Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
And this is Joe McCormick. And hey, folks, I said this on yesterday's episode, but I want to say again, if I sound unusual in today's episode, if I sound a little hoarse, it is because I've got a bit of a cold. But a bit of a cold could not stop me from talking about today's movie on Weird House, which is nineteen sixty eight. It's Black Lizard.
We should have worked it into the picture and so that you sound like you do because a strange woman with demon yellow eyes through a constricting snake at your neck. But it's more mundane are the causes here? But yeah, we have yet another cult favorite gem from Japanese cinema today, and it follows the traditions of danger diabolic and that it is another super criminal film, full of style, full of visual pizazz. It's campy, it's bizarre, but also I
think with a lot of interesting depth. As you dig into it, we're going to be talking about nineteen sixty eight's Black Lizard. Today's film is also notable in that
it is entirely centered around a charismatic drag performance. The title character, Black Lizard or Cororo Tokagi, is a stylish female super criminal played in this film by prominent drag performer, really famous and legendary drag performer, Akihiro Miwa, who will have more information about here in a bet, but a true legend, but a cultural figure of note, and it's all played out seriously and thoughtfully, never for a giggle in a wink. I've seen descriptions of this film as
a comedy. I think the current Internet movie database summary, for example, says it's a comedy in the summary, and I don't know, I don't think that's one hundred percent accurate. It is a tremendously fun film. It is certainly camp, but it doesn't really seem to play for laughs. But again, it is tremendously fun.
Yeah, there are funny things in it. It certainly has an over the top sensibility, but I would say it plays a lot more as kind of a serious tragic romance and as a crime thriller more certainly more than as a comedy. I would say it is no more a comedy than danger diabolic as a comedy, and also in Diabolic there are funny scenes and an absurd gratuitousness. There's similar movies in a lot of ways, but neither one really has the moment to moment focus on laughs that a comedy usually does.
All right, elevator pitch for this film, I want to approach it two ways. One, I would say it's the forbidden love of a super criminal and an ace detective realized in a stylish sixties counterculture Japanese cinema festival for the eyes. But I also think that there's one line in particular in translation here. Of course, we both watched it with subtitles. I don't think a dub exists, and I don't think I would want the dub. I think
I would want the subtitles. But there's one great line where our main character, Aketchi, the number one detective in Japan, is speaking to Black Lizard, the super criminal, and says, black Lizard, you were an old fashioned romanticist in this age soiled by corruption and murder. You believe that crime should wear a gorgeous gown with a train fifteen feet long, just like the primordial dreams of lizards.
Oh yeah, like those.
Yeah, And that's I mean, if you love that line, you'll love this film. This film perfectly delivers on like the glorious, poetic weirdness of that statement. All right now, I wasn't able to find what I could one hundred percent feel certain about concerning a trailer, Japanese or otherwise. So what I did find was a that was uploaded by Brooklyn's Spectacle Theater, which I've never been to, but
it looks amazing. It's a collectively run screening space run by movie loving volunteers and they play a lot of just great looking stuff, including some films that we've covered on Weird House before. Like just at the time of this recording, I'm like, oh, what are they playing this week at this place? And they're playing Doctor of Doom, which is a wonderful Mexican luchadora film that we've covered in the past. So so go check them out Brooklyn
Spectacle Theater. We're going to borrow part of the trailer they uploaded. Again. I'm not sure if this is part of an original trailer part of a trailer that they made, but either way, it'll give you just a little sonic taste.
Of black lizards, you know, it give climateg.
Too much.
On all. Right now, if you want to go out and watch Black Lizard before proceeding with the rest of this episode, well, I'm sad to say this one is tragically hard to find right now as of this recording, as of this moment, despite the film having had an official international and US release, even if a limited one back in nineteen sixty nine, even though it had subsequent re releases in Japan and and abroad over the decades
to follow. It might have been released on VHS at one point, as Michael Weldon, who loved it, references a tape in his Psychotronic Video guide book. I'm not sure if he's referring to a legit tape or more of a gray market sort of thing, but yeah, it's a real shame because this is a fabulous film with a cult following. It has cultural significance historical significance as well, and it deserves to be seen by more film fans than the best quality possible. If you look around, you
can find some sources for it. But I also have to stress that this is the nineteen sixty eight Black Lizard or Coro Toakagi film, not to be confused with other films titled Black Lizard, including an unrelated Shaw Brothers Hong Kong film titled Black Lizard from nineteen eighty one, or a nineteen sixty two Japanese film titled Black Lizard that is actually an earlier adaptation of the same novel in the same play. I've seen part of the sixty two film, and it's also quite stylish and quite good.
I was about like twenty mins and it's into it before I realized, Oh, I have the wrong movie. I need to find I need to look around a little art. I think the sixty two win is actually maybe you can stream it through Criterion Collection. So, but it would not be a loss to watch the sixty two version. You're going to hit a lot of the same plot points we're hitting here. But we are talking about the nineteen sixty eight adaptation here today.
Now when it comes to the sixty eight version, the director is actually somebody quite familiar on Weird House.
That's right. It's Kimji Fukusaku, who lived nineteen thirty through two thousand and three. He directed nineteen seventy eight's Message from Space.
And Nice Best of the Star Wars Repulse.
Yeah, that was a one we covered early on on Weird House, and he also directed nineteen sixty eight so The Green Slime, which we covered far more recently, both very enjoyable films in their own distinct ways and also
rather different from today's entry. Yes, now, Fukusako has sixty eight directorial credits on IMDb, and probably the big one for a lot of listeners, as I mentioned before, is two thousand's Battle Royale, which was a huge late career hit for him, to the extent that it can to a casual fan, you might, you know, only focus on that, but other films of note include at least the Japanese
portions of nineteen seventies Tora Tora Tora. He apparently was brought in after Kurosawa backed out nineteen seventy three's Battles Without Honor and Humanity. He directed a number of action yakuza and samurai movies, as well as the high budget nineteen eighty sci fi film Virus, which featured a host
of Japanese and American actors. He also directed the two thousand and two video game like PlayStation video game clock Tower three, which I think I did play, and in doing so, this was my earliest exposure to Fukusaku's work.
Is that like a horror game.
