BLIND WOMAN'S CURSE
(1970)
Dir - Teruo Ishii
Overall: GOOD
This almost comically bizarre venture Blind Woman's Curse from Japan's "The King of Cult" Teruo Ishii is a jumble of slapstick comedy, yakuza film, ghost story, and the filmmaker's patented ero guro, (erotic grotesque), sub-genre. Many of the characters spend a great deal of time saying things like "Who the hell are you?", "Who did this?", and "I never heard of you" and the confusion that befuddles them carries over to the audience watching such daftness. With set pieces involving slow motion sword fighting, black cats licking skin tattoos removed from people's back, a traveling sideshow of zombies or something, a weird hunchback that also licks and bites things and can supernaturally leap backwards onto roof tops, an opium den, torture and gore, a ganglord who lets his bare, unbathed ass hang out in a loin cloth at all times, and the blind woman of the title who of course cannot be bested in combat, it is a pretty amusing mess to say the least. It crosses into absurdity enough that it becomes difficult to tell what the intended experience was supposed to be, but it also transcends schlock while representing a positively entertaining curiosity amongst Asian cinema in general, one of the overall, many strange, cinematic exports from the Orient.
(1975)
Dir - Yoichi Takabayash
Overall: GOOD
A remarkably low-key whodunit, Death at an Old Mansion, (Honjin satsujin jiken), is filmmaker Yoichi Takabayash's adaptation of Seishi Yokomizo's mystery novel The Honjin Murders. It poses a puzzling enough scenario where a locked room killing occurs to the befuddlement of family members and the law enforcement, yet the way the material is explored is quite stylish and deliberately paced. Virtually the entire film takes place at one location, with numerous flashbacks fleshing out certain details that ultimately have more confusing light shown on them later. Takabayash films everything very patiently though as the unexcitable cast calmly contemplates things. The cinematography is quite lovely as is the musical score from none other than Nobuhiko Ôbayashi who would go on to make one of the most acclaimed avant-garde horror films of all time with Housu two years later. Some of the plot points may be a bit too quirky or ill-defined to fully work, but everything still creates an eerie, ethereal tone even if supernatural components are ultimately not present.
(1975)
Dir - Mashario Shinoda
Overall: GREAT
Japanese New Wave filmmaker Mashario Shinoda's Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees is a typical, tragic ghost story, the type of which dozens upon dozens were produced in the country and many of them excellently so. Based on a story by Ango Sakaguchi and set during the Edo period, there is a barrage of themes explored here. From the modern day, opening narration, it is clear that the clashing of eras is one of them, but those of class and certainly the sexes play an even bigger role as more things emerge. All being under the backdrop of a deliberately ambiguous, supernatural tale, it is quite potent throughout. The characters are never given names and the passage of time is left rather vague, with months if not years going by in various frames. Horror movie wise, there are moments that are almost ridiculously macabre, but these are also balanced with creepy, utterly superb music and sound design, plus some equally outstanding cinematography. The cherry trees of the title are gorgeous to behold, but are never once presented outside of a sinister context, reinforcing the questionable narrative and how the visuals are disguising something far different than what we are perceiving.
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