Galbraith IV, Stuart (1994). ''Japanese Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror Films''.

McFarland & Company McFarland & Company, Inc., is an American independent book publisher based in Jefferson, North Carolina, that specializes in academic and reference works, as well as general-interest adult nonfiction. Its president is Rhonda Herman. Its forme ...

. is a 1968 Japanese

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, ap ...

directed by

Kaneto Shindo was a Japanese film director, screenwriter, film producer, and writer, who directed 48 films and wrote scripts for 238. His best known films as a director include '' Children of Hiroshima'', '' The Naked Island'', '' Onibaba'', '' Kuroneko'' an ...

, and an adaptation of a supernatural folktale. Set during a civil war in

feudal Japan The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to prehistoric times around 30,000 BC. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when new inven ...

, the film's plot concerns the vengeful spirits, or ''

onryō In Japanese traditional beliefs and literature, are a type of ghost () believed to be capable of causing harm in the world of the living, injuring or killing enemies, or even causing natural disasters to exact vengeance to "redress" the wron ...

'', of a woman and her daughter-in-law, who died at the hands of a band of

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They ...

. It stars Kichiemon Nakamura,

Nobuko Otowa was a Japanese actress who appeared in more than 100 films between 1950 and 1994. A graduate of Takarazuka Girl's Opera School, Otowa was first signed to Daiei studios, before becoming a freelance actress by the early 1950s. After starring i ...

, and

Kiwako Taichi was a Japanese film actress. She appeared in 20 films between 1967 and 1985. Biography Kiwako Taichi was born in Tokyo on 2 December 1943. She graduated Shoin Junior and Senior High School and, after training in the Haiyuza Theatre Company ...

. ''Kuroneko'' was shot in

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

and in

TohoScope Toho Scope (東宝スコープ) is an anamorphic lens system developed in the late 1950s by Toho Studios in response to the popularity of CinemaScope. Its technical specifications are identical to those of CinemaScope. This widescreen format was fi ...

format, and distributed by

Toho is a Japanese film, theatre production and distribution company. It has its headquarters in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Osaka-based Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group. Outside of Japan, it is best known as the producer ...

. It was not dubbed in English, but was released with subtitles in the United States in 1968.

Plot

Yone and her daughter-in-law Shige, who live in a house in a

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...

grove, are raped and murdered by a troop of

, and their house is burned down. A

black cat A black cat is a domestic cat with black fur that may be a mixed or specific breed, or a common domestic cat of no particular breed. The Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) recognizes 22 cat breeds that can come with solid black coats. The Bombay b ...

appears, licking at the bodies. The women return as ghosts with the appearance of fine ladies, who wait at

Rajōmon , also called , was the gate built at the southern end of the monumental Suzaku Avenue in the ancient Japanese cities of Heijō-kyō (Nara) and Heian-kyō ( Kyoto), in accordance with the Chinese grid-patterned city layout. At the other far nor ...

. They find the samurai troop and bring them to an illusory mansion in the bamboo grove where the burnt-out house was. They seduce and then kill the samurai like

cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

s, tearing their throats with their teeth. Meanwhile, in

northern Japan Japan is an archipelagic country comprising a stratovolcanic archipelago over along the Pacific coast of East Asia. It consists of 6,852 islands. The five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku and Okinawa. There are 6,847 rem ...

a battle is taking place with the

Emishi The (also called Ebisu and Ezo), written with Chinese characters that literally mean " shrimp barbarians," constituted an ancient ethnic group of people who lived in parts of Honshū, especially in the Tōhoku region, referred to as in contem ...

. A young man, Hachi, fortuitously kills the enemy general, Kumasunehiko. He brings the severed head to show the governor,

Minamoto no Raikō , also known as Minamoto no Raikō, served the regents of the Fujiwara clan along with his brother Yorinobu, taking the violent measures the Fujiwara were themselves unable to take. He is one of the earliest Minamoto of historical note for his mil ...

