Gemini

Tsukamoto Shinya’s wildly entertaining new film may well be the best ‘demon brother’ movie ever made. Inspired by an Edogawa Rampo short story (but perhaps more by the period setting than by the minimal storyline), it tells a tale of class divides, voluntary and involuntary amnesia, psychological doubling and, of course, murder. Dr Daitokuji (Motoko Masahiro, from The Bird People in China) runs a prosperous medical clinic in late-Meiji Tokyo and lives with his parents and his strange, amnesiac bride. But their elegant home is ominously close to a ‘dangerous’ shanty-town slum. It takes much paranoia, several strange smells and two deaths in the family before the good-but-snobbish doctor discovers that he has a demonic twin bent on murdering him and taking his place – socially and sexually. The look is Hammer Gothic on acid, the performances are (to say the least) full-blooded and it’s highly exhilarating to see Tsukamoto’s patented kinetic visual style applied to a costume drama. A career breakthrough for the director, a treat for the rest of us. (T.R.)