Kaneto Shindo

Kuroneko

Kuroneko

In this poetic and atmospheric horror fable, set in a village in war-torn medieval Japan, a malevolent spirit has been ripping out the throats of itinerant samurai. When a military hero is sent to dispatch the unseen force, he finds that he must struggle with his own personal demons as well. From Kaneto Shindo, director of the terror classic Onibaba, Kuroneko (Black Cat) is a spectacularly eerie twilight tale with a shocking feminist angle, evoked through ghostly special effects and exquisite cinematography.

Film Info

  • Japan
  • 1968
  • 99 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 2.35:1
  • Japanese
  • Spine #584

Special Features

  • New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
  • Video interview with director Kaneto Shindo from the Directors Guild of Japan
  • New video interview with critic Tadao Sato
  • Theatrical trailer
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: A new essay by film critic Maitland McDonagh and an excerpt from film scholar Joan Mellen’s 1972 interview with Shindo

    New cover by Sam Smith and Eric Skillman

Purchase Options

Special Features

  • New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
  • Video interview with director Kaneto Shindo from the Directors Guild of Japan
  • New video interview with critic Tadao Sato
  • Theatrical trailer
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: A new essay by film critic Maitland McDonagh and an excerpt from film scholar Joan Mellen’s 1972 interview with Shindo

    New cover by Sam Smith and Eric Skillman
Kuroneko
Cast
Kichiemon Nakamura
Gintoki
Nobuko Otowa
Yone
Kei Sato
Raiko Minamoto
Rokkou Toura
Samurai
Kiwako Taichi
Shige
Taiji Tonoyama
Farmer
Hideo Kanze
Mikado
Credits
Director
Kaneto Shindo
Screenplay
Kaneto Shindo
Producer
Nobuyo Horiba
Producer
Setsuo Noto
Producer
Kazuo Kuwahara
Cinematography
Kiyomi Kuroda
Music
Hikaru Hayashi
Production design
Takashi Marumo
Production design
Norimichi Ikawa
Editing
Hisao Enoki
Makeup
Shigeo Kobayashi

Current

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Kuroneko: The Mark of the Cat
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By Maitland McDonagh

Zola Jesus’s Top 10
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“My Mind Was Always on the Commoners”: Shindo on Kuroneko in His Body of Work
“My Mind Was Always on the Commoners”: Shindo on Kuroneko in His Body of Work
The following is excerpted from a 1972 interview that film scholar Joan Mellen conducted with director Kaneto Shindo. The interview originally appeared in the 1975 book Voices from the Japanese Cinema. I find the social dimension of your films very c…

By Joan Mellen

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Introducing Kuroneko
Introducing Kuroneko
Hot on the heels of the hit theatrical run of Nobuhiko Obayashi’s cult sensation House, Janus Films is premiering another unsung Japanese horror movie with a feline twist. Kuroneko (Black Cat), a chilling 1968 ghost story directed by the incredible…