“Kagero-za” (陽炎座), Original Japanese Re-Release Movie Poster 2001, B1 Size (73 × 103 cm) IA24
This is an original Japanese B1 poster printed in 2001 for the theatrical re-release of Kagero-za (陽炎座), Seijun Suzuki’s haunting 1981 masterpiece. This is not the 1981 first-release poster, but the later 2001 revival issue, identifiable by the small credit line at the bottom noting distribution by Little More Co., Ltd., the company responsible for the important early-2000s revival of Suzuki’s Taishō Roman Trilogy.
Film background
Originally released in 1981, Kagero-za stars Yūsaku Matsuda, Michiyo Ookusu, Katsuo Nakamura, Mariko Kaga, and Eriko Kusuta, and is widely regarded as the middle chapter of Suzuki’s celebrated Taishō Roman Trilogy, alongside Zigeunerweisen and Yumeji. Set in the Taishō era, the film follows playwright Matsuzaki as he becomes caught in an increasingly strange and unsettling romantic and supernatural entanglement involving a mysterious woman who may be tied to the dead. Dreamlike, theatrical, and richly stylised, it stands as one of the great late works of Japanese avant-garde cinema.
The 2001 re-release is historically significant in its own right. These revival screenings helped reassert Suzuki’s standing for a new generation of audiences and contributed to the broad international recognition of his late-period work after decades of marginalisation within the Japanese film industry.
Poster design
This is a superb and highly atmospheric re-release design. The poster captures a central image of the two leads seated within a highly stylised interior, surrounded by blood-red painted forms, dark lacquered space, and screen-like partitions that perfectly evoke the film’s hallucinatory world. The large vertical red title has tremendous impact, while the balance of kimono pattern, shadow, and theatrical staging gives the image a distinctly literary and dreamlike quality.
It is an exceptionally strong visual distillation of what collectors admire most in Suzuki’s cinema: heightened colour, erotic unease, artificiality embraced as beauty, and an atmosphere that seems suspended between dream, memory, and death.
As a B1 poster, this is also notably scarcer than the standard B2 format and has much stronger wall presence. Large-format Japanese re-release posters of this kind were produced in smaller quantities for theatre display, which makes them especially appealing as collector statement pieces.
Condition
Excellent. Please review the photos—they show the exact poster for sale.
It is over 25 years old!
It is not a reproduction or a reprint.
Certificate of Authenticity included.
