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Although not on the same level as his masterpieces such as “Onibaba” and “The Naked Island”, “Human” is still a very competent work, both as a stark survival drama and as an allegory on humanity as a concept. While it failed to gain commercial or critical traction upon release, with the exception of two local awards for Taiji Tonoyama, it has since earned a place in discussions about politically charged Japanese cinema and experimental narrative techniques. The movie was distributed by the Art Theater Guild.

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The story is based on Yaeko Nogami’s homonymous novel and unfolds as follows: three men, captain Kamegoro, Hachizo, and Sankichi, set out in a small, worn-down boat on a routine trip to collect cargo from a neighboring island and return to their village within two days. At the last minute, a local woman,...

Uncharacteristically for the sprawling filmography of director Mikio Naruse, “The Approach of Autumn” (also known as “Autumn Has Already Started”) centers on two children and can be described as a coming-of-age drama. One of the director’s most original and fascinating features, it still bears all the hallmarks of a master who was by then reaching the apex of his skills as a filmmaker.

Sincerity is screening at Japan Society as part of the Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us program

The movie opens with the arrival in Tokyo of Shigeko (Nobuko Otowa) and her young sixth-grade son, Hideo. Shigeko is a widow (a typical character in Naruse’s films), coming from Ueda to start a new job as a hostess in a ryokan, while Hideo is left to live with his uncle’s household nearby. Whereas a typical Naruse film would have focused on Shigeko, this time we follow Hideo,...

Of all the female archetypes in narrative fiction, few are as reviled or misunderstood as the crone. This woman “of a certain age” has accumulated an arsenal of invaluable wisdom, but due to her age and fading conventional beauty, finds herself ostracized by the larger world. Often isolated, we think of crones inhabiting dilapidated huts on the outskirts of town conversing only with young strangers who seek out their counsel for insurmountable tasks. These visitors usually leave just as quickly as they came, shuddering at the thought of her solitary existence.

Though she’s often presented as a horrific harbinger or cautionary tale, the crone is still a human being, just as capable of complex emotions and desires as her younger counterparts. Sixty years before The Substance and Babygirl explored modern iterations of this misunderstood archetype, Kaneto Shindô imbued the crone with humanity in his 1964 film Onibaba. When men intrude on her simplistic life,...

“Once it’s dark, it can’t get any darker.”

Horror is filled with iconic masks, from Michael Myers and his vaguely humanoid contours to Peachfuzz and his unruly snarl. Some allow killers to hide their identities, attacking in secret while maintaining a relationship with their would-be victims. Others provide a persona of strength and terror that a would-be villain could not otherwise achieve. Though masks have been a genre staple since the dawn of film, few are as uniquely terrifying as the Hannya mask in Kaneto Shindô’s Onibaba. Set in 14th century Japan, this gorgeous film follows a fearful woman who dons a traditional mask only to find it slowly seeping into her skin.

Kichi’s Mother (Nobuko Otowa) is patiently waiting for her son to return from war. Left without a male provider, she lives with Kichi’s Wife (Jitsuko Yoshimura) in a hut surrounded by a large field of suzuki grass.

As with any cinematic genre, horror movies are nothing new. Audiences have sought out these terrifying works since the dawn of film. However, many older examples of horror quickly show their age. What was once an edge-of-your-seat thriller gathers dust and pales against its more modern counterparts, slowly falling into the ever-growing pile of “campy” old movies. Of course, not all early horror succumbs to this fate.

Kaneto Shindō’s Onibaba is the perfect example of such a timeless classic, and it’s been frightening filmgoers since 1964. Its success is a multifaceted combination of atmospheric, narrative, and visual perfection. Even after decades of progress, Onibaba remains a grotesquely captivating cinematic feat that has yet to be replicated. Moreover, while countless horror classics have received “updated” remakes, Onibaba has never been reshot. It’s been a candidate for a modern revival, though. Interestingly, the effort to recreate Onibaba was spearheaded by William Dafoe,...

by Nick Taylor

Cats! We love ‘em. I know I do. Are we all cat people? No, but variety is the spice of life. Spirits of wronged women avenging their own deaths? Well loved across all kinds of cultural traditions and generic conventions. Putting cats and wronged women together, then, should be an instant recipe for success, yes? Especially if the title in question is as lauded as Kaneto Shindo’s 1968 film Kuroneko?

Set roughly one millenia before it was filmed, Kuroneko follows two women, mother Yone (Nobuko Otawa) and her daughter-in-law Shige (Kiwako Taichi), who live together in a bamboo cottage on the outskirts of a peasant village...

