Masahiro Shinoda’s stunning pastoral fairy tale bewitches in a new 4K restoration
Stills courtesy of the Criterion Collection.
Set the year before the First World War, teacher Gakuen (Tsutomu Yamazaki) ventures deep into the Japanese countryside in the footsteps of his friend Akira (Go Kato) who disappeared near Demon Pond in search of obscure folktales. Arriving at the local village, Gakuen finds empty streets riddled with drought. It’s a village on the verge of collapse, praying to the Gods for a drop of rain. Hidden in the neighboring hills, though, Gakuen finds his long-lost friend obeying a superstition of his own–ringing an ancient bell three times a day to prevent the dragon spirit underneath Demon Pond from flooding the valley below. At Akira’s side is Yuri (a star-making turn from kabuki actor Tamasaburo Bando), an ethereal presence who seems to conjure water from the hillside while the rest of the village runs dry. Gakuen immediately believes Yuri to be a witch or spirit who’s managed to hold Akira hostage for her whims, and the superstitious villagers grow to see Yuri as the ill-fated key to their survival. However, the fantastical Yokai beneath Demon Pond have apocalyptic whims in store for them all.
For most of the film’s first half, the film is an achingly slow burn tinged by the possibility of the supernatural, which Shinoda teases against a trippy synth score by Isao Tomita. There’s an erotic undercurrent beneath extreme closeups of the natural world, externalizing not just the chemistry between Akira and Yuri, but the otherworldly obligations that further bind them together. In contrast, the barrenness of the village below suggests a brimming madness and unrest tied to a distance from this passionate embrace of legend and folklore–a disconnect from the supernatural world fueled by modern, politically charged greed. It’s a subtle tension that worms its way into the awkward yet nostalgic interactions between Gakuen, Akira, and Yuri, as this friendly outsider disrupts the fantastical bond between these lovers. These sequences are deliberately paced, harkening back to Demon Pond’s origins in Japanese theater, lulling the audience into an uneasy comfort–allowing the arrival of the film’s supernatural elements to feel like equally intrusive elements of a bizarre new dream.
Roughly halfway through, Shinoda pulls back the curtain to reveal the scheming of various mythic Yokai behind the natural devastation facing the village, and the reason for Akira’s dedication to ringing the bell at the top of Demon Pond. Here, the romantic tension of Demon Pond feels like a cross between Akira Kurosawa’s later Dreams and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as gods and mortals alike reveal themselves to be just as petty and headstrong as one another. Shinoda helms these dazzling sequences with the same dreamlike buoyancy as his more “realistic” elements, erasing any sense of boundary between the two. As such, all of Demon Pond is charged with both childlike playfulness and earnest, mature melodrama–making for a film that feels as much of a romantic fantasy as it is a fantastical romance.
These elements, though, create a visceral feedback loop that allows the real and the supernatural to come to blows in an eye-popping, VFX-laden flood of a finale. Legendary effects designer Nobuo Yajima pulls out every optical trick in the book to conclude this tragic love story, fulfilling ancient prophecies and condemning the short-sighted greed of mortals with devastating displays of natural fury. It’s a beguiling blend of kabuki melodrama and late-1970s blockbuster special effects, one whose effectiveness delightfully took me by surprise.
While the film marked a significant pivot in the careers of director Shinoda and actor Tamasaburo Bando (making his first foray into feature films from a career in kabuki), Demon Pond faded into quick obscurity both internationally and in its native Japan. However, Shochiku’s lavish 4K restoration championed in the US by Janus Films is set to unleash Demon Pond upon new audiences who will no doubt admire Shinoda’s awe-inspiring romantic vision.
Video/Audio:
Criterion presents Demon Pond in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 in 4K and 1080p HD on the UHD and Blu-ray respectively. The transfer is sourced from a 4K restoration of the original 35mm negative and accompanying monaural soundtrack, undertaken by original studio Shochiku and Imagica in 2021 and approved by director Masahiro Shinoda and actor Tamasaburo Bando.
For newcomers to this film, it may not be immediately clear what in Demon Pond warrants such a loving 4K restoration. However, Masao Kosugi and Noritaka Sakamoto’s lush natural cinematography brings out elegant compositions in natural settings, turning forests and hillsides into elaborate stages for humans and ghosts alike. Bando’s theatrical kumadori white facepaint glows in their spectral lighting, making his dual performance as both Yuri and dragon princess Yuki feel united in their comforting yet unsettling presence.
The true centerpiece of the restoration, though, is Nobuo Yajima’s stunning SFX work, a dizzying blend of compositing shots that unite blue-screen, miniature work, and unpredictable natural elements into apocalyptic final images. While the increased resolution reveals some traces of Yajima’s in-camera trickery, the majority of his work feels terrifyingly seamless and organic. Also wonderfully represented is Isao Tomita’s synth-based score, borrowing from classical music like Mussorgsky and Debussy and translating it into something more surreal and symphonic.
Special Features:
As per usual with Criterion 4K packages, all special features are located on the accompanying Blu-ray Disc.
- The Twilight World – Dudley Andrew on Demon Pond: In this newly-recorded interview with the film scholar, Andrew breaks down the relationship between Demon Pond, the original 1913 play by Kyoka Izumi, and the influence of the theater on director Masahiro Shinoda, as well as comparisons between Shinoda’s realism-to-fantasy career and similar paths by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
- A Deluge of Special Effects: Author Fabien Mauro’s video essay delves into the career of Demon Pond’s special-effects artist Nobuo Yajima, with an emphasis on his work on the film. The essay is full of interesting tidbits of Japanese cinema lore, such as Yakima’s designing the first color Shochiku logo, the attempt by Japanese filmmakers to rush out effects-laden blockbusters to beat Star Wars’ Japanese debut in 1978, and Yajima’s involvement in the resulting boom of tokusatsu TV series.
- Booklet featuring an essay by film critic Michael Atkinson. Here, Atkinson examines how Shinoda updates the 1913 play for a modern audience while retaining its period setting, Shinoda’s place in the Japanese New Wave alongside Shohei Imamura and Nagisa Oshima, the overarching influence of kabuki theater on Shinoda’s blocking and cinematography, the career of gender-swapping kabuki actor Tamasaburo Bando, and the more overt social critiques Shinoda weaves into an already magical blend of adult melodrama and childlike fantasy.
Demon Pond is now available on 4K UHD/Blu-ray combo pack, Blu-ray, and DVD from the Criterion Collection.
