Samurai, robots, flying tiger sharks, time-traveling baseball players and alien monsters: the legendary – and above all notoriously bad – Japanese detective series Ronin Suiri Tentai had it all. In Japan, the series was strangely enough no more than a modest success. But in Australia, where it was released in the early 1990s under the title Top Knot Detective, the series became a gigantic cult hit.
More than two decades after the unexpected end of the series, after only two seasons, two Australian ‘documentary makers’ set off in search of answers to questions that have fascinated Australian audiences for years. What was the reason for the sudden demise of Top Knot Detective? And what happened to deviser, director, writer, producer and protagonist Takashi Takamoto, from whom nothing has been heard for the longest time?
A hilarious mockumentary about a hilarious cult series: one you would hope really had existed.
Film details
Countries of production
Australia, Japan
Year
2017
Festival edition
IFFR 2018
Length
86'
Medium/Format
DCP
Language
English, Japanese
Premiere status
None
Director
Dominic Pearce, Aaron McCann
Screenplay
Aaron McCann, Dominic Pearce
Editing
Dominic Pearce, Steven Hughes
Producer
Lauren Brunswick
Sales / World rights holder
Creative Artists Agency (CAA)
Cinematography
A.J Coultier
Production design
Matthew Willemsen
Sound design
Xoe Baird
Music
Malcolm Clark, Lance Robinson
Principal cast
Masa Yamaguchi, Toshi Okuzaki, Mayu Iwasaki, Des Mangan, Hashimoto Kuni, Izumi Woods, Shimamoto Nobuaki