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Onibaba 15 rating

Stylish, symbolic and erotically charged Japanese horror in which the fortunes of a murderous mother-and-daughter team are upended by a strangely masked samurai.

Period drama 1964 102 mins

Director: Kaneto Shindo

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Overview

In a Japan ravaged by civil war, weary samurai are being ambushed and murdered by a ruthless mother (Nobuko Otowa) and daughter-in-law (Jitsuko Yoshimura) team. The women throw the samurai bodies into a pit, and barter their armour and weapons for food. While the daughter begins an affair with a neighbour (Kei Satô), the older woman meets a mysterious samurai wearing a bizarre face-mask; two encounters which will alter their destinies.

Erotically charged and steeped in the symbolism and superstition of its Buddhist and Shintô roots, Kaneto Shindô’s Onibaba is in part a modern parable on consumerism, a study of the destructiveness of sexual desire and — filmed amid a claustrophobic sea of grass — one of the most striking and unique Japanese films of the 20th century.

Director
Kaneto Shindo
Featuring
Nobuko OtowaJitsuko YoshimuraKei SatoTaiji TonomuraJûkichi Uno
Genres
Period dramaHorror
Certificate
15
Released
1964
Country
Japan
Language
Japanese with English subtitles