Based on a real-life incident of a father who had strangled his violent son, “The Strangling” seems to follow one of the most prevalent themes of Japanese cinema from the 70s and onwards, the accusation towards the previous generation for the blights that torment the current. Kaneto Shindo, however, definitely moves much further, and occasionally even in an opposite direction, in a film that went beyond the borders of Japan, screening in competition at the 36th Venice International Film Festival, where Nobuko Otowa was awarded as Best Actress.

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The movie actually begins with the titular deed, showing Yasuzo, after an agreement with his wife, Ryoko, strangles his son, Tsutomu. Although Shindo takes care of showing what happened after the deed, including the support the couple got from their neighbors in all aspects, the main arc of the story deals with how the young man,...

Onibaba

Blu ray

Criterion

1964/ 2.39:1/ 102 Minutes

Starring Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura

Directed by Kaneto Shindô

Kaneto Shindô’s Onibaba is a campfire tale not for the faint of heart. The director was just a child when he first heard the Buddhist fable about a bewitched matriarch, told to him by his own mother in lieu of a bedtime story. That evening, the child’s perception of the world, and the women in it, took on a new dimension. The movie Shindô made from those memories is unclassifiable—a Bergmanesque allegory filmed in a graceful yet spartan style with a healthy dose of Grand Guignol to mitigate its pretensions. Produced in 1964, the film is set in the medieval era just as civil war has leveled Kyoto, sending the populace scurrying to the hinterlands.

Shindô wrote the screenplay and he leaves it to one of his characters, a deserter named Hachi, to...

Kaneto Shindo was a prolific director and screenwriter who created some of the most memorable films of the black and white era, such as “Onibaba” (1964) and “Kuroneko” (1968). In “The Naked Island” (1960) Shindo gives us a window on a small farming family living on an island, showing the harsh conditions under which they survive.

The film begins with a man and woman collecting water that they transport back to the island on a small vessel. We see that they have two sons living with them. It is clear from the beginning that theirs is a difficult life. The dry earth means that they are required to continually water their crops, travelling back and forth from the island and hauling their buckets up the steep hill. The eldest son is taken by his mother to school on the mainland. While much of their time is taken up with an endless struggle against the elements,...

Among the most notable exports of Japanese horror films to the world at large is the onyro, involving tales of malicious ghosts and spirits interacting with the human world. The influence can still be felt to this day with ghost stories including everything from “Ringu”, “Ju-On”, “Dark Water” and many more similar such films not just from Japan but around the world, most of which trace their inspiration to classic efforts including this one from revered director Kaneto Shindo.

Traveling to a remote village, Raiko Minamoto (Kei Sato) and his samurai gang find Yone (Nobuko Otowa) and her daughter Shigei, (Kiwako Taichi) alone in the village, then rape and murder both of them before setting fire to their home and continuing on. When a black cat arrives at the scene afterward, the other members of the samurai group, out on their own traveling the land by themselves,...

A few months ago, the Crypt of Curiosities briefly touched on a subgenre of Japanese cinema called Kaidan. For the unaware, modern Kaidan are ghost stories, usually set in the Edo period and drawing on classic mythology and folklore. It was a very popular genre for ’50s and ’60s Japanese cinema to draw on, with standouts like Ugetsu (1953), Black Cat Mansion (1958), and Kwaidan (1964) helping define the movement as one of the great types of J-Horror. But when it comes to the ultimate in Kaidan, one director’s body of work stands out among the rest: the Kaidan of Kaneto Shindo.

Kaneto Shindo was a legend. Over the course of the hundred years he was with us, he worked as a screenwriter on everything from war films to disaster movies to Zatoichi entries, and served as the director for avant-garde classics like The Naked Island (1960). His filmography spans all sorts of genres and movements,...

In this episode of CriterionCast Chronicles, Ryan is joined by David Blakeslee, Arik Devens, and Mark Hurne to discuss the Criterion Collection releases for May 2016.

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Don't let your boss see this movie, it'll give them ideas. Writer-director Kaneto Shindo reduces the human drama to its basics, as an isolated family endures a backbreaking existence of dawn 'til dusk toil to eke out a living. It's a beautiful but humbling ode to adaptability and human resolve. And the show has no conventional dialogue. The Naked Island Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 811 1960 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 94 min. / Hadaka no shima / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 17, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Nobuko Otowa, Taiji Tonoyama, Shinji Tanaka, Masanori Horimoto. Cinematography Kiyomi Kuroda Film Editor Toshio Enoki Original Music Hikaru Hayashi Produced by Eisaku Matsuura, Kaneto Shindo Written and Directed by Kaneto Shindo

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Writer-director Kaneto Shindo started his own production company in the 1950s earning critical attention but not great success with pictures on topical themes -- the legacy of Hiroshima, the story of the fishing trawler irradiated by a hydrogen blast.

