This is it. The final feature film from director Shinya Tsukamoto...for now. How? I mean, just how is it that this one director is this fucking good. Film after film of writing, directing, editing, and being DP for each of his films and they are just perfection after perfection. A couple of not so great ones from his collection of “commercial” films but all his “auteur films” are near perfect if not perfect. How?

Gemini is another of his “commercial “ films. It’s an adaptation of a short story from famed Japanese mystery/horror author Edogawa Rampo. But it’s still basically perfection. 

The tone and pace is so menacing and tight. The visuals and atmosphere do so much heavy lifting and it pays off in spades. This has genuinely horrific sequences and even when not doing any kind of scary thing the visual style causes tension and anxiety. It’s fully engaging and thoroughly engrossing from start to finish. Just a god damn masterclass in both adaptation and in filmmaking. How?!!!

One thing that struck me as interesting has nothing to do with the film. Rampo is one of the most famous Japanese authors of all time. I really get the feeling that Naoki Urasawa knows the original story. His masterpiece Monster is about a Japanese doctor living in Germany who has one of the beginning incidents be the mayor coming in for emergency surgery which causes the doctor to ignore the regular working class man who was there first. That same scenario happens here in Gemini. It doesn’t lead to the next incident where the doctor cares for the child who came first instead of the political figure which leads to the child becoming a serial killer a decade later but that’s why everyone should read and/or watch Monster cause that is one of the greatest to ever be. 

Back to Gemini. Wow. Mondo Macabro’s Bd looks great. I’m watching the bonus features now (which includes the Making of directed by Takashi Miike) and I can’t recommend it enough. The standard edition is scheduled to release in August. Get on it. It isn’t of kind with the Tsukamoto film everyone has hopefully fallen in love with that are feature in that tremendous Arrow box set but it is on par with the quality of those films. Just wow. 

Tsukamoto I hereby idolize you. Your films have been some of the most unique and impressionable experiences in my film going life. May you live long and continue to make many more films for me to adore. And May your films continue to enthrall me as I rewatch them with relish and enthusiasm. 

Like for real, that whole sequence where dude is leaping about as if defying gravity on the opening of the well while shouting down and tormenting dude at the bottom of the well. The visuals, Chu Ishikawa’s perfect industrial tinged score thrumming beautifully, the sound effects on his voice, the editing...holy shit! Just fucking HOW?!!!!