I started watching Gemini several years ago but never finished it for some reason. As I'm making a point to go through my unwatched film collection, I decided to give it another go. The storyline concerns the eyebrow-challenged couple of Yukio and Rin. Yukio is a young doctor and Rin is his (supposedly) amnesiac wife. Things get really strange for the couple when a man that looks just like Yukio shows up...I have very mixed feelings about this one. Overall I'd say that I liked it-but I felt it could have been much stronger if it wouldn't have veered off into weirdo-territory the way so many '90s era Japanese films seem to do. The storyline is actually pretty straight-forward by the time you get to the end-but the atmosphere of the beginning is lost with a bunch of weird and garish costuming that felt nearly comical to me. I personally feel the first third of the film is really quite fantastic. During that segment-there's a constant feeling of anxious, near-dread that is almost early Cronenberg-ish in nature. Problem is-that feeling of suspense and general 'creepiness' dies quickly because the film becomes, well...too 'Japanese' for lack of a better term. Don't get me wrong-I'm typically quite fond of Japanese films and their often peculiar style-but in this one, it felt forced.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised coming from the director of the TETSUO films-and he does show far more restraint in GEMINI-but it just wasn't enough. I honestly think this could have been a really fantastic film that just really misses the mark for me. Still a decent film-just not a great one. 6.5/10

I was incredibly impressed by Shinya Tsukamoto's surreal cyberpunk classic 'Tetsuo', one of the most startling, original and disturbing movies of the last twenty years, and also knocked out by 'Tokyo Fist' his hyperkinetic and violent study of macho competition. Now, once again I'm impressed, this time by 'Gemini' his beautiful and haunting story of identity confusion, and sibling rivalry. The movie is said to be based on Edogawa Rampo's short story 'The Twins', but I've read it and it has virtually nothing to do with this film. Whatever, it doesn't matter, Tsukamoto has taken one or two ideas from Rampo's (excellent) story and expanded it into more interesting and inventive territory. Masahiro Motoki is brilliant in a duel role as the uptight bourgeois doctor and his malevolent criminal twin, and Ryo is beautifully enigmatic as his (apparently) amnesiac wife who is harboring a secret or two. 'Gemini' is a brilliant piece of film making, and I highly recommend it.

First things first: somebody needs to officially release this film in the United States. I see three thousand copies of Dude, Where's My Car every time I step outside, but when I want to see a beautiful and interesting film like Gemini, I have to track down a dubious bootleg on eBay. Pitiful.The plot concerns a rich doctor suddenly thrown into a well by a man who looks exactly like him. The mysterious doppelganger takes over the doctor's identity, his household, and his wife, all the while laughing and taunting down the well at his imprisoned twin. As the mysterious lookalike gradually reveals the truth to the doctor, it becomes less and less certain which of the twins is the "hero" and which is the "villain."Shinya Tsukamoto isn't a great director yet, but he's getting there. With Gemini he reveals a tremendous versatility, combining moments of sedate drama with hyperkinetic sequences of terror and joy. The actors are all magnificent (especially Masahiro Motoki in a complex double role), the cinematography is stunning, and the story is thoroughly intriguing and well told. It's not the best movie ever made by any means, but here and there Tsukamoto manages a few moments of real greatness, scenes where we genuinely become one with these characters and their needs. Watch the doctor, defeated and filthy at the bottom of his well, beg for a release from his suffering; watch the wife burst into tears as she remembers her past existence. Tsukamoto knows what he's doing. He hasn't quite achieved true greatness yet, but one day he may just break through.

A film of extremes."Tetsuo" and its sequel were ripping bouts of cinematic mayhem. This film, "Gemini", represents a stunning turnabout for the director who applies a sure, delicate hand to an unnerving mystery.A doctor in 1910 Japan lives a seemingly perfect life; he is handsome, he is married to a beautiful (albeit perplexing and inscrutable) woman and he is a renowned doctor.The deaths of his parents send the doctor down a spiral of madness and violence. His wife grows more distant and enigmatic. He loses his grip on reality but the nightmarish events seem to spring from his own hand...Frequently the imagery is rigorously symmetrical, composed with a great deal of poetry and ethereal beauty. Many of the shots are masterpieces of Japanese design. The effect is like a spiderweb where all the strands are perfectly aligned and no two edges seem to deviate from the basic construction. Even in the most tranquil image, the director creates a sense of palpable menace, as though the air is tinged with the smells of blood and gore even though the shot may be of a perfectly kept garden.On this elegant framework the director lays on stunning moments of violence and revelatory mayhem. Besides the visceral elements, there is a great deal of psychic violence in the film. The audience witnesses the mental descent of the doctor so delicately and precisely that it seems that we can see the hairs rising on the back of his neck.An unsettling and very rewarding film.