Orchids Under the Moon

Ten years after losing his family in a gang conflict, former tax accountant Hashikawa struggles to make ends meet as a mahjong player. His life takes an unexpected turn when he encounters pop idol Ran, who seeks his assistance after stealing a precious golden egg-shaped object.

Ran is kidnapped by members of the Nishikata gang and Hashikawa is caught cheating at mahjong, and in desperation he attempts to extort 1 million yen from Ran’s talent agency using the stolen egg – a move that might save them both or go horribly wrong.

Takashi Ishii was one of the leading lights of the Japanese cinema revival of the 1990s, whose hard-boiled, neo noir crime tales, such as Original Sin (1992), A Night in Nude (1993) and the masterful Gonin (1995), updated the genre as poignant reflections of the hopelessness of Japan’s Lost Decade, the deep and seemingly endless recession that followed the collapse of the economic bubble of the 1980s. Orchids Under the Moon, Ishii’s only V-cinema feature, was made the year of this collapse and has its finger firmly on the pulse of society. As such, it lays the groundwork for one of the most vital bodies of work in Japanese film history.

– Tom Mes

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