. He says that he fought the general under the name Gintoki. He is made a samurai in acknowledgement of his achievement. When he goes looking for his mother and wife, he finds their house burned down and the women missing. Raikō tells Gintoki to find and destroy the ghosts who are killing the samurai. Gintoki encounters the two women and realizes that they are Yone, his mother, and Shige, his wife. They have made a pact with the underworld to return and kill samurai in revenge for their deaths. Because Gintoki has become a samurai, by their pact they must kill him, but Shige breaks her pledge to spend seven nights of love with Gintoki. Then, because she has broken the pact, Shige is condemned to the underworld. Reporting on his progress, a mournful Gintoki tells Raikō that he has destroyed one of the ghosts. Gintoki encounters his spectral mother again at Rajōmon trying to seduce samurai. After seeing her reflection as a ghost in a pool of water, he attacks her with his sword, cutting off her arm, which takes on the appearance of a cat's limb. Gintoki brings the limb to Raikō, claiming it is evidence that he has killed the second ghost. Raikō is pleased and says Gintoki will be remembered as a hero, but first orders him to complete seven days of

ritual purification Ritual purification is the ritual prescribed by a religion by which a person is considered to be free of ''uncleanliness'', especially prior to the worship of a deity, and ritual purity is a state of ritual cleanliness. Ritual purification may ...

. During the purification, Gintoki is visited by Yone, who claims to be a seer sent by the emperor to ward off evil spirits. She tricks Gintoki into giving her the limb, and then flies through the ceiling and disappears into the sky. Distraught and disheveled, Gintoki staggers through the woods to the cottage where he met the ghosts, where he collapses. The walls disappear around him, revealing the charred remains of his family home where Shige and Yone were murdered. Snow falls and covers his body as a cat is heard meowing in the distance.

Cast

* Kichiemon Nakamura as Gintoki *

as the Mother *

as Shige *

Kei Satō was a Japanese character actor and narrator. He is known for his work with Japanese New Wave director Nagisa Oshima, and for several films with Kaneto Shindo, such as '' Onibaba'' and '' Kuroneko''. He won the best actor award from ''Kinema Ju ...

Raiko RAIKO ( ja, 雷鼓, literally ''thunder drum'') is a Japanese satellite which was built and operated by Tohoku and Wakayama Universities. A two-unit CubeSat, RAIKO was deployed from the International Space Station (ISS) on 4 October 2012, ha ...

Hideo Kanze was a Japanese actor and director, who specialized in the Noh form of musical drama. He was the second son of Kanze Tetsunojō VII, a descendant of Kan'ami and Zeami, who founded the Noh movement in the 14th century. Trained alongside his brothe ...

the Mikado * Taiji Tonoyama as the farmer * Yoshinobu Ogawa as Raiko follower * Rokko Toura as a warlord

Themes

Yūsuke Suzumura of

Hosei University is a private university based in Tokyo, Japan. The university originated in a school of law, Tōkyō Hōgakusha (, i.e. Tokyo association of law), established in 1880, and the following year renamed Tōkyō Hōgakkō (, i.e. Tokyo school of la ...

has speculated that the film's title was deliberately intended to allude to the Ryūnosuke Akutagawa story '' In a Grove'' (''Yabu no naka'' in Japanese), as well as

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed thirty films in a career spanning over five decades. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a bold, dyna ...

's film version of the story. Although the Japanese title literally means "a black cat in a bamboo grove", the phrase ''yabu no naka'' in Japanese is also used idiomatically to refer to a mystery that is difficult to unravel. Suzumura also identified the legends of

as an influence on the film: since Raikō himself appears in the film, it is likely that the film's protagonist's name refers to the name of Raikō's legendary follower . Kabuki-Play-Yoshitsune-Senbon-Zakura-1847

Kabuki-Play-Yoshitsune-Senbon-Zakura-1847

In an essay about ''Kuroneko'', film critic

Maitland McDonagh Maitland McDonagh () is an American film critic and the author of several books about cinema. She is the author of ''Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento'' (1991) and works of erotic fiction and erotic cinema, as well a ...

highlighted the roles cats play in Japanese folklore—particularly the ''

bakeneko The (, "changed cat") is a type of Japanese , or supernatural entity; more specifically, it is a , or supernatural cat. It is often confused with the , another cat-like . The distinction between them is often ambiguous, but the largest difference ...

