Gemini ( Sôseiji )

Gemini (DVD) (*)

Out of Stock

Original Title: Sôseiji
Screened, competed or awarded at:
Australian Film Institute
Rotterdam International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
Dutch ( Subtitles )
English ( Subtitles )
French ( Subtitles )
Japanese ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )

Product Origin/Format:
Netherlands ( PAL/Region 2 )

Running Time:
83 min

Aspect Ratio:
Anamorphic Widescreen (1.78:1)

Special Features:
Anamorphic Widescreen
Cast/Crew Interview(s)
Interactive Menu
Photo Gallery
Production Notes
Trailer(s)

Movie filmed in 1999 and produced in:
Japan ( India, Eastern Asia )

Directed By:
Shinya Tsukamoto

Written By:
Shinya Tsukamoto
Rampo Edogawa

Actors:
Masahiro Motoki ..... Yukio/Sutekichi
Ryô ..... Rin
Yasutaka Tsutsui ..... Yukio's mother
Shiho Fujimura ..... Man with Sword
Tadanobu Asano ..... Beggar
Renji Ishibashi ..... Rich Man
Akaji Maro
Naoto Takenaka
Sujin Kim
Masako Motai
Jun Murakami
Tomorowo Taguchi
Kôji Tsukamoto
Harugiku Uchida

Synopsis:

Yukio is living a charmed life: he is a respected young doctor with a successful practice and a beautiful wife. His only problem is that his wife is suffering from amnesia, and her past is unknown. Things begin to fall apart, however, when both his parents die suddenly, killed by a mysterious stranger with Yukio's face. Only when Yukio confronts this stranger will the mystery of his identity, and his wife's past, be revealed.

Shinya Tsukamoto's latest work is a bit of a departure for the director of such over-the-top cult films as Tetsuo: Iron Man (1989). Though punctuated by his trademark kinetic camera work, this moody gothic horror film has the sort of brittle formalism more common in Japanese domestic dramas of the 1940s and 1950s. Dr. Yukio Daitokuji (Masahiro Motoki) is a well-to-do doctor living in a wealthy neighborhood located near a shantytown. He lives in a gorgeous old house along with his father, mother, and beautiful young wife Rin (Ryo). The couple seems happy, but Rin's lack of a past, due to amnesia, is a source of anxiety for the socially conscious doctor. The rigid respectability of the couple's upstanding bourgeois life shatters when a bizarre rag-wearing man kills off Daitokuji's parents in sudden and gruesome manners. The terror gets ratcheted up a notch when the mysterious assailant throws Daitokuji into a deep well on the family grounds and then reveals himself to be physically identical to the young doctor. The stranger assumes Daitokuji's identity by making passionate love with his wife and threatening to kill his patients. Tsukamoto brilliantly juxtaposes the oppressive opulence of the upper class, characterized by deathly silences and Kubrick-like compositions, with the grubby, desperate world of the slums, whose residents could have populated The Road Warrior (1981). While Tsukamoto's fascination with revenge, doppelgangers, and male rage, as seen in Tokyo Fist (1995) and Bullet Ballet (1998), are clearly present in this work, it also showcases the director's growing stylistic maturity. This film was screened at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival.

A successful doctor, Yukio's picture perfect life is gradually wrecked, and taken over by his avenging twin brother, who bumps off his family members one by one and reclaims his lover who is now Yukio's wife.

This product was added to our catalog on Tuesday 13 June, 2006.

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