Masters Of Cinema - Onibaba

Kaneto Shindo, one of Japan's most prolific directors, received his biggest international success with the release of Onibaba in 1964. Its depiction of violence and graphic sexuality was unprecedented at the time of release. Shindo managed - through his own production company, Kindai Eiga Kyokai - to bypass the strict, self-regulated Japanese film industry and pave the way for such films as Masumura's Mojuu (!969) and Oshima's Ai no corrida (1976).

Onibaba is set during a brutal period in history, a Japan ravaged by civil war between rival shogunates. Weary from combat, samurai are drawn towards the seven-foot-high susuku grass fields to hide and rest themselves, only to be ambushed and murdered by a ruthless team of mother (Nobuko Otowa) and daughter-in-law (Jitsuko Yoshimura). When Hachi (Kei Sato), a neighbour returning from the wars, brings bad news, he threatens the women's partnership.

Erotically charged and steeped in the symbolism and superstition of its Shin Buddhist roots, Kaneto Shindo's Onibaba is in part a modern parable on consumerism, a study of the destructiveness of sexual desire and - filmed within a claustrophobic sea of grass - one of the most striking and unique films of the last century.