Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12328 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-08-22
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: Japanese
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 98 minutes

DVD Description
Kaneto Shindo, one of Japan's most prolific directors, received his biggest international success with the release of Onibaba in 1964. Its depiction of violence and graphic sexuality was unprecedented at the time of release. Shindo managed — through his own production company Kindai Eiga Kyokai — to bypass the strict, self-regulated Japanese film industry and pave the way for such films as Yasuzo Masumura's Mojuu (1969) and Nagisa Oshima's Ai no corrida (1976).

Special Features
Newly restored high-definition transfer, anamorphic 2.35:1 OAR • Full-length director's audio commentary by director Kaneto Shindo and the stars of the film, Kei Sato, and Jitsuko Yoshimura • Video introduction by Alex Cox • 8mm footage (40-minutes) shot on location by lead actor Kei Sato • Optional English subtitles (new translation) • Production stills gallery • 24-page booklet with a new essay by Doug Cummings, and more...

Synopsis
Set in Japan during a brutal civil war. A group of Samurai rest within the seven-foot high grass of a susuki field. While there, they are ambushed and murdered by a mother and her daughter-in-law...

Customer Reviews

The previous reviewer is a noggin.
Seriously, Sir, this film *is* a masterpiece. Why spend your time hammering something you clearly don't understand, something which annoyed you. This film is a tour-de-force, a majestic piece of cinema. Widely regarded (even if James McGovern doesn't like it) as being one of the finest films of the 1960s -- and this Masters of Cinema Series DVD is one of the most carefully put-together DVDs in their range. It actually surpasses the American Criterion edition by virtue of having a translated director commentary. Yes, Kaneto SHINDO provides a full-length audio commentary on this release! The definitive edition of a major work.

Be careful before spending your money on
There's little point in me discussing every point of the film here, as I only want to make a few brief comments to warn people not to waste money on this film unless they are already a fan of it! The quality of the DVD itself is fine, but after watching the film, I can only feel somewhat annoyed that we paid a full price of [...] for a very dull, mediocre film, that is by NO means frightening, and not even a little eerie. I have to completely disagree with the other reviewer who praised the atmosphere and acting of this film, which I was very unimpressed by. The ending is a good twist to the plot, but is by no means spectacular or memorable. To be honest, much of the film almost appeared to be intentionally humourous, though I cannot be certain if this was definitely the case. At any rate, there is practically no action, no obvious intellectual meaning, no dialogue worth remembering, and absolutely no reason to ever watch this again. It is by no means an awful film, of course - but by the standards of a "masterpiece" this is unacceptable. Utterly overrated, and a classic example of how easily we are all duped into buying something the biased mainstream reviewers call "superb", only for us to be disappointed after wasting our money. If you must see this film, try to lend it or rent it first. You might like it, perhaps, but I certainly was very disappointed.

Can You Dig it?
The general belief that the 1960's was the ground-zero for massive sociological upheaval is one that generally forgets that that decade was almost half over by the time it became the era we remember it for. Until Lee Harvey Oswald's starting rifle ushered in the Love and Napalm dynasty, the first part of the 60's was really a 1950's hangover.
Roughly speaking, `The 60's' only kicked in when the Beatles Landed in America in '64 and ended when the American's landed on the moon five years later. (Were they trying to tell us something?) The so called permissive society emerged from the cultural turbulence of a `swinging London', a `flowered up' San Francisco and a burning Saigon and, as the history books would have it, appeared to challenge everything. Overt sexual, pharmaceutical and political references in entertainment became de rigor and everyone, it seemed, were cutting-edge pioneers at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Meanwhile on the other side of the planet, and away from `the world', it was just another day at the office for director Kaneto Shindo when he released his haunting sex/death opus Onibaba.

Onibaba (`Demon Hag') is based on a Buddhist fable and tells the story of an old woman and her young daughter-in-law during 14th century feudal Japan (or 16th, or 17th depending on who's website you use to check these things) who live in a seemingly endless swamp of high reeds and survive by murdering lost or renegade Samurai warriors.
They strip their victims of their armour to sell for food then dispose of the bodies in a deep dark ominous hole.
One day a masked stranger is passing and forces the old woman to help him find his way to Kyoto. She asks him why he hides his face behind a creepy demon-Noh mask and he tells her that he is so beautiful it would blind her to look at him. She tricks him by leading him to the hole where he falls in. Her curiosity gets the better of her and she climbs down into the hole littered with her rotting victims to see the man's `beautiful face' which turns out to be more Robin Williams than Robbie Williams. Disappointed, she takes the mask and uses it to disguise herself as a demon to scare her daughter-in-law away from the door of a man she is having an illicit affair with and who, she believes, will run away and leave her alone to fend for herself. The plan backfires when the mask clings to her face turning her into the demon she pretends to be.

The hole is the key element here and is a constant presence throughout the film and seems to represent both the womb and the crypt; the entrance at which life and death pass each other to and from this world and the next. The old woman's desperate venture into the hole for a glimpse of beauty mirrors her hope that perhaps there is still some vestige of beauty within her. Her discovery reveals there isn't, thus setting in motion her `girl who cried demon' comeuppance.
Onibaba's psychosexual symbolism and nudity is treated in an offhand manner, unlike western movies of the period which would, if only they could, have turned this into the films primary selling point. Onibaba rendered the `progressive free West' way behind the game in terms of what was `happening' in an age where taboos were supposed to have been broken every ten minutes. Onibaba was immediately banned on its release in the U.K and only given an `X' certificate in 1968 with cuts. It would be 1994 before we were considered grown up enough to see the uncut version. So much for the `let it all hang out' generation's brave new world.

Adrian Stranik