The dark tale - "Yabu no naka no kuroneko" Kaneto Shindô
I think we should continue the topic of Japanese horror and today would like to stop on the film Yabu no naka no kuroneko by Kaneto Shindô, a real masterpiece, released in theaters in the distant 1968.
An ancient Japanese legend says that once on the outskirts of the capital, in a small house, hidden by a bamboo grove lived two women (Nobuko Ottawa and Kivako Tahiti). The son of the eldest of them (Kitiemon Nakamura) was taken directly to the war from the rice field, and the youngest, Shige, was his lover.
The samurai, exhausted by the war, once stumbled upon this house, raped and killed women, and to conceal their crime they burned the house, but the dark deity that returned women to life wandered on the ashes, provided that they devote themselves to revenge and brutally kill all the samurai living in the capital.
Kaidan - films based on folklore and scary stories with the obligatory participation of ghosts and demons, the genre is very specific, truly Japanese, and "Kuroneko" is one of its best representatives and the director's attention to detail is truly impressive.
The makeup in the best traditions of the Kabuki Theater, the kimono of the daughter-in-law, which remains invariably autumnal, while the clothing of the samurai-victims all the same changes according to the seasons, the transformation of the son from the incoherent shaggy peasant into a stately warrior - everything works on a volume, simple at first glance, some episodes of this tale produce a lot of impressions. I can not fail to note the last quarter of the film and the samurai's battle with the demon, which very nicely echoes the famous Gogol's "Viy".
Cinema with a capital letter and a real classic, in which the theatrical convention is perfectly combined with the legends of antiquity.
Sorry for possible errors. English - is not my native language.
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