Mad Fox [Blu-ray]

Visually evocative but hard to follow, this Japanese fantasy by director Tomu Uchida demonstrates one of the director's later interests in costume dramas. The setting is an imaginary first century A.D. in Japan where Yasuna (Hashizo Okawa), an astronomer's assistant, and his love Sakaki (Michiko Saga) are subjected to cruel torture. Yasuna has been accused of stealing a precious manuscript and by the time the torture has ended, he has lost his sanity and Sakaki dies. Wandering in the forest, Yasuna befriends a pack of white foxes who have temporarily taken on human form, and he falls in love with one of them. And so the story continues -a very twisted tale that ends most unexpectedly.