Today, while my wife was having brunch with her parents in the City and doing some shopping for my sister in Holland, I watched the mystery of Rampo, courtesy of our Netflix subscription. A surreal Japanese story where reality and fiction blend when a writers’ (Edogawa Rampo - Edgar Allen Poe) fictional murder story is censored in the 1930s but actually happens in reality. Rampo sensei becomes obsessed with the woman who in his book, but now also in real life, has murdered her husband. He meets her, but she rejects him but later she changes her mind and seeks his help as the people in her village now despise her for the presumed murder of her husband. To save her he has to continue writing his forbidden book and with every page reality and fiction mix, mesh and ultimately collide into a surrealistic ending.
A stellar performance by Naoto Takenaka as Edogawa Rampo. I saw Takenaka-san also in the Japanese movie “Shall we Dance?” where he played the outrageously funny Aoki-san. Great entertainment!
