Details

Release year: 1968

Storyline

Two women are raped and killed by samurai soldiers. Soon they reappear as vengeful ghosts who seduce and brutally murder the passing samurai.

Top credits

Directors

Kaneto Shindō

Writers

Kaneto Shindō

Cast

Kichiemon Nakamura — Gintoki
Nobuko Otowa — Yone (Mother)
Kei Satô — Raiko
Rokkô Toura — A Samurai

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Did you know

• The original title translates to "In the Grove of the Black Cat" and is a direct reference to the Ryûnosuke Akutagawa story, "Yabu no Naka" ("In a Grove"), which also inspired Akira Kurosawa for Rashomon (1950).

• The movie was placed in competition at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, but the festival was canceled due to the civil unrest events of May 1968 in France.

• As a protégé of the revered director Kenji Mizoguchi, Shindo adopted his master's sympathy for the plight of women. Gender politics enter into the ghost story, as defenseless women return from the dead to exact a bloody revenge.