Cast overview: | |||
Nobuko Otowa | ... | Kichi's Mother | |
Jitsuko Yoshimura | ... | Kichi's Wife | |
Kei Satô | ... | Hachi | |
![]() |
Jûkichi Uno | ... | Samurai General |
Taiji Tonoyama | ... | Ushi | |
![]() |
Someshô Matsumoto | ... | Runaway Warrior A |
![]() |
Kentarô Kaji | ... | Runaway Warrior B |
![]() |
Hosui Araya | ... | Ushi's Follower |
![]() |
Fudeko Tanaka | ... | Old Woman |
![]() |
Michinori Yoshida | ... | Samurai with Blood |
![]() |
Hiroyoshi Yamaguchi | ... | Horse Riding Samurai A |
![]() |
Hiroshi Tanaka | ... | Horse Riding Samurai B |
![]() |
Kanzô Uni | ... | Horse Riding Samurai C |
![]() |
Nobuko Shimakage | ... | Child |
In the Fourteenth Century, during a civil war in Japan, a middle-aged woman and her daughter-in-law survive in a hut in a field of reed killing warriors and soldiers to trade their possessions for food. When their neighbor Hachi defects from the war and returns home, they learn that their son and husband Kichi died while stealing supplies from farmers. Soon Hachi seduces the young widow and she sneaks out of her hut every night to have sex with him. When the older woman finds the affair of her daughter-in-law, she pleads with Hachi to leave the young woman with her since she would not be able to kill the warriors without her help. However, Hachi ignores her request and continues to meet the young woman. When a samurai wearing a demon mask stumbles upon the older woman at her hut asking her to guide him out of the field, she lures him and he falls in the pit where she drops the bodies of her victims. She climbs down the hole to take his possessions and his mask, and she finds he is a ... Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
The characters in Onibaba dwell in the bottom rung of Maslow's Pyramid.
Food, sex, shelter, survival - though not necessarily in that order.
Sexuality permeates every frame of this film. It is ever-present along with the oppressive heat and the marshland weeds.
The stark black and white cinematography perfectly captures the desolate mood.
The score – atonal free jazz backed by tribal rhythms - though completely anachronistic works surprisingly well.
One of the most fiercely primal depictions of the human condition on celluloid, Onibaba is a hauntingly erotic masterpiece.