Demon Pond

"Demon Pond" is an wonderfully and stylishy presented allegorical fantasy. Its sudden (conscious) transition to artifice will catch you off guard, and may ruin things for those who are accustomed to more realistic narrative. But those willing to drift into a world of crab-humans, "mud people," and other admittedly Roger Corman-esquire creatures will enjoy this film's lush images. When critics refer to Ang Lee's gravity-defying romance/fantasy "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" as "the reason we go to the movies," they could very well use "Demon Pond" as another example. Despite its theatrical nature at times, it's full of otherworldly sensual pleasure that you could only get from a film. The mise-en-scene is exquisite, the eerie soundtrack unlike anything you've heard in a movie. The special effects at the end are breathtaking if you've escaped from your seat and managed to float into the world of the film...and don't let the occasionally silly subtitling ruin this two-hour fantasy. On top of it all, there are metaphors and themes to be uncovered everywhere. See this one on 35mm if you can!

This film has shown in the United States as Demon Pond. One part ghost story (with echoes of the Japanese classic, Ugetsu), one part a distinctly Japanese version of a "weird tale", and one part drawn from Japanese fairie tales and children's stories, much of the action is a vehicle for Bando, perhaps the most accomplished actor/female impersonator in Japanese theater and kabuki in the last 30 years. It is virtually impossible to tell that he is a man, playing a female role. More theatrical than scary, the film is still sometimes creepy and very imaginative visually. For those who are interested in Bando, Daniel Schmid made a "documentary" about him, The Hidden Face, which is well worth seeing. In all, this is an excellent example of superior recent Japanese film that has more aspirations to entertain than to be art, but entails both.

Others here have described the film more than adequately, all I have to add is that of Feb 2021, Shochiku have announced that it will be digitally remastered and re-issued. I hope I get a chance to rework the subtitles!

Back in those days, when videotape wasn't readily available, we sat in a screening room, watched the film, made notes and received an audio tape of the dialogue to work on back at home - using audio cassette player, the original (often uncorrected) Japanese script and a typewriter. As you can imagine, it was difficult, if not impossible to remember all the actions and nuances that must be addressed to make the subtitles work seamlessly, especially since Japanese can be very vague at times, often leaving out the subject, or the object of a sentence, so he/she, or here/there, that/this must often be guessed at. It was always a painful experience to watch the complete subtitled film, surrounded by the producers and usually the director, continually wincing at what must have looked like simple translation errors.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the remastered masterpiece by often underrated genius of Japanese cinema, Shinoda Masahiro.

Myth and superstition hold center stage in Masahiro Shinoda's fantastic tale of a haunted mountain lake in the remote Japanese hinterland, home of the beautiful Dragon Queen and her myriad spirit consorts. While investigating an obscure reference on a pre-war map of the region, a traveling schoolteacher happens upon a nearby village where the inhabitants suffer a terrible drought rather than disturb the underwater demon, whose release is checked by the ritual sounding of a sacred bell. The film moves from magic realism to theatrical stylization and back again as the boundary between the natural and the supernatural slowly narrows and disappears, until the ignorant and bitter villagers finally unleash an apocalypse which has to be seen to be believed. It's an accomplished and often extraordinary blend of mystery, legend, humor and horror, featuring an appropriately odd (but now sadly dated) Moog synthesizer soundtrack by Isao Tomita.

YASHAGAIKE (Demon Pond) has been missing from the Home Video Market for far too long (as in forever). How very strange that one of the few examples of Bando Tamasaburo's art, and perhaps his most accessible to the west, is so little known. I first saw this film on the late-lamented "Z Channel" in Los Angeles in the early 1980's and have always wanted to become reacquainted with it. If memory serves, it was such a surprise to see so many genres, visual styles of scenery, costume, lighting and period assembled with such naiveté in one film. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that it is not readily available. Also, my one viewing on television gave the impression of already fading non-technicolor processing. I hope that this is wrong. Yet, anyone who has seen "Das Geschriebene Gesicht" by Daniel Schmid (only available on PAL at the present), or Tamasaburo's collaboration with Yo-Yo-Ma in his Bach series will be anxious to see anything by the great Kabuki onnagata. Perhaps "Natassia" will appear some day.