Black Kiss

Introduction

Asuka (Reika Hashimoto) is an aspiring fashion model who has recently arrived to start work in Tokyo. With nowhere to live, she is introduced to the rather strange and sullen (i.e extremely moody) Kasumi (Kaori Kawamura) and ends up bedding down in her apartment - which is apparently in the heart of the city's red light district and opposite a cheap hotel called Hotel Bats (somewhere nice for visiting Goths to stay, maybe…).

Alone in the apartment one night, Asuka witnesses a rather gruesome murder in the Hotel Bats opposite. The police discover a perfectly dissected and flayed body, with voodoo symbols carved into the remains of his skin. The killer has left a calling card, a black lip print left on the body.



Despite Kasumi being a witness of sorts, the police soon find that all the previous and future victims of this killer have connections to her. Detective Yusuke Shiraki, however, believes Kasumi to be innocent and under the instructions of his boss seeks out a former policeman with extensive experience in voodoo and ritual killings.

The clues and bodies start to mount. Who is the Black Kiss killer?

Visual

It's a bit dark. Not sure why, but it's always dark. Think X-Files with an added power cut and you'll get the idea of the non-existent lighting design to this picture. I'm sure it was deliberate but I find it really annoying when I spend most of my time looking at poorly lit scenes, regardless of the artistic integrity.

Audio

Japanese 2.0 Stereo soundtrack with embedded subtitles during any Japanese dialogue, but nothing during any English dialogue. The sound design is rather good, although the music soundtrack by Kan Takagi is a little overblown and obvious, rather than subtle and suspenseful.

Extras

None on the DVD-R that I was passed.

Overall

This is such a confusing film. Maybe it makes more sense to Japanese audiences but I just couldn't really follow everything that was going on, some of that I'm sure was that I was bored rigid by a film that was in near constant darkness, so much so that half the time you couldn't work out what was happening.

This film is supposedly visually reminiscent of Dario Argento's giallo films, but not being familiar with either that director or the genre, I just go by what I see. I was most unimpressed with either the plot or the picture. The plot jumped around between about half a dozen characters or more and it was really hard to see why the director was focussed on so many characters when most of their plotlines went absolutely nowhere. What was also rather bizarre was seeing the police investigation in action, seemingly consisting of massive meetings between the police chiefs and what seemed like the entire police force to discuss the minutiae of the case. So much for maverick cops with all the answers. Maybe it's a cultural thing.

For all the heavy handed setups and the attempt at building suspense, the ending was just daft and completely wasted. A bit of letdown overall.