Nightmare Detective II

2008, 102 min., 35 mm, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto. With Ryuhei Matsuda, Yui Miura, Wako Ando.

Best of Unreleased Naughties

"A very impressive film with some strong statements about loss and grief."  – Ard Vijn, twitchfilm.net

In a sequel whose formal beauty and emotional depth far surpass the original film, director Shinya Tsukamoto reintroduces the suicidal dream walker Kyoichi Kagenuma (Ryuhei Matsuda). Blessed and cursed with the supernatural ability to enter the dreams of others, manteau-clad, sleep-deprived Kagenuma is urged to use his unwanted power to help Yukie, a 15-year-old high-school student plagued with nightmares that come to life, in a case that holds eerie similarities to events in his own past. Thinking that he may be able to get a step closer to the mystery of his mother’s death, Kagenuma reluctantly enters Yukie’s nightmares and confronts the very essence of fear.

An enigmatic and somberly brooding character study, Nightmare Detective II cleverly and thoroughly subverts the conventions of the horror genre and reinvents the archetypal villain as a victim of her terror of the real world.

Part of Japan Cuts: Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema

TICKETS
$12 / $8 Japan Society members, seniors & students

Buy Tickets Online or please call the Japan Society Box Office at (212) 715-1258, Mon. – Fri. 11 am – 6 pm, Weekends 11 am – 5 pm.