Yeah, if it's the one I'm thinking of. There's a lot of like creeping around and trying to avoid like killers, you know, like mass killers that you can't actually directly stand. So in a way, it's kind of a similar vibe to like the Alien Isolation game that came many many years later. I don't remember anything about it where I'm like, oh wow, of course Fukusaku was involved in this anyway.
Fukusaku's a director often associated with the Japanese New wave cinema movement of the sixties and seventies, but he was also a big commercial success, highly acclaimed both in Japan and by filmmakers around the world. I've seen the likes of Tarantino, Paul Schraeder and others talk about how much
they admire his work. All right now, in terms of the writing here, they'll basically be like three levels because the original source for this is a novel by Rampo ed Ogawa, who lived eighteen ninety four through nineteen sixty five. This was the pen name of Japanese author Tero Hirari. Crafted this pen name Rampo ed Ogawa was apparently crafted
to resemble Edgar Allan Poe or PO. Edgar Allan So PO Edgar Allan Rampo ed Ogawa So and Edgar Allan Poe, along with Arthur Conan Doyle and others, were our big influence on Rampo's work. I have to admit I was really not familiar with Rampo prior to this. I don't know if you'd ever run across discussion of his work before.
Joe, possibly, but not that I recall.
Okay, Yeah, apparently a huge name in the world of Japanese mystery, detective and horror fiction, known for such works as The Boy Detective's Club, The Fiend with Twenty Faces, and of course The Black Lizard had His many short
stories include The Caterpillar and The Human Chair. Film and TV adaptations of his work go back as far as I believe nineteen twenty seven, and while he did write I think just one screenplay, pretty much all of the cinematic and TV treatments of his work were adapted by other writers in the adaptations I've continued in film and TV and manga and anime. Some of the more famous adaptations and cclued nineteen sixty nine's Blind Beast and Horrors
of Malformed Men. So some of these are titles I'm familiar with, but I didn't really know much about the Rampo connection. And then twenty tens Caterpillar, and it's previously mentioned Black Lizard was adapted numerous times as a play, and then two separate adaptations of that play, the nineteen sixty two film and this nineteen sixty eight one.
Okay, so that's the original novel. But there's another intermediary literary source, which is the play which is eventually adapted into the movie.
Yes, and the play here was adapted by another rather famous figure in Japanese culture. This is Yukio Mishima, who lived nineteen twenty five through nineteen seventy. So he wrote the stage adaptation upon which this is based. And there's a lot potentially unpacked here with Yukyo Mashima. You could do a whole podcast just on this guy. He's ultimately a very controversial figure. Mishima was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, and model. Is a highly successful writer said to affused
modern Western trends with traditional Japanese elements. With a general focus on beauty, eroticism, and death. In his private life and revealed in some of his writings, he was apparently bisexual and often dealt with themes of same sex love.
He was also a shintost and an ultra right wing nationalist who founded a militia known as the Shield Society, and on November twenty fifth, nineteen seventy, this, of course, is the year of his death, he essentially attempted a coup with four members of the militia invading a Japanese military base, taking the commandant hostage, and trying to encourage the Japanese Self Defense Forces to overthrow the government and restore her like the full rule of the Emperor. In
this attempt culminated in Mishima's own death VI. A Sepaka and Yeah Again. He's remained a very controversial figure because of all of this, though on the other hand, there's always been a lot of interest in him in his work in and out of Japan. American director Paul Schrader, for example, directed a biopic in nineteen eighty five titled Mishima, A Life in Four Chapters, starring ken Ogata in the
lead role. We were actually chatting about this with our excellent producer JJ Possway off Mike before we went in here, because I don't think either of us have seen this particular Paul Schrader film, but JJ has and said that it's really worth saying. It's quite excellent.
Now, if I'm not mistaken, Mishima appears bodily in Black Lizard as well, doesn't he.
That's right. Yeah, Mishima himself was, in addition to all these other things, he was an actor and a model. He was a noted bodybuilder and act. Yeah, has a very memorable non speaking role in this film. I mean, you could say it's a cameo, but I don't know when a cameo has like this much weight. I don't want to dismissed it as such.
He's the So there is a sequence later in the movie with these frozen human figures. They're sort of described, I think as stuffed bodies, though there's a something almost supernatural implied about the way that they're frozen, because they're clearly just they're not mannequins, they're human bodies, and their human bodies just kind of like trembling. You can see them moving a little bit and he's one of them, right, He's the one who's like in the middle of a knife fight with another guy.
Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, it's it's the classic, like you know, wax museum effect of having people being really still pretending to be models or some sort of preservation of formerly living humans. So it does have that inherent creepiness that we often touch on. But yeah, this is him. It's a very pivotal scene as well. We'll get to. It's also notable in that, yeah, this can't be relegated as a cameo because a lot of times the poster art has Mashima on the poster alongside the star, which
generally you don't do with your cameo appearances. Like the detective Acecchi, who is in many respects the protagonist of the picture, is not on the poster or not on many of the posters that I was looking at, So yeah, worth keeping in mind. As for Mishima, he has at least some other acting credits, including the nineteen sixty yakuza film Afraid to Die, in which he starred, and nineteen sixty six's Patriotism, which he also wrote and co directed.
All Right, and then the screenplay based on the play based on the novel. The credit here is Masashigi Narusawa, who lived nineteen twenty five through twenty twenty one. An award winning screenwriter and director. His films include nineteen fifty six as Street of Shame, sixty eight's Curse of the Blood. He was active from nineteen fifty through seventy five, with a final Rampo adaptation airing on TV in nineteen eighty. All right, so that's the director, that's the folks involved
in the writing of the picture. But now we have to talk about are the true star of this and that is Akihiro Miwa playing Black Lizard. This is just a fabulous performance. This is one of those performances where Miwa is almost constantly on the screen and is it a light whenever he is on screen?
I agree Miwa makes this movie what it is.
Yeah. So, Miwa was born in nineteen thirty five and as of this recording is still alive, and it's it's essential to note that here in this starring role as Black Lizard, the title character, the master criminal, we have one of, if not the most famous Japanese drag performers of the fifties and sixties, if not of all time. Drag culture does still seem to be going strong in Japan.
