"Kusa-meikyû" or "Grass Labyrinth" is a Japanese/French co-production from 1979, so this one will have its 40th anniversary soon and make sure you got subtitles for it unless you are fluent in Japanese. This is perhaps among the more known works by director Shûji Terayama and he is also part of the writing duo who adapted this one. It runs for 40 minutes and tells the story of a man looking for a peculiar lullaby and we follow him on his journey, on which he finds a lot more than he expected. There is nudity in here, sex and violence too, so unsurprisingly this is only for grown-ups. But even these may find it a bit difficult to really warm up to this tale. I must say that neither story nor acting impressed me much. This is a film that certainly is a bit on the "shocking for the sake of it" side and I am baffled by some calling it even a masterpiece. Even the one area where I really expected it to deliver, namely the atmospheric side was not on a level that convinced me and I am usually a sucked for Asian(-themed) films. There is something fascinating about these most of the time. As for this one here, not so much. It's not a failure and has an okay moment here and there, but as a whole I really did not feel the appeal also because it has an aura of pretense to it. So it's a thumbs-down from me. Not recommended.
Review of Grass Labyrinth
