Rating: 
Summary: historical value indeed!
Review: i'm not a media/film critic. Rather, i love japanese history and culture. (i've had the pleasure of living there a few years.) This movie, more than any other (including the well-known classics) has etched a permanent place in my mind. This movie will be cryptic indeed to the casual viewer. i suggest first-timers to rent before they buy. The time period addressed here is either prior to or radically distant from **ANY** japanese movie you have seen. THIS IS ITS VALUE. The pure superstition and reality of (possible) rural japan existence is all too clear. Ive never seen a more focused, palpable view from such a perspective.For those who havent seen the movie yet, the setting is in a rather ancient, agricultural japan. the very few characters live within a juxtaposed dynamic of sexual necessity, societal hieracrchy (respect of elders: "baba" is a derogatory term for "obachan" or "grandmother"), and a real dread of Oni (demons). All i can or should say is that this drama displays a rather (true) ancient japanese notion as to what penalties await those who trangress the "way it oughta be". I know this sounds trite and inadequate, but I am sure those who have seen Onibaba will appreciate the ambiguous candor. (...)
Rating:
Summary: incredible
Review: I've loved this film ever since I saw it on tv when I was a kid so it's great to own this spectacular Criterion edition. The transfer is stunning - it looks just amazing.
This is a truly hypnotic film with its gloriously haunting cinematography. If you're a fan of Japanese cinema this is quite simply a must have.
Rating: 
Summary: mask beneath the flesh
Review: In this 1965 film director Kaneto Shindou creates haunting spectacle that takes place shortly after the fall of the Kamakura shogunate. While Emperor Godaigo's faction is furiously fighting his one time ally Ashikaga, the families of peasants conscripted into the army suffered not only anguish because their men were gone, but severe hunger and poverty because their men are off wetting the earth with their blood instead of planting crops.
In this movie the viewer is introduced to one such small family: a mother and a daughter in law. Although many might have perished in such hardship, this duo survives by attacking wounded samurai and selling their spoils to a man named Ushi, who sells the dead samurais' possessions back to the armies.
Although they were not living a life of ease, The nameless mother and daughter were living in at least momentary peace. That is until Hachi, the friend of the mother's son, returns alone. He states that Kichi, the son, was killed by irate farmers when they tried to steal some food. Both mother and daughter-in-law are quite suspect about this man's arrival, believing that he maybe had killed Kichi.
The daughter-in-law keeps her distance from Hachi at first, but her more primal desires get the better of her and she soon begins to meet Hachi every night. The mother is quite distraught about this situation because she believes that she will be unable to survive without the help of her daughter-in-law. However, there is nothing she can do to control the younger woman. However, that is until she acquires a noh mask of an oni from a samurai. She begins to wear this mask to scare her daughter in law, and it works fine at first, but as time passes...
This is a good film. It shows in great detail what individuals had to go through during the very trying times after the Kamakura Shogunate fell. It shows people's willingness to do anything to survive and it also shows individuals stripped down to their Id.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Japanese tale of the supernatural
Review: One of the greatest of all films of the supernatural, Onibaba, 1964, elicits shivers based on its perfect fusion of atmosphere, character, and setting. In feudal Japan, samurais coming home from warrior duty pass through fields of tall waving grass--a powerful leit-motif here--and are enticed by an older woman and her widowed daughter in law to follow them for a much-needed meal. But the two women have no intention of providing food for the men; they've constructed a booby trap that kills. Stripping the now-dead warriors of their armor, the two sell it for food; this is their nasty means of survival in a desperate land. The younger woman, however, needs more than food to survive. Her hunger for the touch of a man is greater than that for food and she finds one who she is sure will satisfy her. But her mother-in-law is enraged by this possibility. Finding a mask on one of the dead samurais, the old woman dons it, mimicking a demon, to frighten the younger one. The mother-in-law's scheme does not go as planned. The director, Kaneto Shindo, has here created a sparse, riveting tale that transfixes the viewer because of its down-to-the-bone simplicity. Greed, fear, jealousy, and rage are all expressed with a minimum of action, but when they are on display, they're intense and that much more powerful. The subtle black and white cinematography is a perfect complement to the film's simplicity of tone. No tale of the supernatural can ever work without at least one of man's baser emotions present, and it works much more effectively when the expression of those emotions is lean amd nean, as it is here. The much-touted current Japanese horror film, Ring, has been given enough attention by the media to, at long last generate its ultimate homage, an American remake. But Ring, while smacking all too easily of Cronenberg's influence, does not penetrate with its horror, save for one extremely disturbing scene; it's far too superficial. In contrast, Onibaba works extremely well because the characters of the two women are the focus, which leads ultimately to the horrific events that occur. For a powerful experience in real terror, see this film. It is a masterpiece of the supernatural.