But yeah, I'm assuming the only Western comparison would be like someone like Rue Paul, Like this would be like having Rue Paul appear as the title character or super criminal picture. Maybe there's a better comparison to be made right in if you've got one. Anyway. MIA's cabaret career goes back to I Believe nineteen fifty two, and he rose to popularity, transcending eventually from stage to film, TV,
music writing, and directing. He put out five albums between nineteen seventy three and nineteen ninety five, all centered around as drag persona. He also became an outspoken voice on political and social issues in Japan, and he worked his way up to this glorious leading role through often smaller appearances sometimes it's like a singer or background character, and number of films, and then followed this one up with nineteen sixty nine's Black Rose or Black Rose Mansion, which
was also directed by Fukusaku. I haven't seen it, but it's apparently classified as kind of like a dark romantic drama. Now. While there's some additional live action roles after this Mea was biggest contributions moving forward after this point are mostly voice roles in animated projects, but boy did they include some big ones. He voiced the three hundred year old wolf goddess Moro Nokimi in Miyazaki's nineteen ninety seven masterpiece
Princess Mononoki. If you've only seen the dubbed version, this would be the character that Gillian Anderson dubs. You know, this big wolf goddess creature. He also voices the Witch of the Waste in Miyazaki's two thousand and four film Howell's Moving Castle, and for you Pokemon fans out there, he also voiced a Pokemon by the name of Okay, I'm not sure on this one, Arsius or Archias. I asked my son about this real quick, and he was like,
people might get mad at you. But he was like, they may say Archias or may they may say Arsius, but be prepared to be corrected. So okay, I am prepared. But anyway, this is like an important Pokemon like the title Pokemon and the two thousand and nine TV movie Arsius and the Jewel of Life.
If people are going to be mad at us. I hope it's about Pokemon.
Yeah, I'm always happy to be corrected.
But to come back to Black Lizard, Akihiro Miwa is phenomenal in this movie, so much like passion and charisma in this performance.
Absolutely every scene, and also so many costume and hair changes. This is definitely one of those pictures where we will call out the costume designer because you know, any new scene with Black Lizard, you're gonna get a new costume. You make it an entirely different hair going on as well. It's great.
It's also a surprise for like a crime thriller, it is a surprisingly dialogue heavy film, and I think that may be based on the fact that it was This is adapted from a stage play, so there are fewer just straight action scenes than you might imagine. A lot of it's just sort of dialogue and and and there is There are a lot of thrills, but a lot of the thrills are like twists that are revealed through dialogue.
Right, Yeah, so it's talkier than you might expect, but luckily the dialogue is often just tremendous. We already quoted a little of it, and you know, it often has that flavor, that weird character to it, and yeah, and when we do have punctuations of actual action, it generally is also really weird and jaw dropping. All right, now, it's important to talk about the Ace detective. This is Detective Akechi, played by Issau Kimura who lived nineteen twenty
three through nineteen eighty one. The interesting thing here is that, yeah, Detective Akechi is in many respects the actual protagonist of the film and is essentially Rampos Sherlock Holmes character, appearing in multiple novels and short stories. So while many viewers may watch this and you just see the sort of you know, typical noir detective character, you know, a little bit tortured, a little bit jaded, smoking and drinking, trying to solve the crime, maybe falling a little bit in
love here and there. So while many viewers I just dismissed that this character is like the detective figure in Japanese pop culture and was in fact the first recurring detective character in Japanese fiction. So he's a big deal and has been played by numerous actors over the years, including Tadanobu Asano, who have played of course, is the star of Ichi the Killer, and also had a really great role in the recent FX adaptation of Showgun. He was in two thousand and five's Rampo Noir.
So a catchy we are told is Japan's number one detective. But he also, I don't know. It makes a lot more sense to me knowing that this is a recurring character, because there's a sort of prologue in the film that's almost like, well here I am, I'm in the club, now sucked into this crime, And it makes more sense if this is kind of a character we would recognize.
Yeah, and in a way, it kind of gives you more license to let that character become secondary. He does have this like iconic place already, you know, in the same way that you can have a Sherlock Holmes film certainly these days, and allow secondary characters to sort of take the forefront.
Yeah, totally. So.
Anyway, Kamu right here playing the role, frequently worked in supporting roles in Akira Kurosawa films, including fifty four to seven Samurai and fifty seven's Throne of Blood. Yeah, I think his performance here certainly hits all the world. Weary noir detective notes that you'd expect, and I suppose this in many ways. This helps like ground the flashier elements of the picture as well. But he's good. It's a
good performance. Yeah, all right, this is all going to picture, This is all going to center around in many respects, a damsel in frequent distress, a youngerly, a young woman that Black Lizard tries to kidnap multiple times. Her name is Sane, and she is played by Kiko Matsuka, and she was born in nineteen forty seven, and she was in a number of sixties and seventies films, including an uncredited role as a diver girl in nineteen sixty seven's
Bond film You Only Live Twice. Her other credits include nineteen sixty eight's The Living Skeleton, Black Rose Mansion, and a Rampo TV series in nineteen seventy all right. Another important secondary character is the is the despondent musician Yunichi Amamiya, played by Yusuku Kuwazu, who lived nineteen thirty five through
twenty twenty two. This apparently is his best known role, but his credits include nineteen sixty one's Killers on Parade, nineteen ninety three's Godzilla, versus Mega Godzilla two and nineteen eighty eight, nineteen ninety eight s Gamma A three Revenge of Iris. So, I mean, it's a solid performance this this tragic character in this film. But also props to anyone who was ever in both a Godzilla and a Gamera movie.
That's right. Yeah, this is a very sad, pathetic, abject role and this guy does well with it.
Yeah. Yeah, as we'll discuss, like even when he has his moments of seeming bravery like, there's still this wrinkle to them that makes it even more tragic.
Yeah, it's all revealed that it's just the ultimately even more pathetic than you would have thought.
Yeah, let's see. Another fun secondary character is Private Detective Keniji Matoba, who I guess is like he's not the number one detective Aketchi is the number one detective. This is somebody further down the list that has no problem with at all with the possibility of making a fool out of a catchee or you know, or coming in to clean up a catchy's mess.
You can just see this guy's displeasure with the full knowledge that he is the number four detective.
