Bakeneko: A Vengeful Spirit – review

Director: Yoshihiro Ishikawa

Release date: 1968

Contains spoilers

Coming out of the kabuki theatre tradition with a primary tale having been translated as the Vampire Cat of Nabéshima, I have found that the Japanese bakeneko (or ghost cat) films should have their ‘vampness’ determined on a case-by-case basis.

This film actually uses the word bakeneko in the title, uses some of the elements of Nabéshima in its plot and certainly could be said to be a film that uses genre tropes. However, after deliberation I decided that there is just about enough to class this as vamp – you may differ in opinion. I must also say that the version I watched is in the Severin boxset All the Haunts be Ours vol. 2 and the disc does carry some neat extras including a reading of the Vampire Cat of Nabéshima and a short film called Man-Eater Mountain that has a vampiric plant in it.

buried alive

At the start we discover that Naoshige Nabeshima (Ryôhei Uchida) has plotted against his Lord Takafusa Ryûzôji (Keiichirô Shimada) and usurps him. He arranges to have the ousted Lord buried alive in clay and the Lord’s concubine passes out at this. She is placed in a room and, when she awakens, her cat Tama is there and she takes the cat and leaves the palace, going to a lake that she walks into holding the cat and drowns.

concubine with cat

Ten years later during an annual festival to placate the cursed pond, Naoshige is on a barge and sees a young woman on the shore, Yukiji (Kyoko Mikage), who he immediately falls for – dismissing the fact that he has told his subjects that they should not indulge in lustful longings on the festival day as it could bring the curse on them. He decides she will be one of his concubines.

licking blood

The issue is that she is promised to Jônosuke Yûki (Kôtarô Satomi) and the pair love each other. This leads to her being forcibly kidnapped and him put under house arrest and then escaping. Before this happened the pair accidentally end up at the cursed lake and, after a scare with a pair of fireballs, she finds a soaked cat – that looks very much like Tama.

neck bite

The film plays out like a period drama in places, and also a samurai sword fighting film. The pair reunite (after he is offered a pardon if he forsakes her and then refuses to do so) and fight their way to the pond until both die in the waters. The cat appears and licks her blood up and then kills and assumes a concubine’s form in order to avenge Yukiji (and her previous owner). The drinking the blood is a familiar trope and later we do get at least two neck bites. The Nabeshima references sees the cat able to induce sleep and a courtier stabbing his leg in order to stay awake and defend his Lord.

the bakeneko

The film lacks the uncanny atmosphere of some of the bakeneko films, trading it in to lean more into the samurai/period drama aspect but that does not mean it is poor in any way, just a different experience but still a very solid film using the bakeneko. The neck bites are not overly conclusive of vampirism – they could just be efficient for damaging the enemy. However the film does contain tropes if you don’t care to read this as vampiric. For me, however, it was close enough and a solid 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.