Hey, let me start off here by welcoming my friends who followed me on my Criterion Reflections blog and are sticking around to carry on my chronological exploration of the Criterion Collection. Reading my stuff here on Criterion Cast is probably not that big of a jump for most of you, since I’ve been writing for this site since 2010, but this post does mark a significant transition for me. I appreciate the positive comments that have been sent my way in various formats since I came to the end of that particular rope a couple weeks ago. But enough about that then! I’m eager to share my thoughts on Kuroneko, a beautifully creepy and hauntingly mesmerizing film from 1968 directed by Kaneto Shindo.

David’s quick take for the tl;dr media consumer:

Impressive, atmospheric Japanese ghost story that employs stark minimalist set design, poised performances in the Noh tradition and brisk,...

What is it about foreign horror films that makes them more interesting than so many English language horror films? You would have to think that the language barrier makes it more terrifying; people screaming is already difficult, but speaking a language you don’t understand can only make it worse. So, why are the remakes typically so bad? On this portion of the list, we are treated to a few of the more upsetting films in the canon – one movie I wouldn’t wish for anyone to see, a few that blazed the trail for many more, and one that I would elevate above the horror genre into its own little super-genre.

30. Janghwa, Hongryeon (2003)

English Title: A Tale of Two Sisters

Directed by: Kim Ji-woon

Another excellent Korean horror film America had to remake to lesser results. 2003’s A Tale of Two Sisters is just one of many film adaptations of the folktale,...

English language film has long been a place for some of the greatest horror film directors of all time. All the way back to Alfred Hitchcock, we have seen the genre grow and develop sub-genres, thanks to the public’s ongoing thirst for fear and the possibility of danger around every turn. But, for every Saw or Hostel or terrible remake of classic English-language horror films, there are inventive, terrifying films made somewhere else that inspire and even outdo many of our best Western world horror films. This list will count down the fifty definitive horror films with a main language that isn’t English; some may have some English-language parts in them, but they are, for the most part, foreign. Enlighten yourself. Broaden your horizons. People can get murdered and tortured in every language.

50. Kuroneko (1968)

English Title: Black Cat

Directed by: Kaneto Shindo

Japanese for “Black Cat,” Kuroneko is...

Top 100 horror movies of all time: Chicago Film Critics' choices (photo: Sigourney Weaver and Alien creature show us that life is less horrific if you don't hold grudges) See previous post: A look at the Chicago Film Critics Association's Scariest Movies Ever Made. Below is the list of the Chicago Film Critics's Top 100 Horror Movies of All Time, including their directors and key cast members. Note: this list was first published in October 2006. (See also: Fay Wray, Lee Patrick, and Mary Philbin among the "Top Ten Scream Queens.") 1. Psycho (1960) Alfred Hitchcock; with Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam. 2. The Exorcist (1973) William Friedkin; with Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Jason Miller, Max von Sydow (and the voice of Mercedes McCambridge). 3. Halloween (1978) John Carpenter; with Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Tony Moran. 4. Alien (1979) Ridley Scott; with Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt. 5. Night of the Living Dead (1968) George A. Romero; with Marilyn Eastman,...

What is it about foreign horror films that makes them more interesting than so many English language horror films? You would have to think that the language barrier makes it more terrifying; people screaming is already difficult, but speaking a language you don’t understand can only make it worse. So, why are the remakes typically so bad? On this portion of the list, we are treated to a few of the more upsetting films in the canon – one movie I wouldn’t wish for anyone to see, a few that blazed the trail for many more, and one that I would elevate above the horror genre into its own little super-genre.

30. Janghwa, Hongryeon (2003)

English Title: A Tale of Two Sisters

Directed by: Kim Ji-woon

Another excellent Korean horror film America had to remake to lesser results. 2003′s A Tale of Two Sisters is just one of many film adaptations of the folktale,...

