Kaneto Shindo, one of Japan s most prolific directors, received his biggest international success with the release of Onibaba [The Demoness] 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 Yasuzo Masumura's Mojuu (1969) and Nagisa Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses (1976).

Onibaba [or Onibabaa, in its alternate spelling] is set during a brutal period in history, a Japan ravaged by civil war between rivaling shogunates. Weary from combat, samurai are drawn towards the seven - foot high susuki grass fields to hide and rest themselves, whereupon they are ambushed and murdered by a ruthless mother (Nobuko Otowa) and daughter - in - law (Jitsuko Yoshimura) team. The women throw the samurai bodies into a pit, and barter their armour and weapons for food. 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 Buddhist and Shinto 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 Japan's last half - century, winning Kiyomi Kuroda the Blue Ribbon Award for Cinematography in 1965. The memorably frenetic drumming soundtrack was scored by long - time Shindo collaborator Hikaru Hayashi.

Kaneto Shindô writes and directs this Japanese horror. Set in the ancient Heian era, Yone (Nobuko Otowa) and her 20-year-old daughter-in-law Shige (Kiwako Taichi) are scratching a meagre living in the forest when a band of marauding, depraved samurai rape and slay the two women, leaving their hut in ashes, and the blood-covered bodies splayed nearby. A passing black cat revives the spirits of the fallen women and transforms them into shape-shifting ghosts who proceed to wreak revenge on the samurai class by luring them into the surrounding bamboo groves. But one day the warrior Gintoki (Kichiemon Nakamura) returns home to find his wife and mother gone and is assigned to rid the country of the murderous ghosts.