Black Lizard

Based on a story by macabre Japanese mystery writer Hirai Taro (1894-1965) — whose pen name, Rampo Edogawa, is a phonetic rendering of Edgar Allan Poe — Kinji Fukasaku's delirious tale of a jewel thief who worships beauty is a wild exercise in 1960s pop-art direction. Glamorous cabaret singer Midorikawa (Akihiro Maruyama, a famous female impersonator and close friend of Yukio Mishima, who appears briefly as a "human statue") lives a double life: She's also the "Black Lizard," the daring and ruthless head of a gang of jewel thieves. She covets an extraordinary gem called the Star of Egypt, owned by businessman Shobei Iwasa (Junya Usami), and decides to get it by kidna...