Acting
A special agent of the Tokyo Police has been given the assignment of assassinating a group of crime bosses. Soon afterwards, she encounters the hitman the crime bosses have sent to kill her. After talking together, they discover that they are equally reluctant to carry out their assignments. They are pushed onward by their respective bosses, however, until they must both decide where their loyalties truly lie.
Edogawa Rampo is a writer whose latest work is censored by the government, deemed too disturbing and injurious to the public to be allowed to be published. However, after burning his drafts, his publisher shows him a newspaper with an account of events just like his forbidden story. As the film progresses, fantasy and reality intermingle in a tale that draws heavily on influences from Poe and Stoker's Dracula. The film's strongly Expressionistic direction skillfully combines a variety of media (animation, computer-generated imagery, grainy black-and-white fast film stock, color negatives) for artistic effect.
Two female truck drivers detest each other, and try to steal each other's business. Their rigs are both painted with elaborate large pictures of beautiful naked women. One day, whilst hauling loads of fish in Hokkaido, they are separately stopped by traffic police, who impound their trucks for various violations. About this time, one of the women meets a handsome man, with whom romance is a possibility. Then, the women discover they have been tricked. The cops were connected with the Russian mafia, who intend to ship their trucks offshore and sell them.
