The Noisy Requiem bears all the hallmarks of a classic cult film: directed by Japanese filmmaker Yoshihiko Matsui, the 150-minute production remains the most ambitious of its kind in the history of Japanese underground cinema, but was banned from being shown in film festivals in Japan and abroad when it was released in 1988 due to its controversial content.
The resulting outcry effectively halted Matsui's career as a Japanese auteur until now.
Requiem, shot in black and white, is set in a southern Osaka ghetto and depicts a psychopath's fetishistic love of a mannequin which he stuffs with the entrails of the women he stalks and kills.
While on his murderous spree, he bullies and insults passers-by and manages to hold down a job working for an incestuous midget brother and sister as a sewer cleaner.
Jonathan Hung Ping-man, who chose Requiem to be the closing film for Osaka Weird Sonata - a showcase of lost Japanese indie classics - says the film is like many Osaka indie movies, with a unique plot and great cinematography.
'I was shocked by the topic of the movie. It is set in post-war Japan when people are searching for new direction in the debris,' says Hung. 'It gives audiences a very different experience.' All of Requiem's characters are distressed, alienated, lower-class misfits who are marginalised by mainstream society, Hung adds.
When production began in 1983, it was thought to be impossible to shoot, and even Shuji Terayama, the notorious enfant terrible of avant-garde Japanese theatre and cinema and himself no less controversial a filmmaker, said it 'would be a scandal if it's made into a movie'.