Yeah, he is played. Yeah, so He's a rival stern faced private detective, played here by award winning actor co Nishimura, who lived nineteen twenty three through nineteen ninety seven, best known for his roles in such Krosawa films as nineteen sixty is The Bad, Sleep Well ones Yo Jimbo, nineteen sixty three is High and Low. And he was also greatly praised and awarded for his starring role in the bear movie Matagi from nineteen eighty two. So he was
definitely the star of Matagi in eighty two. But yeah, as for these Kirosawa films, several, some of which I haven't seen and others I haven't seen in a long time. I'm not sure exactly off the top of my head how far up the cast he is in those, but I love his performance series kind of like a Japanese Christopher Lee.
Yeah, he's very very stern.
Yeah, Okay, Sanya's dad is also important. Iwasa played by yun Usami who lived nineteen eleven through nineteen eighty one. His credits include nineteen seventies Tori Toar Tora in nineteen fifty eight, The Man in the Moonlight Mask.
This is sort of our rich Mark. The guy who is targeted by Black Lizard for both the kidnapping of his daughter and the stealing of his precious jewels.
Right, and you know, he's rather proud about the fact that he can afford Japan's number one detective. So it's a fun, fun role. But he's also like, you know, you're of course you're gonna get taken advantage off by super criminals.
He also complains immediately about the cost of Japan's number one detective when his daughter is discovered to have been kidnapped. Yeah, like, throw back the blankets on the bed and it's like, oh, it's just a mannequin in there. He's like, you know how much money I paid you to protect her?
Yep, yep. We also already alluded to the snake woman with the yellow demon eyes. We'll come back to her, just not a lot about her, but just to credit the actor. This is Toshiko Koboyashi, who lived nineteen thirty two through twenty sixteen. Oh okay, so we recently received a listener mail from someone saying, hey, you guys need to single out the costume folks, the costume designers more well, this is certainly a movie to do it on. We have so many great costumes, especially for Black Lizard, and
the costume designer on this was Masako Watanabi. She's worth singling out in part because, again, the costumes here are amazing, but she's also a notable manga comic writer and artist, known for such titles that I'm not familiar with as Master of Morley, Jack, Ryerdon's Baby and Heidi. So if you know more about about her and her work, write in and we'll get the full details from you, all right. And then finally the music. Oh, we have another huge
name here. This is a guy with a number of credits in Japan film wise, but in general though just a musical icon. Isautomita, who lived nineteen thirty two through twenty sixteen. This is a name that I think is going to register with a number of you. Not so much for film though he does have associations with various films, But this is this guy was one of the pioneers of electronic music and space music, both in Pan and
ultimately internationally as well. His work prior to this film included the TV series Mighty Jack, which I believe was featured on Mystery Science Theater three thousand. But yeah, the interesting thing is that around the same time of this picture is when and again the score for this movie for Black Lizard is not particularly I don't think it's electronic.
I think it's very traditional when you say but around the same time as he would have been working on this film, he heard Wendy Carlos's nineteen sixty eight album Switched on Boch for the first time and was reportedly enraptured. I heard. I read one account which I said, like, basically, he's like, give me a ticket to New York and like flies to the United States just so he can bring back a mug synthesizer. He's like, I've got to
get my hands on this. Like he just saw the tremendous potential and then started experimenting with synths and goes on to again have become this pioneer of electronic and music, known for such works as nineteen seventy two is Electric Samurai Switched On Rock, which I think was released in the US, and seventy four nineteen seventy six is the Planets, which I was listening to while finishing up my notes here is.
That an electronic adaptation of Holst's the Planets.
You know, I'm not sure. I listened to the whole thing, and I'm not sure of him. They didn't have Holes credited on the tracks on Spotify, which may mean nothing, but a number of his works are synth treatments, electronic treatments of pre existing works, like I know he did a version of John Williams Star Wars theme song for example. Anyway, he's an international legend. You'll find loads of his work
wherever you get your music. Again, I don't think we really hear any electronic stylings in The Black Lizard's score, as I think he flied to acquire his first synth in around seventy two. But still, it's an amazing connection, so we get like pre electronic to me to hear he'd go on to score such films. Two thousand and four is The Hidden Blade, and I've read he was apparently Ridley Scott's first pick to score Alien. Would that have worked? I don't know, but it's an interesting connection.
Okay, is it time just talk about the plot.
Yeah, let's jump into it.
Well, warning, this plot has twists and reveals a plenty, so if you do want to experience the movie without having anything spoiled. I guess you should pause here and go watch it before you listen to this part of the episode. Now we open with the kind of prologue before we get into the main caper that will involve most of the movie. There's like a hippie technicolor acid freak out sex party opening. It's like a go go club.
We've seen this in movies from the sixties before. They try to put you right in the middle of a swinging happening go go club to like get your mind right where it needs to be for the feeling of the movie.
And with strong cabaret elements. I think as well, like this is where this is where the counterculture happens. This is where the bohemi and vibe is strong.
That's right. So it's a feeling of the sixties, a feeling of cultural and sexual energy. But I think also Rob, I don't know if you detected the same thing. There's kind of a point of view the camera takes that implies some kind of distance or hesitation, maybe like it's it's celebrating everything that's going on in the club, but it's also a little bit afraid. Maybe it's like this this is an alluring but also a dangerous and confusing frontier of freedom and pleasure.
Yeah, as we'll see, there's danger here and there's sadness here as well.
In fact, that sort of point of view of the camera maybe the point of view of the character we're about to meet, because we go to this man, a lonely looking man, sitting at a table overlooking the dance floor in this freak out go Go club, and we hear his voiceover. He says, I came here by mere chance. A friend said he would guide me to a secret club.
This.
We never see the friend, by the way, do we Yeah? He says, this was a world unknown to me until a gaudy crime dragged me into it. And then suddenly everything stops. The action freezes and darkness falls over the go go club, and then there is somber, humming music, and then we see Black Lizard in three forms. First the character so we see Akihiro Miwa in jewels with a cigarette holder, and then the image of a black Lizard silhouette, and then the title Black Lizard. Now I
warned there would be spoilers. Technically, the character we are meeting here is not revealed to be black Lizard the titular criminal until a twist that comes later. But I was in no suspense at all about this, and I wonder if the audience is supposed to be in suspense at all. It seems to me one hundred percent clear from the very first frame of seeing Black Lizard that she is Black Lizard.
I think so. Like from what I watched the sixty two ADAP takes, I felt like it was maybe a little less obvious, but here it's clear and been. Part of that may be the fact that, Yeah, you have me, this famous individual playing this title character, and you know there are gonna be several twists in the film that I think most viewers will see coming a mile away.