'', a ''

yōkai are a class of supernatural entities and spirits in Japanese folklore. The word is composed of the kanji for "attractive; calamity" and "apparition; mystery; suspicious." are also referred to as , or . Despite often being translated as suc ...

'' (or supernatural entity) thought to have the ability to take the form of a human victim, often eating the victim in the process. ''Kuroneko'' is one of a number of Japanese "monster cat" horror films (''kaibyō eiga'' or ''bake neko mono''), a subgenre derived primarily from the repertoire of

kabuki is a classical form of Japanese dance- drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought ...

theatre. Other theatrical elements observed in ''Kuroneko'' include the film's implementation of spotlights; the use of smoke to create a ghostly atmosphere, which is characteristic of kabuki theatre; the dance movements of the mother's spirit, based on dances in Noh theatre; and the resemblance of the spirits' jumping and flying movements to ''

chūnori is a classical form of Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought to ...

'', a visual trick used in kabuki theatre in which actors are made to "fly" in mid-air through the use of wires. Additionally, lead actor Kichiemon Nakamura was a kabuki performer, and Hideo Kanze, who played the Mikado in ''Kuroneko'', specialized in Noh theatre.

Release

''Kuroneko'' was released theatrically in Japan on February 24, 1968, where it was distributed by

. It was released in the United States by Toho International with English subtitles in July 1968. It was placed in competition at the

1968 Cannes Film Festival The 21st Cannes Film Festival was to have been held from 10 to 24 May 1968, before being curtailled due to the turmoil of May 1968 in France. Background This edition was marked by the previous controversy around the Langlois affair. On February ...

, but the festival was cancelled due to the events of

May 1968 in France Beginning in May 1968, a period of civil unrest occurred throughout France, lasting some seven weeks and punctuated by demonstrations, general strikes, as well as the occupation of universities and factories. At the height of events, which ...

Critical reception

Contemporary reviews

Tom Milne Tom Milne (2 April 1926 – 14 December 2005) was a British film critic. See also After war service, he studied English and French at Aberdeen University and later at the Sorbonne. Interested in the theatre too, he wrote for the magazine ' ...

of the ''

Monthly Film Bulletin ''The Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 to April 1991, when it merged with ''Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those with a ...

'' found the film "Much less extravagant than Shindo's earlier excursion into ghostly horrors with ''Onibaba''", and that it was "more of a mood piece." The review concluded that the film "has a sufficiently ingenious story to remain enjoyable throughout, and it sporadically discovers moments of genuinely bizarre invention".

Retrospective assessments

Manohla Dargis Manohla June Dargis () is an American film critic. She is one of the chief film critics for ''The New York Times''. She is a five-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Career Before being a film critic for ''The New York Times'', ...

, in a review of the film for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' in 2010, described it as "a ghost story that's more eerie than unnerving, and often hauntingly lovely". The following year, Maitland McDonagh called the film "darkly seductive" and "sleek, hair-raisingly graceful, and ready to take its place alongside the other landmarks of Japanese horror history". On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 95% based on , with a rating average of 8.1/10.

Accolades

In Japan, the film won two awards from the

Mainichi Film Concours The are a series of annual film awards, sponsored by Mainichi Shinbun (毎日新聞), one of the largest newspaper companies in Japan, since 1946. It is the first film festival in Japan. History The origins of the contest date back to 1935, ...

won the award for Best Actress for her work in ''Kuroneko'' and '' Operation Negligee'', and Kiyomi Kuroda won the award for Best Cinematography for this and ''Operation Negligee''.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

* * * * * {{Kaneto Shindo 1968 horror films Films directed by Kaneto Shindo Films set in Kyoto Jidaigeki films Japanese horror films Japanese supernatural horror films 1968 films Existentialist films Period horror films Films about cats 1960s ghost films Japanese ghost films Rape and revenge films 1960s Japanese films