you're able to get a hold of it, and I
Speaker 1: hope that, hopefully in the not too distant future, we
Speaker 1: see an actual like Blu Ray release for this film,
Speaker 1: it's very deserving of it, and hey, you might be
Speaker 1: lucky enough to see at a film festival somewhere, and
Speaker 1: if you give the chance, make sure you do it.
Speaker 1: Reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a
Speaker 1: science and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Speaker 1: but we do listener mail on Mondays, short form episodes
Speaker 1: on Wednesdays, and on Fridays. We set aside most serious
Speaker 1: concerns to just talk about a weird film on weird
Speaker 1: House Cinema. If you want to see a complete list
Speaker 1: of all the movies we've covered thus far, and sometimes
Speaker 1: a peek ahead at what's to come, go to letterbox
Speaker 1: dot com. It's l E T T E R B
Speaker 1: O x D dot com. Our username is weird House
Speaker 1: and we've got a wonderful list there that you can
Speaker 1: peruse and see what might be up your alley and
Speaker 1: what you want to add to your own to watch list.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
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Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to saggest
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