Nakagawa Nobuo’s horror masterpiece, Ghost Story Of Yotsuya (Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan, 1959) is based on a Kabuki play by Tsuruya Nanboku first staged in 1825.
Nakagawa’s film is one of many screen adaptations, starting in the silent era, but is among the most faithful to the original.
Instead of tinkering with the plot or hyping the effects, Nakagawa made this often-told story his own by focusing more on the psychology of the characters, particularly the ruthless, cruel, but humanly weak, samurai hero and his fatally abused wife.
Nakagawa’s characteristic atmospherics are certainly there, particularly his theatrical use of color to express the poisoning of the body (sickly greens) and mind (ghastly reds). The film however, is more memorable for the raw force of its emotions, from the shock and desolation of the betrayed wife to the fright and desperation of the doomed husband.
The story has many a theatrical twist - it is based on a Kabuki play, after all - but boiled down, it becomes a Japanese Macbeth about a monstrous ambition whose fruits are murder most foul and, for the hero, with his bad conscience and blood-stained hands, ruin and death.
He is Iemon (Amachi Shigeru), a low-ranking samurai who seeks marriage to the gentle-spirited Iwa (Wakasugi Katsuko), but when her father refuses his suit, Iemon cuts him down. With the aid of wily servant (Emi Shuntaro) he covers up this crime - and succeeds in wedding Iwa.
He does not, however, escape poverty and, when a more advantageous match to the beautiful and wealthy Ume (Junko Ikeuchi) presents itself, Iemon conspires to kill his wife.
She dies, horrifically, of poison - but not before she learns from a masseur, hired by Iemon to stage an incriminating act of adultery, that her own husband is her murderer. Iwa vows vengeance from beyond the grave - which she posthumously achieves by appearing to the terrified Iemon again and again - and driving him to his doom.
Amachi brings nuance and depth to the role of Iemon. Despite the blackness of his deeds, he is capable of reflection and remorse that makes his final punishment all the more terrible.
The stand-out performance, however, is that of Wakasugi as Iwa, whose shock and dismay as her face dissolves into a blackened, disfigured mass is indelible. Also, her transition from anguish, as her love for her husband dies, to implacable rage, as she departs this life, is done with finesse, while delivering the full measure of horror.
Mark Schilling