The Ghost of Kasane
(Kaidan Kasanegafuchi, 1957)

Nakagawa Nobuo

Japan

66 min, B&W, Japanese (English subtitles)

Review © 2006 Branislav L. Slantchev

One of the earlier Nakagawa kaidan films, this one is based on San'yuutei Encho's 19th century story Shinkei Kasanegafuchi. From what I understand about that story, Nakagawa has added some twists to make the central character a bit more attractive, thereby laying the blame of ghostly vengeance upon the scheming of two evil samurai. It is perhaps for the better that it should be so because this way the take on revenge is a lot more ambivalent.

Soetsu takes his leave of young Rui	The last moments of Soetsu's life

Soetsu is a blind merchant who has had the lack of foresight (lame, I know) to lend money to a middling samurai. That is a problem because they live in 18th century Japan, at the height of the Tokugawa shogunate with its relegation of merchants to second class citizen status. Samurai power reigns supreme (or at least as far as their katana can reach). In other words, Soetsu does not have a leg to stand upon should Fukami Shinzaemon, his debtor, refuse to pay. Still, on a snowy evening Soetsu takes his leave of his young daughter Rui to take on the unhappy task of debt collecting.

The original ghost of Kasane Lake	Gratuitous shot of Kitazawa Noriko

As it turns out, the task is also dangerous for the irate Shinzaemon murders Soetsu and has his servant dump his body in the Kasane Lake. For this act of unfathomable cruelty, Soetsu comes back as a ghost to take revenge on the entire Fukami family, starting with the perp. In a standard trick of kaidan stories, the ghost tricks Shinzaemon into slashing his wife to death, and then drives him insane until the samurai drowns himself in the lake. But that does not end the trail of blood for the Fukamis have a son, Shinichi. The rest of the story takes place twenty-years later, with Shinichi working as a servant.

Hisa studying singing and the shamisen	The impossible love between Shinichi and Hisa

Shinichi (Wada Takashi) is deeply in love with Hisa (Kitazawa Noriko), his master's beautiful daughter. Even though the feeling is more than reciprocated, the young couple has no chance because of Shinichi's lowly current status. Moreover, a wealthy samurai lusts after Hisa and asks for her hand in marriage. Despite his considerable attraction to Hisa and her quite open attempts to seduce him, Shinichi cannot bring himself to overstep the rigid social boundaries imposed upon him by his sense of duty to his master. But he also cannot bring himself to abandon Hisa and let her get over her feelings without him around. The predictable result is misery for everyone involved.

Rui has her own problems with Omura	The two would-be lovers and the disfigured Rui

Given his predicament and Hisa's imminent marriage, it is hardly surprising that when Hisa's music teacher Rui (Wakasugi Kazuko) expresses her own abiding love for Shinichi he jumps at the chance in a brazen attempt to free himself from his addiction to the unavailable girl. Rui is much older but her passion runs deep. She is also not unaware of Shinichi's strange relationship with Hisa. But she cannot help herself and when Shinichi is expelled from his foster home for setting a bad example to others (spending the night with Rui), she is quick to take him in despite the grave warnings of her maid Tatsu (Hanaoka Kikuko) who knows that Shinichi is Shinzaemon's son, and as such is the progeny of Rui's father's killer. Having ignored the warning, Rui soon pays the price as the curse of her father's vengeance causes an accident that leaves her with half of her face bandaged.

Omura sweet-talks Hisa into a betrayal	The scorned Rui discovers the letter

This is when the evil samurai Omura's (Tetsuro Tamba) scheming finally comes to fruition. The man lusts after Rui himself and in order to get rid of his rival, he hatches a plan to help Shinichi elope with Hisa despite the fact that his own buddy is the man about to marry her. With her marriage just around the corner and Shinichi shacking up with Rui, Hisa is not about to let the last fleeting chance of happiness slip away. But her meeting with Shinichi is rudely interrupted when the jealous Rui, having found out about the tryst from the letter Omura "accidentally" dropped, shows up full of rage and attempts to kill Hisa. In the ensuing melee, Rui trips and falls down the stairs.

