Gemini (1999 film)

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Gemini
Region 1 DVD for Gemini
Directed by	Shinya Tsukamoto
Produced by	Futoshi Nishimura
Written by	Shinya Tsukamoto
Starring	Masahiro Motoki Ryo Yasutaka Tsutsui Shiho Fujimura Akaji Maro
Music by	Chu Ishikawa
Cinematography	Shinya Tsukamoto
Editing by	Shinya Tsukamoto
Release date(s)	Sept 15, 1999
Running time	84 min.
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
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Gemini (also known as Sôseiji) is a 1999 horror film by Shinya Tsukamoto, loosely based on a Edogawa Ranpo story, pursues his theme of the brutally physical and animalistic side of human beings rearing its ugly head underneath a civilized veneer, present in in previous films like Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) and Tokyo Fist (1995), in what is a new territory for Tsukamoto-- a story set in the late Meiji era (1868-1912) with no stop-motion photography and no industrial setting.

[edit] Plot

Tokyo. 1910. Dr. Daitokuji Yukio (Motoki Masahiro), a former military doctor who has taken over a successful practice from his father and treats plague victims, is living a charmed life: he is a respected young doctor with a successful practice and Rin (Ryo), a beautiful wife. His only problem is that she suffers from amnesia, and her past is unknown.

When he is offered a job working for the mayor, he must decide between helping people and making good money for himself. Yukio and his family, who disdain the destitute denizens of nearby ghettoes and often opt not to treat if they're in the way of a more dignified patient, chooses the latter.

Soon after, however, things begin to fall apart, both his parents dying suddenly, killed by a mysterious stranger that looks just like him. He finds out that it is his long-lost rejected twin, Sutekichi (again Motoki) who, bent on revenge, throws him down the garden's well and takes over his life and his wife.

The final conflict between the two brothers is realized when Yukio, forced into an animalistic existence in the well, reemerges, prompting the fratricidal fight for the love of the same woman, since it turns out (while he takes over Yukio's role) that Rin had actually once been Sutekichi's lover.