A host of depraved and food-deprived ronin pillage the food and rape a woman and her daughter-in-law, Yone(Nobuko Otowa)and Shige(Kiwako Taichi), setting their hut on fire as they lie unconscious..soon their bodies lie badly scorched, a black cat(..a recent pet found roaming their premises)licks from their bleeding wounds. During this opening sequence, director Kaneto Shindô effectively uses silence, crickets, creek water sloshing in the mouths of the heathen Samurai, and no dialogue. It's simply an atrocious act set amongst an uncivilized time where war is ravaging the land, but Shindô presents it quietly, two bodies lain in the middle of the rubble of what was once their homestead.
Making a deal with an evil god from the netherworld, seeking revenge, Yone and Shige are allowed to return from the dead in human form from dusk till dawn, to rip apart the throats of Samurai, feeding from their blood, behavior and abilities akin to a feline, the black cat. It's simple at first, Shige uses her beauty to lure Samurai, now in fine garments(..still loathsome on the inside, which emerges after much Sake)to a fictitious home which exists only for the hours the ghosts roam, where they get them drunk and feed from their blood. Soon the repeated attacks, where fallen men lay dead with bleeding throats, causes the area's Samurai leader, Raiko(Kei Sato)to seek a warrior to end the threat. A warrior soon arises, Gintoki(Kichiemon Nakamura), the lone survivor in a slaughter between two companies in Ezo, Northern Japan between Samurai and barbarians, who is called on to kill the "monsters". The conflict that results is that the ghosts are Gintoki's mother and wife! And, even worse, Gintoki must kill them or die at Raiko's sword.
Kaneto Shindô depends on several visual techniques in shaping his ghost tale of revenge mainly through the use of fog and repeated images of Yone in flight and on the attack. The powerhouse story is what ultimately works the best in Shindô's movie, I think, because Gintoki is caught in quite a conundrum he can not seem to escape. His quandary is that he's indebted to his leader, Raiko, to rid their land, mainly the Rajomon Gate, of the predators devouring the Samurai, yet the difficulty of attacking your own mother becomes quite a problem that's not easy to resolve. Making matters worse is that Yone can not tell her son the reason why she and Shige commit their fiendish attacks. The film didn't quite end the way I expected, and I ponder it's meaning. Why would Gintoki fall for such an obvious trick regarding the guarding of a decapitated arm in his protection from Yone? Quite a tragic story, very emotional, specifically what Shige accepts in order to enjoy days of love with Gintoki, and how Yone must resort to trickery to gain an advantage over her beloved son. Quite an eerie score, spooky uses of a forest at night, and the throat attacks are quite ferocious. Minor masterpiece from the director. A haunting finale as Gintoki aimlessly pursues his mother, going mad, with winter snow used quite strikingly. Potential following I presume in the future as horror fans become more aware of it's existence.
Making a deal with an evil god from the netherworld, seeking revenge, Yone and Shige are allowed to return from the dead in human form from dusk till dawn, to rip apart the throats of Samurai, feeding from their blood, behavior and abilities akin to a feline, the black cat. It's simple at first, Shige uses her beauty to lure Samurai, now in fine garments(..still loathsome on the inside, which emerges after much Sake)to a fictitious home which exists only for the hours the ghosts roam, where they get them drunk and feed from their blood. Soon the repeated attacks, where fallen men lay dead with bleeding throats, causes the area's Samurai leader, Raiko(Kei Sato)to seek a warrior to end the threat. A warrior soon arises, Gintoki(Kichiemon Nakamura), the lone survivor in a slaughter between two companies in Ezo, Northern Japan between Samurai and barbarians, who is called on to kill the "monsters". The conflict that results is that the ghosts are Gintoki's mother and wife! And, even worse, Gintoki must kill them or die at Raiko's sword.
Kaneto Shindô depends on several visual techniques in shaping his ghost tale of revenge mainly through the use of fog and repeated images of Yone in flight and on the attack. The powerhouse story is what ultimately works the best in Shindô's movie, I think, because Gintoki is caught in quite a conundrum he can not seem to escape. His quandary is that he's indebted to his leader, Raiko, to rid their land, mainly the Rajomon Gate, of the predators devouring the Samurai, yet the difficulty of attacking your own mother becomes quite a problem that's not easy to resolve. Making matters worse is that Yone can not tell her son the reason why she and Shige commit their fiendish attacks. The film didn't quite end the way I expected, and I ponder it's meaning. Why would Gintoki fall for such an obvious trick regarding the guarding of a decapitated arm in his protection from Yone? Quite a tragic story, very emotional, specifically what Shige accepts in order to enjoy days of love with Gintoki, and how Yone must resort to trickery to gain an advantage over her beloved son. Quite an eerie score, spooky uses of a forest at night, and the throat attacks are quite ferocious. Minor masterpiece from the director. A haunting finale as Gintoki aimlessly pursues his mother, going mad, with winter snow used quite strikingly. Potential following I presume in the future as horror fans become more aware of it's existence.