An illicit tryst	Omura completes his evil scheme

Shinichi is yet again torn between his unattainable love and the duty to his severely injured lover who also happens to be the woman who saved him from vagrancy. But he is helpless and the more he tries to pity her and her disfigurement, the more is he drawn away from her. When Omura brings another message from Hisa, Shinichi quickly leaves to meet with her. The scene in which he frees himself from the clinging Rui is awesome: the poor woman can barely stand and yet she knows that if she lets Shinichi out of her sight, he may never come back, a prospect she dreads. Yet one cannot have a love relationship without a modicum of trust, so when he claims to be leaving only to fetch her shamisen, she lets him go (the dismissive jerk of his shoulder as he literally shakes her off makes his feelings unmistakable). But then Omura shows up and mocks her, telling her that with that face of hers it's no wonder her hubby was about to elope with another woman.

Shinichi can no longer stand Rui	Rui on her way to a grizzly discovery

What follows is the most memorable sequence in the entire film: Rui's discovery of what her father's curse has wrought. She staggers to the mirror stand only to find that the mirror itself has been removed, most likely by the thoughtful maid. But then Rui remembers that there's a barrel of water in another room. Standing above the still surface of the water, she unwraps her face but covers it with her hand. She then drops a pin and waits for the ripples to settle and reveal the awful truth: half of her face is horribly swollen, with the rough skin covering the eye. It is then that the maid reveals the awful truth to her, and the heart-broken Rui dies. Her father has punished her for dismissing the maid's warning and for accepting the son of his killer under her roof. Ironically, he will also succeed in turning her into a tool of his bloody vengeance, thus brining the curse to completion.

The stunning face revelation scene	Tatsu finally tells Rui the truth about Shinichi

The film is obviously dated but at barely 66 minutes does not become boring. As typical for this genre, the story plods along although the proceedings are enlivened by the performances, some of which are very good (Kitazawa Noriko comes to mind). The directing is competent but not spectacular, and the special effects leave a lot to be desired. While giant heads floating in the mist over Kasane Lake are barely acceptable, the disfigurement of Rui's face was too obviously fake to work. Nakagawa should have stuck with her long disheveled hair covering it, like it does in the final scene. It is much more effective than the grotesque make-up.

That way to your immediate deaths	Shinichi tricked by Rui's ghost

Much can be said about Nakagawa's ability to create tense atmosphere with minimalist touches. Even the opening sequence of a snow falling slowly on a village is full of foreboding, the evening dusk only making it even more sinister. Although the centerpiece of the story should have been Rui, not enough attention is paid to her and the development of her obsession with Shinichi. In fact, it's all sort of sprung up on us (and, apparently, him) from nowhere. But it is the focus of the plot because it is her filial disloyalty (even unwitting) that triggers the last manifestation of the curse. Or perhaps Nakagawa wanted to suggest that it was the curse that made her fall for Shinichi in the first place? Now that would be too cruel to contemplate. Finally, Shinichi himself is presented as a likeable, if rather pathetic, man who simply cannot master his passions. But in the original story it was he who kills Rui when he can no longer bear to look at her face, which means that San'yuutei intended for her to be as much of a victim of the Fukami as Soetsu was.

The last moments of Hisa's unhappy life	The other ghost of Kasane

The Beam Entertainment DVD is marginal. The film is old but it does not appear that they bothered to remaster it properly or clean up the scratches or stabilize the picture. The black and white looks grainy and washed out, but it's passable. The Japanese soundtrack is pretty decent and the removable English subtitles leave no room for complaint. The only extra is the trailer. At $40, the disc is too bare-bones to be worth it and even though the film has it moments, one is advised to rent it first.

March 5, 2006