Ghost in the Regiment (1958)

aka The Military Policeman and the Ghost

Original title: 憲兵と幽霊

Imperial Japan during World War II. The vile Lieutenant Namishima (Shigeru Amachi, who does “vile” oh so well) lusts after Akiko (Naoko Kubo), notwithstanding her new marriage to a colleague named Tazawa (Shoji Nakayama). Namishima is a patient man, willing to wait for an opportunity to destroy Akiko’s husband, though. A year or so later, that opportunity comes when important military documents disappear out of the hands of one of Namishima’s underlings. Why not, Namishima suggests, frame the husband of a certain woman for that loss? Underling, only too willing to save his own skin, does of course agree. In truth, it is Namishima himself who is selling secrets to the Chinese, adding double evil to the whole affair.

This being Imperial Japan, the denunciation of Tazawa leads to the torture and execution of Namishima’s rival. Namishima now starts on a campaign of making himself indispensable to Akiko, while at the same time subtly destroying her few remaining prospects. Eventually, he’s going to get her drunk, rape her, play house with her for a while and drop her like a hot potato.

There’s a number of other sins to be committed, of course, but while Namishima is still committing them, he begins to be haunted by the crucified ghost of Tazawa and his increasing number of other victims. This will be an important part of Namishima’s downfall, as will the more worldly fact that Tazawa’s brother never believed in his guilt and has become a military policeman to prove the dead man’s innocence.

Kaidan and horror maestro Nobuo Nakagawa’s Ghost in the Regiment is a sometimes uncomfortable watching experience. There’s nothing at all wrong with the film’s basic idea of putting the narrative of a classic kaidan into more contemporary surroundings, particularly since the kind of kaidan that’s all about a man committing terrible deeds for power and lust until he’s finally brought down either by guilt or ghosts always feels like a timeless mode of storytelling, fitting every society based on injustice.

There’s just as little wrong with Nakagawa’s treatment of the supernatural. Even this early in his career as a horror filmmaker, he is an absolute master at letting filmic reality drift into a weirder space, creating an eerie mood out of simple effects, deep shadows and camerawork that suggests wrongness without hitting an audience over the head with it. He’s so good at it, the possibility of the hauntings only taking place in Namishima’s mind seems to be neither here nor there when thinking about their reality as parts of the movie.

The film’s problem, and what makes it an at times difficult watch, at least in my eyes, is its treatment of its World War II setting. There seems to be at least a tacit approval of Imperial Japan and its culture of “honour” as a whole. It’s particularly unpleasant that the film treats Namishima’s position as a Chinese spy as the worst and most despicable thing ever, even suggesting he’s responsible for Japan losing the war – in a tone that suggests the fascists not winning World War II to be a bad thing.

On the other hand, the kaidan plot does implies that the structures and values which brought us the Axis powers are exactly what enables men like Namishima to come to the power and influence they crave and need to destroy lives (which is as much of an obvious truth as you’ll encounter in history) for their own amusement. There’s never much of an impression of the film seeing the giant gap between these two positions, and most certainly never an attempt to somehow play these positions against one another in any productive manner.

This doesn’t mean Ghost in the Regiment isn’t a highly effective, worthwhile kaidan, but it did leave me at least somewhat sceptical about what it actually tries to say about the setting is chose, and sometimes uncomfortable for reasons other than its tale of ghosts and very bad men.