''Himiko'' () is a 1974 Japanese religious epic film directed by

Masahiro Shinoda was a Japanese film director, whose career spanned over four decades and covered a wide range of genres and styles. He was one of the central figures of the Japanese New Wave during the 1960s and 1970s. He directed films for Shochiku Studio fro ...

. It was entered into the

1974 Cannes Film Festival The 27th Cannes Film Festival took place from 9 to 24 May 1974. French filmmaker René Clair served as jury president for the main competition. The ''Grand Prix'', then the festival's main prize, was awarded to American filmmaker Francis Ford C ...

Feature Film Competition.

Plot

In an unnamed forest in seemingly

ancient Japan The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to the Japanese Paleolithic, Paleolithic, around 38–39,000 years ago. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the fi ...

, a woman named

Himiko , also known as the , was a shamaness-queen of Yamatai-koku in . Early Chinese dynastic histories chronicle tributary relations between Queen Himiko and the Cao Wei Kingdom (220–265) and record that the Yayoi period people chose her as ruler ...

conducts rituals as the

shaman Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...

and

prophetess In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the ...

of the Sun God in the ruling kingdom of the Sun God people. Other tribes in the region are the Land People, worshippers of the ground, water, and animals, and the Mountain People, an unsightly group of mute wanderers conjoined by a rope. A lone traveler named Takehiko appears from the far side of the mountain and enters the forest. Himiko spends her days weaving cloth on a

loom A loom is a device used to weaving, weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the Warp (weaving), warp threads under tension (mechanics), tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of ...

and is pleased to hear of Takehiko's arrival. In a ritual, the king of the Sun God People, Ohkimi, discusses the visions seen by Himiko and the possibility of Mimaki succeeding the throne. Nashime, servant to Himiko, believes that Himiko will be the successor, as direct orders from the Sun God. Mimaki confides in his brother Ikume and King Ohkimi that he believes Himiko may be losing her ability to communicate with the Sun God due to her love for Takehiko, that the Land God and the Mountain God are false Gods, and that they should take over the other kingdoms and force them to believe in only the Sun God. Takehiko meets Himiko in her quarters after dark, revealing that he is her

half-brother A sibling is a relative that shares at least one parent with the other person. A male sibling is a brother, and a female sibling is a sister. A person with no siblings is an only child. While some circumstances can cause siblings to be raised ...

. Despite this, she seduces him and they have sex while Adahime, one of the ritual assistants, watches from a distance. The next night, Himiko addresses the court subjects and states that the Sun God requires the people of the kingdom to accept the Land God and the Mountain God as valid Gods. King Ohkimi accuses her of having lost her prophetic powers, but Nashime assassinates the king while the subjects are all distracted by Himiko's speech. She takes over as queen and orders anyone who did not believe in the Sun God's words to be

buried alive Premature burial, also known as live burial, burial alive, or vivisepulture, means to be buried while still alive. Animals or humans may be buried alive accidentally on the mistaken assumption that they are dead, or intentionally as a form of ...

in the mountains. Takehiko is resistant to stay with Himiko and continue their

incestuous Incest ( ) is sex between close relatives, for example a brother, sister, or parent. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by lineage. It is condemned and con ...

relationship, and he leaves the kingdom. Adahime follows him and professes her love for him, pleading him to have sex with her. He obliges, and Himiko is horrified and orders his arrest. Takehiko is captured and brought back to Himiko, who orders him to be tortured and banished. The Mountain God People carry him up the mountain where Adahime reunites with him. Back in the Sun God Kingdom, Nashime consoles a broken Himiko, and she performs oral sex on him. Meanwhile, Mimaki and Ikume conspire to take power away from Himiko. Nashime keeps her locked away in her room and Mimaki takes the throne as king. Nashime then tells Mimaki that the young girl Toyo will take Himiko's place as the shaman and prophet of the Sun God. Mimaki declares war on the Land and Mountain God People. Takehiko and Adahime run away from the kingdom, but they are ambushed and killed by Mimaki's soldiers. Their corpses are shown to Himiko, who is devastated. Nashime concedes that Himiko has gone mad with love, so he frees the imprisoned Mountain God People, who torture and kill her. Overwhelmed with guilt, Nashime cries out for her in the mountains. Mimaki kills Ikume in a sword battle on a ridge. The new prophetess, Toyo, declares the Sun God is still within Himiko and that the powerful country of Wei is to be given many slaves and offerings, which disturbs Miami and upsets Nashime. Years later, Nashime is walking in the forest, still wracked with guilt and grief over Himiko's death, when he looks up and sees a helicopter. The camera pans out to reveal that the forest is atop a

kofun are megalithic tombs or tumulus, tumuli in Northeast Asia. ''Kofun'' were mainly constructed in the Japanese archipelago between the middle of the 3rd century to the early 7th century AD.岡田裕之「前方後円墳」『日本古代史大辞 ...

, an ancient

keyhole-shaped burial mound Zenpokoenfun is an architectural model of Japanese ancient tombs (Kofun), which consists of a square front part (, Zenpō-bu) and a circular back part (, Kōen-bu). The part connecting the two is called the middle part (, Kubire-bu), which looks ...

, surrounded by a suburban neighborhood with offices, houses, factories and a highway. The credits roll with aerial shots of more ancient

tumuli A tumulus (: tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found through ...

and their modern surroundings across Japan.

Cast

Shima Iwashita is a Japanese stage and film actress who has appeared in films of Yasujirō Ozu, Keisuke Kinoshita, Masaki Kobayashi and most frequently of Masahiro Shinoda, her husband. She is best known for starring in the '' Yakuza Wives'' series of yakuza ...

Masao Kusakari is a Japanese actor and model. Biography Masao Kusakari was born in Fukuoka Prefecture to a Japanese mother Sueko from Yukuhashi, and an American father Robert H. Tolar from Tar Heel, North Carolina, a USAF mailman who was deployed to Tsuiki ...

as Takehiko * Rie Yokoyama as Adahime * Choichiro Kawarazaki as Mimaki * Kenzo Kawarazaki as Ikume *

Yoshi Katō was a Japanese stage and film actor who appeared in nearly 180 films between 1948 and 1988. Biography After leaving Keiō Gijuku High School prematurely, Katō gave his stage debut in 1934. He later joined the Shinkyo Theatre Company, which was ...

as Ohkimi *

Jun Hamamura was a Japanese actor. He appeared in more than 130 films between 1938 and 1995. Selected filmography * ''Wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a Canis, canine native to Eurasia and Nor ...

as Narrator *

Tatsumi Hijikata was a Japanese choreographer, and the founder of a genre of dance performance art called Butoh. By the late 1960s, he had begun to develop this dance form, which is highly choreographed with stylized gestures drawn from his childhood memories of ...

as Dancer *

Rentarō Mikuni was a Japanese actor, writer and director, who starred in films of Keisuke Kinoshita, Mikio Naruse, Tadashi Imai, Shōhei Imamura, Tomu Uchida and many others. He received numerous prizes for his performances and was awarded the Jury Prize at t ...

as Nashime

References

External links

* * 1974 films 1974 drama films Japanese fantasy drama films Films directed by Masahiro Shinoda 1970s Japanese-language films 1970s fantasy drama films Cultural depictions of Himiko Yamatai 1970s Japanese films {{Yamatai