But it doesn't feel like a limitation. In a film like this, A twist may be telegraphed, but what sort of feast will the film make of the twist.
Yeah, so there's a dark, mysterious melody as the credits play. I think this may be Black Lizard singing. Actually, I think so.
I wasn't sure when I first watched it, but then afterwards, when I was diving more into me was musical credentials. Yeah, I assume this is his actual singing voice because he put out all these albums and so forth. So yeah, it belts out of tune.
So Black Lizard. After the credits, Black Lizard navigates the club and comes up to meet the lonely man sitting at the table above, and Black Lizard says, this is an unusual night, an oppressive night, a night made for crime. I love a night like this. Sleep won't come easily tonight. And you So the lonely man tells her he's impressed by her words. He's like, wow, you are a poetess. And Black Lizard says, are you a critic because beauty fails to intoxicate you? Your eyes tell me that.
And this is a catchy she's talking to This is the number one detective, right.
Yes, But then Black Lizard backs off of a catchy and goes to visit a different man at the bar. She goes up to this sad looking guy and says, thinking of death?
Are you?
And she then seemingly telekinetically moves his whiskey glass to the edge of the table until it falls and shatters. I'm not sure what's going on here, but I like it.
Yeah, this is a great weird moment. That is important because we come back to it. But I guess it's like a here as a metaphor or a splash of magical realism, because there's nothing else to indicate that this character has any kind of telekinetic I think it's just to convey the charismatic power of the Black Lizard. You know, I don't know, the inevitable trajectory of unobtainable obsessions. Yeah, the film plays it marvelously vague. But again, it is important because we'll come back to it.
Yeah, there's an ambiguous question about the presence of the supernatural in this film. The movie is, you know, ninety nine percent grounded in realism, but there are a few things in it that are like, wait, was that magic or not? I can't tell. So there's the whiskey glass telekinesis. There's the lady with yellow eyes who the snake Lady later, who sometimes seems to maybe do magic or I don't
know what's going on with her snake eyes. The statues at the end of the movie, which are people, They appear to be frozen in some way that almost suggests magic, but it's not clear.
Yeah. Yeah, So there are a few moments like that, and it keeps things wild and unpredictable as well.
Anyway, the man at the table, who was allegedly thinking of death leaves the club with black Lizard, and then we smash cut to a newspaper headline that tells us a quote despondent young musician has died by suicide. And then we also see a different article in the newspaper that a corpse was stolen from a medical dissection room at the Morgue. Right, yes, okay, So then detective at catche is suddenly there. He is at the Morgue looking into it and finds there is a toy black lizard at the scene.
Yeap peels it right off the floor there.
And then also, what is the deal with all these cadavers floating in like a tank of dark green liquid? This is so weird.
Yeah, I found this creepy, but I don't know, like, maybe this is actually how it was done. At the time, I have no idea, and I have to admit I was reluctant to go down the goolish avenue of researching it. I was like, I don't know, I'm just gonna accept it as is. Maybe I'll come back and look into it later, but at least within the context of the film, this is just where they put recently dead bodies instead of having like freezers, the sort of freezer drawer scene
that we're accustomed to. Instead we have the vat scene that we have here.
But anyway, okay, so all this is sort of prologued to the main caper of the film, which is the iwasa kidnapping and the Star of Egypt.
I only looked this up just before we came in to record, but the Star of Egypt is an actual diamond. I was reading about it on Christie's. It first appeared on the London market in nineteen thirty nine. There's a listing for it on Christie's. I think it recently sold for you know, several million dollars, so it's it's a real thing, not just a made up gym.
So we get into act one here with the main plot, and it is that Detective Atketchi has been hired by a rich man named iwasa to protect his daughter Senne, who has been threatened with kidnapping. I think they get a note in the mail or something saying that she's going to be kidnapped, and so they hide out in a hotel room under the supervision of a ketchee who intends to set a trap for the would be kidnappers.
That's right, number one detective in Japan, the most expensive, only the best for this guy's daughter.
Now, technically, even though we said it's clear who Black Lizard is at this point in the plot, Black Lizard has not been revealed and is in disguise as a woman named Midori Kawa. And so this is how she's known to a ketchee from the club. You know, he knows her as Midori Kawa. And then we go to the hotel lounge where Sinay is hanging out. And then also Midori Kawa and a handsome, well dressed man named Yamakawa are getting to know Sinay. They like they're talking
to her in the hotel bar. For some reason, Sinay has been permitted to hang out at the bar by herself, even though she's being targeted by kidnappers.
Yeah, yeah, it's weird. It was the same way in the sixty two versions, So I guess it's straight from the play and or book. Maybe the bar is considered a safe public zone, or maybe Medora Kawa is just seeming. She's just such a long time trusted client of dads that you know she's perfectly safe as long as she's with her.
But Midori Kawa is being so creepy. It is like she's like, hey, did you play volleyball in college? I would like to possess your body as a doll.
She's like, if I told you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me if I preserved you in a perfect soul? Estate more poetic than that, but yeah, yeah, but Black Lizard is always hitting on folks.
Yes, So Midori Kawa and her accomplice they lure Sina back to a room in the hotel, I think, on the promise of showing her like an antique doll. They're like, oh, we have this interesting artifact, and she's like, okay, I'll go look at it. But of course they kidnap her. They like chloroform her and then stuff her into a trunk and back.
Lizard is also like, go ahead and take her clothes off.
Yeah, for no particular reason, Well.
Didn't she does he change into those clothes. There's kind of an initial fake out that I think maybe initially she replaces Snae in Sanna's clothes with her back turned to her father, and then they end up replacing her in bed with the very dummy that you know would have been the doll in the box originally, that's why it is okay, yeah, but it is also played for you know, yeah, for for more alluring purposes here too.
So also somewhere in here, Yamakawa is revealed to be Unichi a'ma mia. This was the same guy, the despondent young man at the club earlier, right, yes, yeah, this is now Black Lizard's accomplice. And of course we know Midori Kawa is Black Lizard, but we are to understand the detective Aketchi does not know. So they pull a clever maneuver. Amamiya takes Sannae inside the trunk and boards a train going to some other city while Black Lizard stays at the hotel, and she tricks Iwase into thinking
that Sennae is totally safe in the hotel room. First, she like throws her voice and poses as her, like, pretending to be her from the other room, and I guess ita is He's like not, I don't know. He's not thrown off by the fact that this is not his daughter's voice.