English language film has long been a place for some of the greatest horror film directors of all time. All the way back to Alfred Hitchcock, we have seen the genre grow and develop sub-genres, thanks to the public’s ongoing thirst for fear and the possibility of danger around every turn. But, for every Saw or Hostel or terrible remake of classic English-language horror films, there are inventive, terrifying films made somewhere else that inspire and even outdo many of our best Western world horror films. This list will count down the fifty definitive horror films with a main language that isn’t English; some may have some English-language parts in them, but they are, for the most part, foreign. Enlighten yourself. Broaden your horizons. People can get murdered and tortured in every language.

50. Kuroneko (1968)

English Title: Black Cat

Directed by: Kaneto Shindo

Japanese for “Black Cat,” Kuroneko is...

Feature Dan Auty 8 Jul 2013 - 06:35

Two classic films from Onibaba director Kaneto Shindo arrive on Blu-ray. Dan takes a look at The Naked Island and Kuroneko...

Without question, Kaneto Shindo’s best-known film is his chilling 1964 masterpiece Onibaba. Frequently listed as one of the greatest horror films ever made, this tale of a murderous wife and daughter in feudal Japan has long been available in the UK on VHS, DVD and now Blu-ray, and stands as a landmark of Japanese cinema. But what of Shindo’s other films? The director’s death last year - at the grand age of 100 - has led to resurgence in interest in his work, and this week Masters Of Cinema release two of his other classics in gorgeous new Blu-ray editions.

The Naked Island (1961)

The Naked Island was the prolific Shindo’s 15th film, but for a while it looked like it might his last.

★★★★☆ A fitting tribute to the late director Kaneto Shindō, who sadly passed away in May of last year at the age of 100, this week's Masters of Cinema series' Blu-ray rerelease of 1964 Japanese drama Onibaba (The Demoness) is every bit as bountiful and lush as the swaying susuki grass fields found within. A heady blend of dark psychosexuality and 14th century period authenticity lies in wait, with Shindō's film still rightly revered for its pioneering depiction of both brutal, bloody violence and searing on-screen sexuality, optimised by its two female leads - the cold-eyed Nobuko Otowa and the nubile Jitsuko Yoshimura.

Read more »...

The writer and director died last month aged 100. As a BFI retrospective celebrates his career, Emilie Bickerton salutes a life's work made in the shadow of Hiroshima

Kaneto Shindo, who died last month aged 100, just before the start of a two month British Film Institute season dedicated to his career and that of long-term collaborator Yoshimura Kozaburo, spent a lot of time among the reeds, wading through mud, puddles and into woods of bamboo. He was most comfortable there, where life was reduced to its bare essentials. Shindo was born in 1912 in Hiroshima. Japan modernised dramatically over his lifetime, but he observed it at a distance, with the knowledge that all this could disappear drummed into him from childhood after what had happened to his hometown. His subjects in the 49 films he made, ranging from melodramas to horror stories to erotic fictions, were those society had rejected or brutalised, who were now struggling to survive,...

Japanese film director whose work was heavily influenced by the Hiroshima atomic bomb

The fact that the film director Kaneto Shindo, who has died aged 100, was born in Hiroshima affected his work both directly and indirectly. His films, such as Children of Hiroshima (1952), are valuable contributions to the cinema of hibakusha, the testimony of the survivors of the atomic bomb. Many of his movies are allegories on the absence of civilised behaviour in the conduct of war, exposing humankind's innate propensity towards violence and cruelty in the absence of a moral and spiritual code.

Much of his humanism and style derived from the director Kenji Mizoguchi, for whom Shindo wrote two screenplays. In 1975 Shindo paid homage to his mentor in a documentary, Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director. Like Mizoguchi, Shindo created many forceful women characters who, by virtue of their willpower and love, tend to "save" their male counterparts.

Kurneko

Blu-ray | DVD

Directed by Kaneto Shindo

Written by Kaneto Shindo

Starring Kichiemon Nakamura, Nobuko Otowa, Kiwako Taichi

The Criterion Collection

Release Date: October 18, 2011

You can feel it in the air. The weather is changing, leaves are falling, and costumes are about to be brought out, as Halloween is just a day away. And while the majority of people will be going to the well for their cinematic slices of terror, Criterion, in their inescapable wisdom, has decided to not only follow up last year’s great release of the cult horror masterpiece Hausu with yet another cult horror offering, but hell, even cats are involved with this sucker.

Kuroneko is the name of this atmospheric gem, and it comes to us from the mind of Japanese auteur Kaneto Shindo. Best known for his fellow Criterion staple, the hauntingly devastating Onibaba, Kurnoeko (Black Cat) is equally as meditative and brooding,...

