Join us for a rare chance to experience one of Japan’s few surviving prewar horror films, a genre that was soon to be suppressed by the increasing state censorship of the wartime years. A quintessential example of the period “ghost cat” (bakeneko or kaibyo) movie, The Ghost Cat and the Mysterious Shamisen (Kaibyo nazo no shamisen) was one of at least six such titles released by the studio Shinko Kinema between 1937-40, featuring Japan’s first scream queen, Sumiko Suzuki. Here she plays Mitsue, the possessive onna-kabuki actress betrothed to apprentice shamisen player Seijiro. One day Okiyo, a beautiful young girl of samurai class, is led to Seijiro’s house by his lost cat Kuro, and becomes besotted with him. Dark jealous passions are invoked in Mitsue, which are intensified when Seijiro gives Okiyo his precious shamisen. The cat is the first to suffer at the end of Mitsue’s hairpin, but returns from the grave to assist Okiyo’s younger sister Onui avenge her sister’s murder. Director Kiyohiko Ushihara employs an arsenal of dark double exposures, slow motion sequences and specially-developed lenses to convey this dark, uncanny tale.

Following its first UK screenings at the ICA last November, this is a final chance to see this early chiller especially subtitled for Zipangu Fest in association with the Japan Visualmedia Translation Academy and the National Film Centre of Tokyo.

Tickets & Pricing

Advance: £8.50 (£6.50 concessions) from www.wegottickets.com; alternatively call us at the Cinema Museum on 020 7840 2200, or email us at info@cinemamuseum.org.uk
On door: £10 (£7 concessions)