Martin (John Amplas), a young man who looks around 20-years-old, boards a train in Indianapolis, Indiana for New York. At night, he breaks into a sleeping car and sedates a woman with a syringe full of narcotics. She struggles, but he tells her not to struggle or be upset because she wont feel pain. After a few minutes, the woman falls asleep, and Martin has sex with the unconscious woman. Afterwards, he slices her wrists with a razor blade so he can drink her blood. The woman bleeds to death in her sleep.
In the morning, the train stops in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where Martin disembarks. He is met by Tata Cuda (Lincoln Maazel) an elderly and hostile old man who claims to be his cousin from the Old World. Together, they travel by another train to the town of Braddock, a dying industrial suburb. They walk to Cuda's large house where he shows Martin his living quarters. Cuda then accuses Martin of being an 84-year-old vampire from his old country. He has taken in Martin because he is family, but tells him, "First I will save your soul. Then I shall destroy you." Martin denies being a vampire and implies that Cuda is merely his uncle rather than his cousin. Cuda then puts up strings of garlic on the doors to his and his granddaughter's room, and then holds up a small cross when Martin approaches him. Martin takes away the cross, and even takes a bite of the garlic mocking these attempts by saying bitterly, "There's no real magic... ever". Cuda tells Martin that he can come and go as he pleases. But he also warns Martin that he will kill him if he kills anyone in Braddock. He also tells Martin to stay away from his granddaughter Christine (Christine Forrest), whom arrives home from her job that evening.
Cuda introduces Christine to Martin, but also warns her to stay away from him. But Christine instead strikes up a friendship with Martin who confides in her about his vampire heritage. When Cuda later confirms Martin's claims to be a vampire, Christine, not surprisingly, refuses to believe either one. She thinks that Cuda and the other members of her family have driven Martin to insanity by making him think that he is a vampire. It is never revealed if Martin really is a vampire, or just a shy and lonely youth with troubled issues. Christine is the only person that Martin gets the courage to talk to. When Christine's boyfriend Arthur (Tom Savini) arrives at the house for dinner, Martin stops talking and backs away despite Arthur's attempt at a conversation. Christine later confides in Martin that she hopes to leave Braddock someday with Arthur, even though Martin points out that Arthur treats her badly and is both verbally and physically abusive towards her.
When Christine sees that Martin won't talk to anyone else, she buys him a phone which he installs in his room. Martin begins to repeatingly call a radio talk show where he describes what it's like to be a vampire. He becomes known on the radio as "the Count" to all the listeners. But the patronizing host (Michael Gornick) thinks he's just crazy.
Martin gets a job at Cuda's grocery store of stocking shelves, hauling boxes around, and even gets to be a delivery boy for some of the customers. One of his customers is a certain Abby Santini (Elyane Nadeau), who becomes taken in with Martin. She is a very friendly young woman who is depressed when she tells Martin that her husband is unfaithful. But Martin still does not have the nerve to talk with her, so she is happy to have someone to confide in with her life problems. Martin phones the radio show host to describe his infatuation with the housewife and senses that she wants to have sex with him. When the radio show host asks Martin if it is a sexual problem that he has involving women criticizing him during sex, Martin replies that he has never had sex with a woman who was awake.
One day, Martin travels by train to outside Braddock to look for victims. At a supermarket, he follows a young woman (Sarah Venable) home to her posh suburban house. He sees the woman's husband (Richard Rubenstein) leave for a long business trip, and Martin decides this would be the right time for more feeding. Martin returns to the house after dark and breaks in through the garage door. But it is Martin who gets the surprise when he bursts into her bedroom to find her in bed with her adulterous lover Lewis (Al Levitsky). After a vicious struggle, Martin jabs both of them with hyprodermic needles with narcotics, and waits for the drugs to take affect. He drags the unconscious body of Lewis from the house to a clump of trees across the street where he kills him by shoving a broken tree branch into his neck and drinks his blood. Martin returns to the house where he has sex with the unconscious woman. But out of compassion and pity, he decides to let her live.
Martin begins to have romantic monochrome visions of his vampire past (real or imagined), where he drained blood from a young woman and was chased through the streets of a nameless European town by a torch-lit mob.
During one Sunday at church, Cuda brings home Father Howard (George A. Romero) who asks him about the possibility of exorcism and demon possession. Father Howard calls upon the elderly Father Zulemans (Clifford Forrest, Jr.) over at Cuda's request. Together, Cuda and Zulemans confront Martin his bedroom and attempt to perform an exorcism on him. At this point, Martin remembers (another real or imaginary flashback), in the Old Country of people trying to perform an exorcism on him, and he flees them. Martin then flees from Cuda and Zuelmas as well. A little later that night, Martin terrorizes Cuda in a children's playground when he puts on a Dracula cape and puts false fangs into his mouth to pretend that he really is a vampire.
One day, Martin finally musters the courage to talk with Mrs. Santini during a routine delivery to her house where he tells her that he's aware of her attempts to seduce him and wants now to have sex with her. After having sex for the first time, Mrs. Santini becomes more depressed for she tells Martin that her husband just left her because she discovered that she cannot bear children, and that her desires towards him are based on sex and nothing else. But Martin wants to stay with her and help her move on with her life. Martin tells the radio show host about his affair with the housewife and that he no longer has the urge to attack other women.
