Dogra Magra [Limited Edition] [Blu-ray]

The Dogra Magra Blu-ray brings Toshio Matsumoto’s final feature to home media outside Japan for the first time. A man awakens in an asylum with no memory of who he is or why he is being held. Under the guidance of Dr. Wakabayashi, fragments of his past re-emerge: a wedding, a brutal killing, and a connection to another physician, Dr. Masaki, whose experiments seem tied to a mysterious manuscript called Dogra Magra. As the doctors attempt to reconstruct his identity, reality dissolves into hallucination, blurring memory, dream and delusion. Adapted from Kyusaku Yumeno’s influential novel, this period-set psychological labyrinth combines gothic dread, hypnotic imagery and a sense of spiralling madness reminiscent of Cure and Shutter Island. Shot by Tatsuo Suzuki, the film is a rare and surreal work of Japanese cinema finally restored for modern audiences.

directed by: Toshio Matsumoto
starring: Yoichi Miura, Nobuko Otowa, Keizo Kanie, Hiroshi Sakano
1988 / 135 min / 1.85:1 / Japanese mono