Product Details

• Actors: Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kei Satō, Jūkichi Uno, Taiji Tonoyama
• Directors: Kaneto Shindō
• Writers: Kaneto Shindō
• Producers: Hisao Itoya, Kazuo Kuwahara, Setsuo Noto, Tamotsu Minato
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Subtitles: English
• Rated: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Homevision
• VHS Release Date: June 13, 2000
• Run Time: 103 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0780019172
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #354,116 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

A curse hangs over Kaneto Shindo's primal Japanese classic like a looming storm cloud, but the supernatural has got nothing on the desperation and savagery of the human animal trying to survive the horrors of war. In 16th-century Japan, a hardened middle-aged woman and her young daughter-in-law have turned predator to survive, murdering the soldiers who wander into the sea of pampas grass surrounding their hut and selling their weapons for rice. When their war-deserter neighbor returns home and makes his moves on the young woman, their numb equilibrium is complicated by greed, jealousy, and lust. The consequences are terrible and not exactly surprising, but they are gripping. Shindo's unnerving close-ups, bobbing handheld camerawork, and soundtrack of pounding drums and howling flutes gives Onibaba a queasy intensity. Shooting in stark black and white, he makes even the waving of the grass look ominous as it all but swallows everyone who enters. --Sean Axmaker

Product Description

A sinister mood pervades Kaneto Shindo's (The Island) chilling folk tale set in medieval Japan. Amidst bloody upheavals between warlords and peasants, two women survive by ambushing soldiers, then selling their armor. Living by instinct alone, the women--a war widow and her mother-in-law--are locked in a murderous partnership until the younger woman begins an affair with her husband's friend. Shindo juxtaposes images of the couple's hungry embraces, with the older woman's frenzied attempts to come between them. By donning a demon's mask, she hopes to frighten her daughter-in-law, but succeeds only in sinking further into the heart of darkness. Nobuko Otowa is brilliant as the old woman, striking out against men in a man's world. Shot in a sea of giant reeds, and accompanied by an insistent drum beat, Onibaba builds horrifying suspense from the first frame to the last.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Corpse-dealers and deserters and devil's faces, October 19, 2004

By 

Zack Davisson "japanreviewed" (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Onibaba (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

The Noh mask in and of itself is a frightening thing. Featureless and unmoving, it is designed to change expressions when the wearer turns their head a certain way, and captures shifting shadows and light. Filmed in color, it would not have nearly the same impact as the devil's face that leers at us in "Onibaba." Director Kaneto Shindo has utilized the full power of this ancient Japanese artifact, using its supernatural powers to show us the true face of a very human evil.

The story is of the flotsam and jetsam of war, the left-over non-combatants who must still live by whatever means they can while commerce and industry is devastated and all able-bodied men are soldiers. In this harsh environment an old woman and her daughter-in-law become carrion crows, murdering lone samurai who have escaped wounded from a battle, then selling their arms and armor to a dealer who then sells it back to the armies, to strap around more corpses-to-be and eventually be recycled into more profits for the women.

Into this self-sustaining cycle comes Hachi, a friend of the old woman's son and young woman's husband, who claims that the son/husband is dead and he intends to leave behind the fighting and settle near the two women. The young woman is still young, and lusts for the life and vitality she senses in Hachi. The old woman, fearing abandonment and starvation, plays on the superstitious fears of the young woman, haunting her with a stolen Noh mask of a devil's face.

The transformation from the death-cycle of the old and young woman, to the living passion of Hachi is a powerful transition in "Onibaba." The raw, naked sexuality between Hachi and the young woman (who is never given a name) is unexpected in a black and white film, and thus all the more powerful. The impotent, cool rage of the old woman, who would seek to stifle that fire and merely sustain existence as it was until she dies is terrifying in its selfishness. She would pull all such things into the deep, dark hole where she flings the corpses of the samurai she murders. Hmmm...a deep, dark hole that is the end of men's lives...there must be a metaphor there somewhere.

"Onibaba" is a triumph of taking the masks of society away from human beings, and seeing them bare and naked in their primal state, surviving as they can under dire circumstances. Some choose life, some choose death.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Sensuousness of Shindo, August 29, 2006

By 

Shaun Anderson (Nottingham/Hereford, England, UK) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Onibaba (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

The deconstrunction and demystification of the samurai myth had been a project Akira Kurosawa had taken upon himself and that had seemingly reached a conclusion in YOJIMBO (1962), but Shindo's ONIBABA (1964) takes it a step further by presenting them as bedraggled and exhausted, hungry and at the mercy of two seemingly innocuous women. Shindo's world is hot and sultry, the characters weak and vulnerable. This is a very good depiction of the affects of war on the fringes of society and the lengths certain parties must go to in order to survive. As well as exploring this theme Shindo also adds several intriguing layers, sexuality and jealousy make a potent combination, as does the inserion of old Japanese folk tales. The result is a film that shows the eroticism of human beings in their most natural and stripped down state. Be hypnotised by the swaying grass fields and the sumptious black and white cinematography in this Japanese gem. Criterion's disc is very good.

45 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A DVD zone YOUR LIBRARY, March 19, 2004

By 

Daniel S. "Daniel" (Geneva, Switzerland) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Onibaba (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

I remember having seen Kaneto Shindō's ONIBABA in a little arty movies theater when I was about 15 years old. I've never forgotten its atmosphere even if this event happened some 30 years ago. I was really haunted by this sex story that took place in a swampy prairie of the medieval Japan.

Onibaba's characters are lost in the middle of a field covered with uncut grass and wheat. We have to dive into this scenery that is the fourth main character of the film if we want to discover this tragic and fantastic tale of love and jealousy. An impressing number of scenes are already part of Movie History and will stay for a long time in your memory : the love scenes between the young woman and Hachi, all the scenes involving the mask of the stray samurai and also the first murder committed by the women if I may select chosen moments of this masterpiece.

As always, the copy presented by Criterion is nearly perfect. Bonus features include a recent interview with the director Kaneto Shindō who's well over 90 now and a home movie shot by Kei Sato during the shooting. Frankly, I can't see now what can prevent you from enjoying this unforgettable film.