The Taisho Trilogy in order

After over a decade in the wilderness following his firing from Nikkatsu for Branded to Kill (1967), maverick director Seijun Suzuki returned with a vengeance with his critically-praised tryptic of cryptic supernatural dramas set during the liberal enlightenment of Japan’s Taisho Era (1912-26). Rarely seen outside of Japan, the films in the Taisho Trilogy are considered Suzuki’s masterpieces in his homeland. Presenting a dramatic turn from more his familiar tales of cops, gangsters and unruly youth, these surrealistic psychological puzzles drip with a lush exoticism, distinctively capturing the pandemonium of a bygone age of decadence and excess, when Western ideas, fashions, technologies and art fused into everyday aspect of Japanese life. 3 films, 6h 52m in all, in release order.

1. 1
   

   Zigeunerweisen

   1980 · 144 min

   A surreal period film following a university professor and his eerie nomad friend as they go through loose romantic triangles and face death in peculiar ways.

   Popcorn Flick
2. 2
   

   Kagero-za

   1981 · 140 min

   A 1920s playwright meets a beautiful woman who may be the ghost of his patron's deceased wife.

   New
3. 3
   

   Yumeji

   1991 · 128 min

   Following the life of Japanese artist and poet Yumeji Takehisa through the imagining of an encounter with a beautiful widow with a dark past.

   New