Watuma

This period melodrama portrays the descent of a basically caring person into a heartless, money-obsessed killer. The plot-heavy narrative is held together by Kazuko Wakasugi's passionate commitment to putting emotional flesh on the title character's bones. She went on to play the even more tragic Iwa in 'Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan'.

Director Nakagawa keeps things moving at a brisk enough pace to gloss over the story's improbabilities. Continuing to experiment with his visuals, he includes an unusually large number of high-angle shots, suggesting the powerlessness of the main characters.

Although not one of the director's best films, 'Dokufu' is still an above-average entry in its genre.

And who can fault Iwa's fury? Her husband Iemon murders her father to marry her, deceives her into parting from her sister, fathers her child, pays another man to seduce her, then administers a disfiguring poison so he can marry another woman. Yet Iemon is not wholly wicked - he suffers pangs of conscience, and most of his crimes are the result of his servant's goading. Whilst our sympathy goes to Iwa, our empathy extends to Iemon. The film is endowed with the dimensions of a classical tragedy, as the director undoubtedly intended. In fact, the picture's opening scenes are unabashedly stage-bound, before it shifts subtly into an engrossing cinematic experience. Although the story has been adapted to film many times in Japan, this is generally considered the definitive version.

Besides its dramatic power, this version of Ghost Story of Yotsuya is visually sumptuous and thrillingly scored, the scope compositions are masterly, and the female phantom's appearance is truly nightmarish.

This is easily the most accomplished, frightening and satisfying of Nakagawa's period ghost stories.