Right, or it's a perfect replica for voice somehow, I don't know. At any rate it works.
And then she tricks him into thinking that Senne is in her bed in the hotel room. It will later be revealed that it's a huge doll under the blankets. But he Oh, but Black Lizard has a message delivered stating that Senne will be kidnapped exactly at midnight. So while it wasa sleeps soundly thinking that Sennae is asleep nearby, a catchy stands guard in the living room of the hotel suite, passing the time by hanging out with Black Lizard, not knowing who she is. And this leads to a
great dialogue see where Black Lizard again in disguises. Midori Kawa and Detective Aketchi play cards and talk about crime and love and their careers and their character. A lot of really fun dialogue here. Just one example is they start talking about like what it takes to make a criminal, and Akechi says, consider three women. A man gives a woman a bouquet of roses. A caterpillar crawls out from between the petals. Disgusted, the woman throws the bouquet into
the fireplace. Akechi says, this woman does not have what it takes to be a criminal. Now consider a second woman, same thing. She gets the flowers, caterpillar crawls out of the flower. Instead of throwing the flowers into the fire, she plucks out the caterpillar and throws it alone into the flames. Akechi says, she also is not a criminal. But consider a third woman. She sees the caterpillar crawl out of the blossom, she throws neither the flowers nor
the insect. Instead, she pushes the man who gave her the flowers into the flames. Akechi says, this woman can be a criminal, but ironically she is the most tenderhearted of the three.
I'd be lying if I said that I one percent understood what the point is here. But I still love it, and I do want to see a line of black Lizard Valentine's Day cards. Based on this and other quotes from the film.
I think Aketche is making some kind of point about like passion and boldness, that it's like the same thing, the same thing that makes someone that have the deepest kind of love is also what makes someone the most like violent and dangerous.
Oh okay, so maybe we're getting back into the territory here of, you know, of believing that crime should wear a gorgeous gown with a train fifteen feet long, both stylistically but also in terms of passion somehow.
Yeah. Yeah, they also talk. So they start playing cards and they put a wager up. Aketchi is like, oh, well, you know you're you're rich. I can't really bet against you because you've got all this money, and Black Lizard says, well, I'll bet all my jewels, but you have to bet your career as a detective. So I guess if Black Lizard wins the card game, a Catchee will no longer get to be Japan's number one detective.
Yeah, this is a great scene, and I love the way it was shot too. They're like playing on a glass countertop, I believe, and so we get some wonderful shots from below up through the card game as it's taking place, and yeah, it's I believe. It's in this scene that we get a lot of contemplation about the idea that aketche is like the negative photo of a criminal. Yeah, and in a way, even though although Aketchi doesn't know
that he's playing cards with the Black Lizards. Yeah, this is very much a we're much the same you and I speech that has become a standard trope, but it's constructed in a fresh way. It has a very fresh feeling to it.
This is better than most I mean it. This comes before things that would make same point later. I think you know, this is sort of the same point made in like Manhunter about the Thomas Harris character Will Graham. It's like that he is able to think like a killer, or think like a criminal, and that's what makes him a great detective, and Black Lizards saying the same thing to a catchy here. It's that like, in order to be a great detective, you must be able to think like a criminal.
Now is this the place I may be skipping around? I may be thinking about something earlier or later. But there's one part where Black Lizard has an extended monologue anguishing over the fact that beauty must age and that is the ultimate tragedy, and therefore she pines for a soulless existence and the heart made of pure, made as pure and unbreakable as a diamond, both in her in herself but also in others.
I think Yeah, it might be the scene.
Yeah either way, Like the Quest for the Diamond Heart is one of the central themes of the film that we come back to again and again.
And this is the scene where Black Lizard and a Catchy do seem to be falling in love. Yes, but then remember the thing was supposed to be. He's standing guard there until the kidnapping, which is supposed to come at midnight, And midnight comes and nothing happens. What gives Sannae's absence at this point is revealed. They go in and like pull back the covers on the bed and oh, it's just a doll in there. But it's a double twist because we find out a catchy knew all along.
He lets his men run into the room and he reveals that he knew that Senne had already been taken and he had his men collect the trunk and bring her back.
Yeah again, Black Lizard really does feel like the main character in all of this, in part because we're generally clued into what her plans are far more than a catchy's. Like a catchy ultimately ends up being like two steps ahead of even the viewer. And I guess this corresponds to the often observed soft rule of caper films, and that you lay out all the beats of the caper that's going to ultimately fail, but you reveal the beats of a successful caper in its very real time execution. Again,
a catchy is essentially Sherlock Holmes here. He is a master, you know, figuring out the criminal scheme and then trying to be ahead of that. And I wonder too if that adds to why we might be rooting for Black Lizard, because it's like, if you don't know who a catchy is,
he's just another detective. But if you know that he's the master detective, then you kind of know the fixes in from the beginning, like this is an unbeatable adversary for Black Lizard, and therefore maybe we root for her a little bit more.
Yeah, Well, later in the story they do try to get ahead of that by showing a catchy like doing something sneaky and you think that he's being he's being caught getting one over on on Black Lizard, and then
she gets one over on him. But then there's like a triple twist where it's like, oh no, he actually was there all along, Yes, but Anyway, Sola escapes this trap by stealing a catche's gun from his coat pocket, using it to escape the hotel room, and then she gets out of the hotel by disguising herself as a man.
Yeah, this is a fun sequence, and I guess really the only nod that we see to me was drag performance. I suppose.
Yeah, So on to fight another day. So this sort of gives way to Act two of the movie, the previous plot having been foiled, we cut to the home of Iwasa where Black Lizard is determined to strike again. So this middle sequence of the movie involves Black Lizard's second attempt at kidnapping Sinne and using the leverage of her kidnapping to acquire the jeweled necklace the Star of Egypt. So we meet a large cast of Hinchman here, hired
by Awasa to protect the family. The gang is commanded by a new private detective met And so there's like a furniture delivery truck that arrives at the house and we see the whole gang run out to like menace them. The delivery guys seem very frightened, but then they decide it's okay, you know, it's a beautiful new futon that IWASA did apparently actually order. So they bring it inside.