Rating:
Summary: Good Karma Bad Karma
Review: Onibaba is a very serious film that probe into your basic conscience. In a deserted village in feudal Japan when wars were fought meaninglessly and food was scarce, life came to basic forms. How could two woman peasants survived? They did it my killing ronins, samurai deserted from wars, and selling their outfits for food (Anybody who have learnt kendo know that these kind of outfit is expensive). So the two women knew the easy way out as these outfits were of short supply as for food. But what about the conscience. Will the two women get punishment for their "evil deed." Not the younger one who gets sexual satiation as well, perhaps when you are young and robust, you may need both for survival. But the older woman, the mother-in-law of the younger one, gets punishment by suppressing the sexual demand of the wife of her son, who got killed in the war. Why? I suppose it could only be explained by the Onibaba, the deep dark hole of our subconscious conscience in the time of atrocity and famine. A beautifully made film with erotic shots of nature, and its inhabitants. Onibaba also deliver one important message: once we put on a mask (disguise), we could never take it off(fate), as we mortals will always suffer from our karmas. Onibaba is a good karma from the director Kaneto Shindo!
Rating:
Summary: Corpse-dealers and deserters and devil's faces
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: vacuous adoration -- the death trap of a bad movie
Review: There is much to say of my surprise at the shimmering reviews this pathetic second rate Japanese movie has received here on Amazon. It is this very incongruency that compelled me to interject a grain of lucidity into this vat of oily adulation. Let's be honest about it -- the movie is horrendous, has very little artistic value, unless you consider the very repetitive shots of the pampas rustling in the wind to be art, and a mundane plot. The only virtues possessed by this flick are its obscurity and er badness -- all requisites for a drinking game with a bunch of degenerated con-vivants. Onibaba is NOT in the same ballpark as Kurasawa by a very long shot. I much rather recommend Kwaidan as far as old Japanese horror goes. Hope you don't fall into the snares, but if you must, don't be fooled into the pretense of substance.
Rating:
Summary: vacuous adoration -- the death trap of a bad movie
Review: There is much to say of my surprise at the shimmering reviews this pathetic second rate Japanese movie has received here on Amazon. It is this very incongruency that compelled me to interject a grain of lucidity into this vat of oily adulation. Let's be honest about it -- the movie is horrendous, has very little artistic value, unless you consider the very repetitive shots of the pampas rustling in the wind to be art, and a mundane plot. The only virtues possessed by this flick are its obscurity and er badness -- all requisites for a drinking game with a bunch of degenerated con-vivants. Onibaba is NOT in the same ballpark as Kurasawa by a very long shot. I much rather recommend Kwaidan as far as old Japanese horror goes. Hope you don't fall into the snares, but if you must, don't be fooled into the pretense of substance.
Rating:
Summary: Samurai noir (with eroticism)
Review: This is the darkest of Samurai tales about two women, one old and one young, who lure Samurai into a swamp to kill them and sell their belongings. There is a crackling current of eroticism in the primal forces of the swamp that is both subtle and powerful. When love enters the scene things get complicated, as they so often do. The term onibaba means the old demon, and evil is well represented here. This is a little known gem that really cries out for a cleaned up Criterion DVD release. Beware...the VHS copies I have seen are not of very good quality.
Rating:
Summary: A good film version of a classic fable.
Review: This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.
"Onibaba" is the retelling of an old Buddhist fable. The film version is quite well made and has some nice scenes.
The film is about a man living a marsh with his wife and mother. They rob and kill passers by for their belongings which they sell and throw their bodies in a deep pit near their hut. Later the mother finds a mask from a samurai she killed and she uses to scare her daughter-in-law. But when she tries to remove the mask, it won't come off.
The film has some great scenery and some great effects. There is also some nudity in the film which may offend some viewers. The acting is also good and the make-up effects are also quite good too.
The special features on the DVD are quite good also.
There is some behind the scenes footage done on a super-8 camera, a stills gallery featuring behind the scenes photos and drawings as well as promotionsl material. There is the original theatrical trailer, an interview with writer/director Kaneto Shindo, multiple essays in the liner notes as well as an English translation of the Buddhist fable which inspired the film.
This is a great example of traditional Japanese horror films and is a must see for fans of the genre or the films "Ringu" or "Kwaidan."
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