Devil’s Temple (1969)

Original title: Oni no sumu yakata

Japan in the 12th Century (I believe). Thanks to twists of fate caused what I think are the violent upheavals between Heike and Genji, a former noble (Shintaro Katsu) has moved into a burned out temple in the mountains close to Kyoto. Initially, he had only dwelled there with his wife Kaede (Hideko Takamine), but some time ago, the former prostitute Aizen (Michiyo Aratama) wormed her way in. When most of the film takes place – there’s a somewhat confusing time jump in the first act we don’t need to reproduce here - she’s psychologically and sexually dominating the man who now goes by the name of Mumyo Taro, wallowing in every depravity and act of violence he commits. And since he is now a rather horrifying bandit, there’s quite a bit of that to go around.

Kaede still believes there’s something about her husband worth saving, and does a lot of quiet and not so quiet suffering in hopes of enabling his better self. The situation will come to a head when a priest (Kai Sato), carrying a golden buddha statuette, arrives and begins an attempt to save the souls of these three people caught in their own private hell on Earth.

Going by the description I had of Devil’s Temple, I assumed this would be one of Kenji Misumi’s always wonderful chanbara films with an added element of the supernatural. Even though there is a bit of sword play, this isn’t really a movie about swords or samurai morals, but rather an intense religious and psychological drama. Not being a Buddhist and from Germany too boot, I’m not exactly the ideal candidate for this sort of film, so it does say something about its strength that I found myself riveted by most everything that happened on screen.

Misumi’s filmic language is as intense and moody as it ever was here. A mix of complicated long shots and more intimate set-ups – there’s some incredible editing and use of close-ups, particularly in the climactic seduction of the priest by Aizen – creates a sense of tension as well as, curiously enough, evokes a feeling of archetypal clarity and precision. With this, its focussed presentation and its briefness (only 76 minutes runtime!), Devil’s Temple often feels like a folktale or religious parable brought to emotional life.

The acting is of a heightened and theatrical kind that here only strengthens the emotional and psychological intensity. Katsu is a massive, glowering physical presence like you’d rather more often see from Shintaro Katsu’s brother, the great samurai actor Tomisaburo Wakayama, while Takamine avoids all whininess in a character that would in lesser hands be nothing but whining, and Aratama projects a larger than life aspect of lust – for sex, for destruction, for domination – that feels frightening and inhuman as well as unpleasantly attractive.

Even though the film’s emphasis is on a Buddhist interpretation of what is going on with the characters, it also knows a thing about domination and the kind of sexual relation that feels perverse even to a viewer who doesn’t really believe in the perversity of sex at all. Misumi portrays the power relations between Aizen and Taro with immense brevity and precision, evoking depths, and leaving the audience to look into them.

Of course, seen in 2023, you could interpret the whole film as an expression of male fear of female power and female sexuality where only women like Kaede, who suffer and persevere through their suffering without ever actively asserting themselves, are seen as living like a proper woman should, and where Taro’s responsibility for his own deeds is all too easily forgiven. It wouldn’t be a wrong way of reading the film, exactly, but I do believe it would really be beside the points Devil’s Temple is making about the human heart, Buddhist concepts of Evil, and the devils in our minds.