Kagerô-za / Heat-Haze Theatre (1981) Seijun Suzuki, Yûsaku Matsuda, Michiyo Ohkusu, Mariko Kaga, Fantasy, Romance, Thriller

January 2, 2017

Playwright Matsuzaki (Yusaku Matsuda) crosses paths with a beautiful woman on her way to the hospital who tells him a friend is dying. Frightened of a mysterious older woman who sells the fruit of the Chinese Lantern Plant – rumored to be distaff souls – she implores Matsuzaki to accompany her.

At first he refuses, but later finds himself so obsessed with this luminous apparition that he wants nothing more than a life of carnality and excessive passion. Matsuzaki eventually follows a trail of messages left by his phantasmal enchantress across the country to Kanazawa – only to realize he is actually being lured to his own certain demise.