New Japanese film reviews appear every last Friday of the month.

Izo ****

It's a terrible thought, but Takashi Miike, the king of genre movies, may be moving into art-house territory! In Izo, he delivers perhaps the first Buddhist-philosophical, psychedelic mindtrip samurai movie, as if Peter Greenaway were to make a period splatter flick. Natural-born killer Izo (Kazuya Nakayama) is crucified in the Edo era, but his angry soul crashes through space and time raging against everything that exists. Asked by a demon "What is revolution," Izo replies "Murder." "Then kill, Izo! Murder! Slaughter! Massacre them all!" Izo smashes through ceilings, floors and walls to slice up Edo watchmen in modern-day Kabukicho, hack apart SWAT teams in ancient shitamachi, stab Buddhist priests, decimate demonic PTA mothers, fell Imperial Army zombies, dice Yakuza, slaughter whole wedding parties. Miike breaks up the carnage with quiet moments with a mythic emperor Ryuhei Matsuda and love interest Kaori Momoi, the occasional impassioned folk song from troubadour Kazuki Tomokawa, and documentary montages of war atrocities through the ages. This is a ferocious, surreal trip to Buddhist hell, a Miike meditation on man's eternal addiction to war and violence.

School Wars: Hero **

Watching this one is like slipping down a time-tunnel to an era when "tough love" was in fashion, when teachers could punch students in the face while sobbing "this hurts me more than it does you!" Based on a true 70s story of a rugby player turned sports coach, this was made into a tearjerker TV series in the 80s, and now, in 2004, returns with big lug, ex-model Sho Ei in the lead role. In his smart national rugby team blazer, new coach Sho Ei takes on the hoodlum punks who ride motorbikes down the school corridors - by attacking them with a baseball bat! Director Ikuo Sekimoto keeps pulverizing the viewers with cliches as grown men beat each other to a pulp then embrace in tears; coach follows delinquent punk home - and sees that it's broken!; losers line up to get a sock in the jaw from tearful coach; and, the final sucker punch, little mascot boot-polisher Mochizuki falls ill with a terminal disease! Surely no modern audience can take this much punishment?

Mask de 41 *

This film has languished on a stockroom shelf for over 2 years waiting for a release, and it's obvious why. Yet another ill-advised comedy about a downsized middle-aged man looking to regain his pride, this one has Tomorowo Taguchi as a 41-year-old loser who decides to become a professional wrestler. CM director Taishi Muramoto shows us how, but never explains why. Working from a blackly comic yet sentimental screenplay by Shin Adachi, Muramoto links together a series of lackluster moments and cheesy scenes.. Taguchi obviously spent some time in the gym, but he still looks like a dufus in a pair of Y-fronts in the ring (the lack of budget really shows up in the ring sequences, where even the darkness can't disguise the fact that there aren't enough extras to fill a car, let alone an arena). There's a flamenco score, a masked wrestler from Mexico, and an endless final bout that turns into a confession of love, but it would be better for everyone involved if this film were quietly returned to its familiar spot on the shelf.

D-zaka no Satsujin Jiken (video) ****

Akio Jissoji's feature from 1998 proves to be surprising fun. Not really much of a mystery, it's based on an Edogawa Rampo short story about art forger Hiroyuki Sanada who goes to extreme lengths to ensure that his fakes are never discovered, sometimes burning the originals, even murdering the client. Director Jissoji uses some wonderful little touches to keep the film entertaining - exteriors shot on intricate model streets, expressionist angles and deep chiaroscuro in the exquisite Showa interiors - even as the esoteric mystery plot unwinds slowly. Sanada has great fun as the forger, especially when his muse deserts him and he's forced to tie himself up in drag to find inspiration for a series of erotic-grotesque drawings. Lantern-jawed Kyusaku Shimada turns up as famous detective Akechi in the end and does a bit of art criticism and elementary psychological testing to get his man. A stylish, unfairly overlooked little gem.

Battle Heater (DVD) ****

Hidden in the Shochiku vaults for over a decade until its glorious re-release on DVD, "Battle Heater" is director Joji Iida's nutty home-appliance horror movie. A musical comedy in the horror genre, it has the same kitsch energy as "Little Shop of Horrors." A possessed kotatsu (an under-table heater) wreaks havoc on a derelict apartment house full of bizarre tenants: a punk rocker Goro Kishitani and his band, an old couple who have orchestrated their own suicide and funeral, a young wife Shigeru Muroi who is dismembering her husband's corpse. The kotatsu eats people, and soon goes on a rampage through the apartment - devouring everything in its path! Only local electric-appliance repairman Akira Emoto can save them now - and he arrives for a showdown with the murderous kotatsu dressed in a low-tech mecha-suit that could have come straight out of a Shinya Tsukamoto movie. Total home electronics mayhem!