Far more so than Western ghost stories ever do, most kaidan centre around themes of guilt and retribution. Oshima’s twist on the ghost story here is that his ghost isn’t so much an avenging spirit as it is a sad and confused lost soul whose vague stumblings around drive his murderers to guilt and anguish. Oshima’s presages the ghost’s appearances with a genuine eeriness – three years after the body has been dumped down the well, a friend dreaming of Gisaburo telling her to bring him some clean clothes, he is tired of sleeping in the same ones; or his daughter dreaming of him telling her that he will be home by New Year. Locating of the story in a 19th Century rural peasant setting, Oshima employs the style of Japanese post-War neo-realist cinema to considerable effect. At times the camera little more than sits impassively observing scenes of extraordinarily raw effect transpiring before it. Throughout the love scenes and the shaving scene Oshima keeps focused on Yoshiyuki’s face, watching not the passion or the act but the pain on her face and the effect has cuttingly real emotional power. The actual murder plot occurs with astonishing casualness – Fuji shaves Yoshiyuki’s pubic hair and then suddenly announces “We must kill him. How can we let him see you shaved?”