"Haunted Wife" writes about "the war madness burned the whole country into a wilderness", "people are different from beasts" in the end of the world, two peasant women who survived by chance, are also a pair of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, relying on each other to live in a wasteland The "corpse thief" robbed and killed those warriors who were left alone with only half their lives left, sold their swords and armor for meters, and threw their corpses into a black hole.
One day, a man named Laoba escaped from the battlefield, told his mother-in-law that her son had died in battle, and expressed his willingness to be a robber with his mother-in-law and his daughter-in-law, but was rejected by the middle-aged woman who was the mother-in-law. The mother-in-law is worried that the old eight and her daughter-in-law will get along well, which will eventually be detrimental to herself.
The young men and women living on the edge of the chaotic world soon began to have secret rendezvous, all of which were secretly noticed and followed by the mother-in-law. She spied on two men and women making love, full of jealousy.
One night, the mother-in-law tried to follow her daughter-in-law to go out, but was intercepted by a lost general wearing a ghost mask, forcing her to lead the way out of the wasteland. The general said that he was a beautiful man in Kyoto, wearing a mask to protect his flawless face from being hurt by the sword. On the way, the mother-in-law asked for a glimpse of the general's beauty, but was rejected; in the dark, she deliberately led the general through the black hole, and jumped over it herself, but the general fell into the hole and fell to his death. It took a lot of effort for her to remove the mask from the general's face, only to see a terrifying, bloody face.
In order to prevent the daughter-in-law from interacting with the eighth, the mother-in-law pretended to be a ghost and blocked the road in the wilderness in the middle of the night. The wasteland is boundless, covered with lush reeds, and the reeds swayed and swayed in the strong wind. The daughter-in-law played by actress Yoshimura, who looks a bit like Gong Li, jumps and runs like a female beast in the night to meet her lover. Under the clothes that can only cover her body, her body glows with a cold bronze light. Suddenly, the masked "hag" appeared - this terrifying look appeared in the classical dramatic lighting of the film illuminator Hisinuma Yukichi. Sadako is nothing but a chill, but the hag's savage statue will (or already?) stand in the history of Japanese cinema with its breathtaking beauty - the radiant daughter-in-law is scared and flees home.
The third time the hag pretended to be a ghost was a rainy night. The terrified daughter-in-law yelled at the old eight, and was hugged by the old eight who came over. The two tumbled and had sex in the heavy rain. When the daughter-in-law returned to the small thatched hut, the middle-aged woman huddled in the corner slowly turned her head, wearing a ghost mask on her face, begging the daughter-in-law for forgiveness, and helping her remove the "curse of the samurai" and the mask tightly adhered to her face . After a while of crying, the ghost mask was cut open and torn off abruptly - only then did the audience know that what was more terrifying than the terrifying ghost mask was the bloody human nature.
Otto Yu Nobuko, who plays the hag, has reached a state of ecstasy here. She said in a creepy happy voice, "Take it down, take it down, and finally take down the mask." The daughter-in-law exclaimed. With a "ghost!" they ran for the door, and the mother-in-law chased out, shouting, "I'm not a ghost, I'm a human!" They ran to the black hole, the daughter-in-law jumped over, and the mother-in-law followed closely. The opening of the hole jumps over time and freezes - that's where the movie ends.
wilderness. Weeds swaying in the wind. Destroy your life just to take armor and a knife for a bag of millet. Ghost mask. Humanity like that bloody face of a hag. This symbolic film reminds me of the imagery in Mr. Lu Xun's Wild Grass. The sharp scenery, the soul-like black light and shadow, the pierced eyes, the undisguised bodies of men and women, the simple characters, the monotonous scenes, if Mr. Lu Xun's works were adapted into a movie, it would probably look like this.
If "Haunted" was shot in 1950 instead of 1964, I think its political and artistic status would replace "Rashomon". Although Shindou, like Akira Kurosawa, "artistically transforms" the specific review of war and politics into an abstract and general critique of human nature, I still think he is more forthright than Akira Kurosawa.
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