They talk about how it cost a bazillion bucks and so forth, and the whole time Matoba is there just looking like he's just a statue.
He's great, just scowling the whole time.
Now, I think at this point we're supposed to believe Aketchy has been dismissed from the case, or maybe he actually has been.
Yeah, I don't know if he's like been completely pushed out, but yeah, it's Matoba is now seemingly in charge of things, and he seems a little rth that a catch. He's even showing up. It's like, no, you failed, dude, I'm I'm I'm top now.
But later that night there is an attack from inside the house. I think it's Matoba catches. Itwasa's housekeeper, Hena sending secret coded messages to someone via radio. She's like talking into a radio, saying like the sea is a flame and stuff like that. But the tables are turned. How exactly is it revealed? Is it that Hena and the big lug Hinchman guy both gang up on Matoba.
Yeah, I don't know if Matoba vetted these henchmen, but yeah, it's like they all were in the pocket of Black Lizard. We'll find out. So, yeah, everybody's looking working for Black Lizard here except for Matoba.
And this is the first reveal of Hena's like powers and snake associations. What's the deal with this lady?
Oh? I mean this is again? Is it magic? Is it? Is it metaphor what's going on here? I don't know, but it's tremendous because we see, yeah, her eyes glitter, yellow, demon's fire. She flings constricting snakes as a weapon. So we've watched movies with projectile snakes before on the show, namely nineteen eighty one's Venom, where we get to see Klauskinsky with a rubber snake, and it's the kind of thing that can easily look very rubber and fake. But I totally bought her and her snake bolos as a
legitimate threat. So like she leaps out, you know, cool lighting on her face and eyes, lands this constricting snake right around Matoba's neck, and the actor Nishi Mura just sells the living daylights out of it, just thrashing around against the walls, trying to pull the snake off of his throat.
Oh but it doesn't end there, right, everybody comes out because of the commotion, and then they find what they find black Lizard's calling card.
Here, right, there's the rubber lizard, but it is on the palm of a disembodied hand that is on the couch, which is now bloodied. They're gonna have to get rid of that thing. And then they find Matoba in the bathtub, like seemingly dead. I don't know, I can't remember if he still has a snake on his neck or not, but he has a bloody stump. This is clearly his hand out there, left on the couch with the with the calling card on it. But the like there's several
you know, guys looking in on this scene. And then Matoba rises up out of the tub like a like a rampaging zombie and comes rushing towards them with the stump, and they all freak out and slam the door on him as he thrust his bloody stump out through the door after him, and then he finally busts through into the hallway, slumps against the wall, slumps down and dies just a legit jaw dropping sequence from me that that scene is true, deeply crazy. I don't know, it's it's
really good. Yeah, it's like there's a lot of dialogue, but then when the movie busts out these action sequences like this, it's just they really go for it.
But as you mentioned, this all part of the plot. The uh, of course, the attack gets blood all over the expensive new futon and in the middle of Senne having been kidnapped again and all that, Uh, they're like, oh wow, well get the get this bloody futon out of the house.
Yeap, what do you know? And this is and we know what's up right, I mean, this is another most twists. You know that they hit her in that couch, but it doesn't matter. Like this all plays out like a like a myth, like a like a fairy tale, and you just follow it.
Yeah, so there is. They're setting up an exchange at the pier, so Black Lizard promises that Senay will be returned safely if iwasa gives up the Star of Egypt at a drop off point at the port, and he does. He shows up with the jewels, but Black Lizard is treacherous and does not return his daughter because it seems like Black Lizard wants Sinnay even more than she wants the jewels.
Yeah, yeah, so she's just gonna keep them both. So sorry, you've been double crossed. But Black Lizard gets what Black Lizard.
Wants and this leads to a chase with like private detectives and cars and these motorcycle henchmen with smoke screens. These movies of the time really loved a like multi colored smoke screen getaway that's in danger diabolic as well.
Yeah, this whole sequence was very danger diabolic. But they and this is one of those things we have to note. They get away but sort of don't like we have to again do all the math of Aketche's scheming and counter scheming versus Black lizards scheming and counter scheming. The viewer is just along for the ride.
So Black Lizard escapes to her steamership with both Sennae and the jewels. But will Aketchi be able to save the day? And here we go to a scene in Black Lizard's cabin on the boat that can you describe this realm?
Yeah, so we know the deal with this futon. This is how they just kidnapped her successfully for the second time, and here's the couch that the futon in Black Lizard's chambers, and she begins to realize what we the viewers suspect that Aketchie has hidden himself in that futon, and so
she starts speaking to him in there. She has her her game come in and like strap the dow straps around the futon so that he can't get out, and then she sends the gang back outside, and she kind of gets this like this this tender sequence where she speaks to Aketchee imprisoned in the futon. She reveals her love to him, as well as her great fear of that love, fear for what will change in her, because it is all the antithesis of the diamond heart. You know.
It's like if I give into my love for you, then then I'm changing in a frightening way, and I can't have that, you know. And also you're my enemy, so either way, I'm gonna have to kill you. And so that's what she seemingly does. She runs the couch through with a sword from the wall. Blood drips out onto the floor. At that Up until that point, I wasn't sure it even had anyone in there, because that's the thing. You know, Aketchi's not in there really, you know,
he's a tape recorder or something. But blood comes out, and then she has the gang throw the skewered straps sofa overboard into the wace.
We see it like disappearing rapidly into the dark water behind the ship. It's a very evocative shot.
And she's out there on the deck, you know, feeling a bit melancholy by herself. And then a new character emerges, who we quickly learn is a trusted hunchback com minion of hers, and he kind of like you know, saunters up onto the deck there and he apologizes to her for not having been there when all this went down. He says, I was asleep. He offers some comfort and she's like that that's nice. I appreciate it, but I
need some time alone. And of course this is one of those moments we're already like.
Hmm, yeah hm about this guy. We're never seeing his face, like his face is always downturned. Wonder about that.
Yeah, so you will have your suspicions. Those suspicions may prove correct, but again in this film, it doesn't matter. You're along for the ride. Because if this, if you suspect that this hunch back is actually a catchy okay, then the question is when will he dramatically reveal himself? And that's what we're we're on board for.
