Kiyoshi Takase

Musical retelling of the "Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves" Arabian Nights tale.

Old Jerusalem: Matathias, spiteful over his lover's illness, spits on Jesus along the road to Calvary, and is cursed to live endlessly until His return. The Crusades, 1150: Matathias, now an anonymous knight, competes for glory in combat and for the wife of a soldier. Palermo, 1290: Matteos Battadios witnesses the death of his young son, leading to conflict with his wife over whether to take comfort in Christianity. Seville, 1560: Dr Matteos Battadios dedicates himself to the treatment and comfort of the poor, but his life and work are endangered by the arrival of the Spanish Inquisition.

A murder takes place in a film studio during the shooting of a new film.

A jealous wife helps a Chinaman kidnap a lieutenant's fiancée.

A Japanese merchant attempts to drive one of his rivals mad by impersonating a man he had once murdered.

The year is 1940 and tension is growing between the empires of United Europe and the Atlantic States. A bloody border incident puts both sides on high alert.

A Mandarin hypnotises his partner's daughter to locate hidden bonds.

A frightened woman is murdered in the London apartment of a well-known novelist named Henry Leroux. The police arrest Leroux's butler, but he escapes and runs off to a mysterious opium den, the lair of a drug dealer named Mister King. Gaston Max, a detective from Paris, arrives in London to investigate the drug trafficking. Although the police take down the gang, Mr. King escapes and manages to keep his true identity a secret.