Chicago – Halloween just isn’t the same without an Onryō. Thanks to America’s tireless remakes of Japanese horror films, the materialization of Onryōs in pop culture has become as much of a seasonal tradition as witches and goblins. They’re often characterized by long black hair, white robes, bodily contortions, tragic backstories and an unquenchable thirst for vengeance beyond the grave.

In short, Onryōs unnervingly embody the old adage that “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…even a dead one.” It’s easy to see how spine-tingling modern classics like “Ringu” and “Ju-on: The Grudge” followed in the ghostly footsteps of Kaneto Shindô’s overlooked 1968 masterwork, “Kuroneko” (“Black Cat”). Though the film is more hypnotic than scary, it still manages to creep under the skin as it spins a tale of real emotional and erotic power.

Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0

As in Shindô’s better-known 1964 classic, “Onibaba,” this film...

Rank the week of October 18th’s Blu-ray and DVD new releases against the best films of all-time: New Releases Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #1487

Win Percentage: 47%

Times Ranked: 8433

Top-20 Rankings: 50

Directed By: Rob Marshall

Starring: Johnny Depp • Penélope Cruz • Ian McShane • Kevin McNally • Geoffrey Rush

Genres: Action • Adventure • Costume Adventure • Fantasy • Sea Adventure • Swashbuckler

Rank This Movie

Bad Teacher

(Blu-ray & DVD | R | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #3281

Win Percentage: 42%

Times Ranked: 3361

Top-20 Rankings: 19

Directed By: Jake Kasdan

Starring: Cameron Diaz • Justin Timberlake • Jason Segel • Lucy Punch • Phyllis Smith

Genres: Comedy • Farce • Sex Comedy

Rank This Movie

Red State

(Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #2738

Win Percentage: 53%

Times Ranked: 1781

Top-20 Rankings: 12

Directed By: Kevin Smith

Starring: Michael Parks • John Goodman • Melissa Leo • Kevin Pollak • Michael Angarano

Genres: Drama • Horror • Religious Drama • Thriller

Rank This Movie

Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest

(Blu-ray & DVD...

[Never before seen in the Us, Kaneto Shindo's Children of Hiroshima, a searing anti-nuclear war film gets a theatrical release in a new 35mm print for a week (April 22nd through 28th), as a part of the traveling retrospective- The Urge for Survival: Kaneto Shindo, at the Brooklyn Academy of the Music (Bam). The retrospective will continue with Shindo's 11 other films until May 5th.]Takako (Nobuko Otowa, director Shindo's muse and wife, seen in Naked Island, Kuroneko, Onibaba) is an elementry school teacher on a small island. She decides to visit her home town, Hiroshima, during the Summer school recess to pay respect for her family who perished when the atom bomb fell four years ago. She is also looking for surviving children from...

Updated through 4/23.

"A movie that has waited nearly 60 years for a Us theatrical premiere and could hardly be more timely, Kaneto Shindo's Children of Hiroshima is a somber melodrama about the aftereffects of atomic radiation, shot on location in the half-rebuilt site of the world's first nuclear catastrophe." J Hoberman in the Voice: "Showing for a week at Bam in advance of an 11-film Shindo retrospective (The Urge for Survival, which includes a feature the 99-year-old director completed this year), Hiroshima is a priori heartrending."

The L's Mark Asch notes that "opening night is now a benefit screening, acknowledging the layers of relevance accrued since the film was programmed. This 1952 atomic-fallout drama, where news-value location footage and statistics-quoting supporting cast coexist with social-issue-movie score and serious voiceover, stars moonfaced Nobuko Otowa, Shindo's wife and a star of all the films in the series save his most recent (she died in...

You asked us to review the Japanese film-maker's Devil Woman, a sensual nightmare based on a Buddhist parable. Here goes ...

It's a pleasure to take this commission from tomkun: "Could u review Onibaba, or Devil Woman (1964) directed by Kaneto Shindo? My Dad never stops going on about it."

It surfaces rarely here, though I, along with many other reviewers, drew attention to Onibaba when it was scheduled at London's BFI Southbank in 2008, as part of its "Wild Japan" season. "Wild" is right.

Onibaba is a chilling movie, a waking nightmare shot in icy monochrome, and filmed in a colossal and eerily beautiful wilderness: a Japanese susuki field, or pampas-grass field — the movie was shot in the north-western section of the Inba swamp in Japan's Chiba prefecture. The nearest British equivalent is possibly the East Anglian fenland, or possibly the Kent marshes from which Dickens imagined the terrifying Magwitch emerging in...