| Overview: | The final film in his acclaimed Taisho Trilogy, youth-gone-berserk auteur Seijun Suzuki directs this sensual, absurdist ghost story spun around the character and work of real-life painter and poet Yumeji Takehisa (1884-1934). The eponymous title character--conjured by Suzuki as a chronic philanderer and dreamer and played by former rock star Kenji Sawada--is plagued with ideals of perfect beauty and the terror of his own demise. He falls in love with women but can never capture their hearts. He is constantly escaping his rivals but can never face them down.
On a trip to scenic Kanazawa where he plans to meet his lover, Hikono (Masumi Miyazaki), Yumeji instead falls for Tomoyo, a recent widow whose husband, Wakiya (Yoshio Harada), was slain by the murderously jealous Onimatsu. Onimatsu is more than a little distraught when his victim returns from the dead. Yumeji sets out to seduce Tomoyo while avoiding the rages of Wakiya and Onimatsu as well as a phalanx of ghosts, apparitions and nightmares.
Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai ("2046", "Chungking Express") paid homage to Yumeji by borrowing its haunting theme music for his own recent feverishly romantic masterpiece, "In The Mood for Love".
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