Gensenkan Inn

Gensenkan Inn from cabias bren on Vimeo.

here is Teruo Ishii's adaptation of Yoshiharu Tsuge's "Gensenkan Shujin" from the 1993 anthology film of the same name, in which Ishii brought several stories by Tsuge to the screen (also including "Red Flowers",) with Shirô Sano portraying the main character in each episode as well as Tsuge himself in the framing segments. I think that this is a really excellent adaptation; Shirô Sano inhabits his character more convincingly to me than do Tsuge's own drawings. It is weird how much Sano's double role (Ishii does not choose to keep the doppelganger's face in shadow throughout, as Tsuge does in the original story) resembles in appearance and significance that at the center of Shinya Tsukamoto's later film "Gemini,", an Edogawa Ranpo adaptation. I cannot imagine that Tsuge was not thinking of Ranpo when he drew the original story, so maybe it all comes full circle. I hope that you will watch this excerpt and post your thoughts in response. Images from the movie featuring Tsuge's artwork appear after the cut.