Starring Ryo Kase and Denis Lavant. Directed by Bong Joon-ho, Leos Carax, and Michel Gondry. In Japanese and French with English subtitles. Unrated. Plays at the Pacific Cinémathí¨que from April 22 to 29.

While the omnibus horror movie is almost certainly a British invention, in recent years it has become an almost exclusively Asian sub-genre. The transcontinental cosmopolitanism of Tokyo! is therefore something of an anomaly. Two of the contributing directors are French (and one of those is most famous for the work he’s done in the United States) while the third is South Korean, even though all the action takes place in Japan’s (and possibly the world’s) largest city.

All three directors, in one way or another, play wicked games with outside perceptions of Japanese life. In “Interior Design”, for instance, the girlfriend of a would-be cult horror filmmaker proves to be so compliant to her lover’s wishes, she actually leaves the animal kingdom altogether. Perversely, director Michel Gondry makes this metamorphosis seem more happy than not.

Bong Joon-ho, meanwhile (director of The Host, the greatest mutant monster movie of all time), includes an earthquake in his vignette, as well as a protagonist who makes Yasujiro Ozu’s heroes seem outgoing. Indeed, the man is a hikikomori, an agoraphobe who forces himself to leave the house after 11 years of self-incarceration in pursuit of a pizza delivery girl who may or may not be a robot.

And then there’s the central story by Leos Carax, “Merde!”, in which a maniac troll (the super-dynamic Denis Lavant) emerges from the Tokyo sewers, scarfs flowers, and throws hand grenades at passersby. In the court case that follows, he gets to insult his Japanese hosts unmercifully even as the Japanese legal system is subjected to yet another well-deserved drubbing.

All in all, an ecstatic, irreverent, surrealist delight.