During the American occupation of Japan, the American censors had forbidden Japanese films to incorporate into the narratives the theme of feudal loyalty, a central factor in most early jidai-geki films. This, together with the economic reasons, drove Japanese filmmakers to mostly focus on gendai-geki films in the late 1940's. One way to get around the censorship restrictions was to include supernatural elements in jidai-geki films. This turns them into ghost stories, were the usual themes of duty and honor could be left to the sidelines.
I have seen few such supernatural jidai-geki tales from director Watanabe Kunio. Whereas I find his approach to historical depiction interesting, his films have yet to win me over in quality. This film, for instance, has a good story-line, but the director doesn't get much done with it. The narrative centers around a quality go-board (go is a popular game), that some of the characters fear to be cursed. They think that each game played on the board causes one death. This could have been a spooky and stylistic narrative like many Japanese horror films of the 1960's, but it doesn't really get there.
Though this is listed as a "horror film"many other sites, it's not at all scary. This movie is 90% talking, with static cinematography and bland characters. In visual style, it looks like a pre-war film. There is no electricity in the story-telling, and the film feels longer than it actually is.
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