So we're here at Act three where we make it all the way to Black Lizard's Fortress of fortress of I don't know of Crimtude. Yeah. So the ship arrives and Rob, can you describe this place? I would kind of compare it a bit to Scare Manga's Layer in The Man with the Golden Gun.
Yeah, yeah, it is. It is a campy de light that brings that to mind. It brings to mind the various layers of doctor fibes as well as danger diabolic fibes. Would very much approve of this because it's essentially a cabaret ballroom where we see the taxidermied or otherwise preserved, you know, the exact science that this doesn't matter, the preserved bodies of the beautiful ones that she's collected on display, these dolls, wax figures, however you want to make them.
There are all these curtains we see these often topless figures, and as always in these films, these are of course films. These are of course live actors frozen and still live, which just compounds the creepiness of the situation.
So she's like going through here showing Sinnay all of these these frozen people, and it's leading up to the explanation that, like, Senay, I'm going to make you one of my frozen wax dolls here.
Yeah, and we see that one of the main tableaus, because they're all posed in dramatic poses, you know, it's like a wax museum. One of the tableaux concerns a pair of knife fighters, with a particularly absolutely jacked combatant like just you know, rippling muscles, stabbing his opponent in
mid grapple. The shirtless stabber here is played by Mashima, and a brief backstory is kind of revealed visually where we it looks like these two men were made to fight to the death for Black Lizard's affections, and I guess both both victor and the defeated here end up being immortalized as a doll.
I didn't know if there was a victor. It looked like they were both stabbing each other at the same time.
Oh okay, they well, in a way then I guess they both lost and boast both won, because that's the thing. You lose and that you die, but you win to a certain extent in that you are immortalized in Black Lizard's layer and in this form without life, without a soul, then you know you have come as close to the Diamond Heart as possible and therefore are deserving of her true affections.
Yeah, it seems that men are just sort of like lining up to die for Black Lizard and be preserved as a statue in her layer forever. They're ready for it.
Yeah, and women too. I guess it's like men and women on display. But this is this moment where again it's far more than cameo because the jacked stabber played by Mashima here, she moves in and she kisses him on the lips in what is I think the only
kiss that we see in the picture. Could be wrong on that, but it certainly is the most important one, and it's a really powerful moment and a moment that is also very crushing for the musician i'm A Miya who is watching on because this is what causes him to turn against Black Lizard because he tries to help Sana briefly locking the master criminal in her own cell. But then we eventually learned that this kiss didn't so
much as turn him against Black Lizard. He's not like, oh, I'm really not into you, you know, kissing the preserved bodies of dead men. No, it made him turn against Black Lizard because he realized the only way to fulfill his obsession was through death. A bold action like this he hopes will result first in his death and then in his immortalization as one of her dolls.
Right, so he's like, now I'm just the unappreciated lackey of Black Lizard, But he realizes that she truly loves her sort of stuffed statue figures, and the only way he can really be loved by her is to make her kill him in punishment for his treachery and turn him into a statue, and then he'll be loved by her.
So that I'm amia Redemption Arch. He enters a very like like even more tragic and weird section because again, for Black Loser, perfect love is soulless. It's the diamond heart, and the only place she truly knows where to find this is in her is in her dolls. As a means of cultivating it as well in herself.
Oh man, But there are some more twists that come in.
Now.
One of the weirdest choices I thought is so Sinay and Emma Mia are both kept in this prison cell. Emmia discloses everything here. He's like, yeah, here's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get turned into a statue.
Uh.
And then Sinay reveals I'm not actually Sinnay. I am a body double. I am a woman named Yoko who was hired by a Catchee to pretend to be sent to keep her safe from Black Lizard. And I think this is not just for part of the movie. I think this character the entire film has actually just been this body double named Yoko.
I believe. So that's the way I interpret it. Yeah.
Yeah, Also, Yoko the body double and I'm gonna be a they sort of bond over the fact that they are both both frauds in some way, and then they fall in love while imprisoned.
Yeah, and so then we get the redemption arc more less back on track for our men. I'm amia here, but from here we work our way into the big finish. Okay, that hunchback reveal that we saw coming a mile away. It happens. It is a catchy. It's been a catchy the whole time. The actual hunchback was in the futon and was stabbed through. The Snake Woman goes in for the kill. Okay, well, also Aketche's men like the fuzz
show up there on the scene. I don't know where they came from, but they, you know, backups have arrived. Snake Woman goes in for the kill against a ketchi, but Black Lizard stops her and kills Snake Woman dead. Black Lizard then retreats into her inner chambers. A Ketchee follows.
He pursues, but when he finds her, she has already taken a fatal poison, and so the two of them lounge together on her couch like lovers, sharing a tender moment, and she observes that she has at last found the perfect diamond heart in a catchy because he was able to outsmarter and out double and triple cross her, you know, and then she dies in this yeah, this this tragic and beautiful like Shakespearean moment. And then I'm a Mia and Son or the fake sna run off together there
now a couple. The case is solved, but we close out with a lot of stylish shots of Black Lizard as the credits roll, because it's you know, we got to leave everything on a stylish happy note.
To a certain extent, I almost took the happy ending for Ama Mia and the sane body double. I almost took that as is, like it was supposed to be funny, the way they're just allowed to run off together.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe that is a splash of comedy where it's like, hey, we're both fakes, but we're in love now. And then then they run off together, Like where are you guys going? You're on like a criminal mastermind, Like you should probably hang around and leave with the police. But I don't know.
Well, I thought Black Lizard was a rollicking good time.
Absolutely. I had high hopes for this film, and it didn't disappoint. I was interested when I read about it in Fukusaku's filmography when we talked about him previously, and then when I went and rented it at Video Drum here in Atlanta, John, one of the crew there, really talked it up, and again, the film absolutely delivered. Maybe I'm a romanticist but now I too believe that crime should wear a gorgeous gown with a train fifteen feet long, just like the primordial dreams of lizards.
Well said, all.
Right, well, we're going to go and close it out here. I hope you enjoyed our chat about Black Lizard, and more importantly, I hope you enjoy Black Lizard. I hope you're able to get a hold of it, and I hope that, hopefully in the not too distant future, we see an actual like Blu Ray release for this film. It's very deserving of it, and hey, you might be lucky enough to see it at a film festival somewhere, and if you get the chance, make sure you do it.
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