Description:

Sakura no mori no mankai no shita - Part ghost-story in the tradition of Kwaidan and part bizarre love-story about a woman ensnaring a less than righteous man reminiscent of Ugetsu.

Before the Edo period, cherry trees were known for a curse that would haunt anyone who dared walk underneath. Wakayama Tomisaburo is a rough mountain man who waylays passing travelers and robs them, until the day he ambushes a man whose wife immediately captivates him with her mysterious beauty.

He murders her husband and their servant, and forces her to become his wife, the woman soon assumes the dominant position in their relationship and orders him to murder the other "wives" he has squirreled away in his remote shack.

Bored with their solitary dwelling she demands that he take her to the city. The woman then uses the threat to withhold sex and demands that he bring her the severed heads of various people for her entertainment. He soon realizes that this existence is going to kill him and resolves to head back to the freedom of his beloved mountains.

Although he does not realize it yet, he has freed himself from her spell and she knows it. So he decides to dare fate by walking under the blossoming cherry trees. It is then that his wife's true nature is revealed and the cherry blossoms actually open his eyes and show his wife as the ugly supernatural spirit that she is.

DIRECTOR: Masahiro Shinoda

STARRING: WAKAYAMA TOMISABURO, Iwashita Shima

1975 - JAPANESE with OPTIONAL ENGLISH SUBTITLES- 16:9 ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN - COLOR - 95 MINUTES