Penniless samurai Iemon Tamiya (Shigeru Amachi) plots a murderous path to success in GHOST STORY OF YOTSUYA
GLOBUS FILM SERIES 2013: GHOST STORY OF YOTSUYA (TOKAIDO YOTSUYA KAIDAN (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2009)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Wednesday, February 27, $12, 8:00
Series runs February 27 – March 10
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
Last year, Japan Society’s Globus Film Series, “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” featured contemporary films from Japan and Korea that explored love, sex, fetishism, and violence in unusual ways. This year Globus focuses its attention on the Japanese film studio Shintoho, which broke off from the famous Toho Company during a strike and went on to make more than five hundred movies during the 1950s and 1960s, many becoming low-budget cult classics. Curated by Mark Schilling, “Into the Shintoho Mind War: Girls, Guns & Ghosts from the Second Golden Age of Japanese Film” kicks off February 27 with Nobuo Nakagawa’s Ghost Story of Yotsuya (Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan), an oft-told Macbeth-like tale based on an 1825 kabuki play written by Tsuruya Nanboku IV. Filled with ambition and no moral code, penniless samurai Iemon Tamiya (Shigeru Amachi) and his servant, Naosuke (Shuntarô Emi), decide to murder their way up the ladder to success. First they meet the innocent sisters Iwa (Katsuko Wakasugi) and Sode (Noriko Kitazawa), but they have to get rid of Iwa’s fiancée, Yomoshichi (Ryûzaburô Nakamura), if Iemon is to marry her and then Naosuke is to take Sode. Once Iemon and Iwa wed and have a child, he starts eyeing Ume Itô (Junko Ikeuchi), whose wealthy father could lift his still-low standing, but that means Iemon would have to dispose of Iwa and her loyal friend, Takuetsu (Jun Ôtomo). However, as Iemon soon finds out, death does not necessarily deny vengeance. Shot in lurid reds and greens by Tadashi Nishimoto, Ghost Story of Yotsuya takes quite a while to get going, spending far too much time establishing Iemon and Naosuke as evil characters with no conscience, but once it delves into the horror realm, it becomes wickedly good fun, including fantastic makeup and genuine chills, along with plenty of strangeness. Much of the film doesn’t make sense, and some of it is downright monotonous, but the ending is quite a memorable one. The screening at Japan Society will be followed by the Enka Ecstasy party, with attendees encouraged to wear black-and-white clothing with two color accessories (we suggest red and green, of course); Neo Blues Maki will perform. The series, with all films being New York premieres, continues through March 10 with Teruo Ishii’s Flesh Pier and Yellow Line, Yoshiro Ishikawa’s Ghost Cat of Otama Pond, Michiyoshi Doi’s The Horizon Glitters, Toshio Shimura’s Revenge of the Pearl Queen, Kyotaro Namiki’s Vampire Bride, and Nakagawa’s Death Row Woman.