Meanwhile, Arthur meets with Cuda and tells him that he wants Christine to leave town with him so they can get married and start a family. But Christine becomes angry at Cuda when he tells Arthur that insanity runs in their family and he shouldn't consider having children with her. Shortly afterwards, Christine packs up and leaves Braddock for New York with Arthur despite Martin telling her that Arthur is abusive towards her. But her mind is made up. Before leaving, Christine tells Martin that she really has no ill feelings towards him and just wants to make a fresh start with her life. She says goodbye to him and promises to write. But Martin knows that with an abusive and possessive man in Christine's life, she probably won't.
Depressed over losing his one true friend, Martin phones the radio show host and tells him that he's getting "shaky" and wants to go out looking for more victims. That night, Martin travels to a rough crime-ridden area of Pittsburgh and attacks two derelicts in a alley, injecting them with narcotics. He kills one of them by silting the bum's wrist and drinking his blood. Martin is about to kill the second one when a police car shows up and gives chase. Martin narrowly escapes during a long chase on foot which leads from the garbage strew streets and through a local store. Martin runs into an old warehouse where a drug deal is going down. A shootout between the two cops and the three thugs begins where all of them are killed, leaving Martin as the sole survivor who casually walks away from the carnage.
One day, Martin finds Mrs. Santini dead in her bathtub, after she had slit her writs with a razor blade. Martin anonymously calls the police to report the body and leaves. He phones the radio show host one final time to say that he really doesn't need friends or people to talk to for he is his own person. But when Cuda learns about Mrs. Santini's suicide, is mistakenly thinks Martin killed her and made it look like a suicide as he's done before. Cuda walks into Martin's room while he is asleep and kills him by hammering a wooden stake through Martin's heart.
Cuda buries Martin's body in his back garden, while over the closing credits various voices from people are heard talking to the radio show host asking the whereabouts of "the Count".
野田洋次郎的lagrima/开罗紫玫瑰的和风故事/中规中矩的追忆篇/北川景子太姐姐了 有一个黑白银幕乍看成原节子了都 可能因为实在是明讽小津吧/主干故事情节感觉不大经得起推敲 情怀片也就勉勉强强吧/永野芽郁可以说是新生代最佳咯
这改编简直牛上天啊！我一直在想，怎么样才能表现一个人分裂成两个自己跟自己下棋的画面呢，再没有把自己幻想成遇到世界冠军然后敌我不分博弈更加牛的表现形式了。原著中那么温和克制的结尾，会不会其实也只是B博士的一场幻想呢？至少这样的改编解读某种程度上帮助说明了《象棋的故事》之所以是茨威格最后一篇作品的原因。最不可思议的是，这部电影是德国人拍的，直面自己的黑历史，德国人真不是盖的！RESPECT!
还有最后的谢幕：再见了，志村健先生
天幕新彩云谢幕词：愿电影伴您入梦。【2021.9.21北影节·中秋夜】
用妻子、女儿和孙子的抱怨引出一位失败的丈夫和父亲ゴウ，和寺新在电影院看老电影时闪回到年轻时在制片厂的拍电影的日子。很佩服淑子当初作出的决定，不顾母亲和大家反对说要让ゴウ幸福，而不是让他给自己带来幸福，面对嗜赌成性的人还能一直没离婚，忍耐力真是超乎想象。/ 看到最后因为疫情寺新的银幕影院开不下去，母女俩说要尽一切可能帮助他这里被感动住了。一半家族之苦、一半电影天地，虽然感受到了很多导演对于电影的爱，但如果制片厂故事部分能再丰富一些就更好了。Lily Franky和北川景子饰演的角色应该就可以对应小津和原节子吧
我这个干净整洁的女孩子👧实在无办法共情那个“脏老头”👴
如果打破第四面墙的情节在医院病房的拉帘那里，我会更喜欢这个故事。
虽然不争气，大半的人生都荒废了，但在晚年也重新努力了一把，是金子总会发光，不论何地、何时，爱就是一家人不离不弃。最后那段升华太棒了，人生就是一个圆弧（今早刚看完的电影）PS:因景子而找的电影，里面的角色也让人满意。
很簡單又直接的感動，對電影的熱愛。曾經拍過的那部電影就是《東京物語》啊，小津安二郎是小田，原節子是桂圓子，松竹就是松竹。
现今老迈爱赌博，当年青春有才华，来回叙事的形式是动人的设定，感叹岁月，扼腕青春。后半段边刷手机边看的，只是大概了解致敬青春的剧情，有天堂电影院的味道。有时间要再刷一遍。
一部给日本电影和松竹电影制片厂的献礼影片，但其实没有实质性的针对松竹的情感抒发点，更多地是讲述经历了松竹最辉煌年代的个体的故事。故事本身的致敬自然不用说，摄影手法、构图设计和细节处理都能感受到日本老电影的传统味道。
11thBJIFF最后一部，服下这颗电影致幻剂
“一个个镜头之间，都寄宿着神明.”
浓浓的怀旧感，几个主要人物的形象还是有些苍白。
所以，当你热衷某件事并满心期望会在这件事中有所作为的时候，就要不顾一切拼了命地去冲啊！不论成功失败，至少死之前不会留有遗憾，至少你曾经很努力很努力地为之付出过。你看，阿乡就是不够拼，他选择了逃避，即便是在垂暮之年实现了也不是那么回事了。
是差劲的角色，是俗套的峰回路转happyending剧情，可在早有预料的好消息到来之际，我还是没忍住流泪的冲动，可能那时候好巧不巧电影之神刚好降临了吧。
交错时空的表现手法很好，但是悬疑诡异的气氛似乎不同于原著。如果女主角换人就更好了，虽然妻子的角色无关紧要。
山田洋次导演作品
#2021金馬影展
老男人不痛不痒的忏悔和洋洋洒洒的自我感动真让我想吐。
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