Somewhere in rural Japan, 3 uranium prospectors find a rich uranium
mine, but also destroy a shrine dedicated to the Dog God and kill a dog. Six
months later: Kano, one of the prospectors, marries Reiko, daughter of
village leader Kenomochi, which seems to pretty much settle the deal
between the village near which he has found the mine and his company. Only
a small farmer, Tamori, opposes the deal because he considers the land
that will be mined his. Incidently it was Tamori's son Isamu whose dog the
prospectors have killed. Back in Tokyo, Kano's two colleagues die
unnatural deaths and his wife goes mad, which all might have to do with
the curse of the dog god. Kano and Reiko return to the village where
Kenomochi hires all sorts of spiritists to have her exorcised, but to no
avail, she dies. Everybody for some reason blames Tamori and family for
the death, and they are soon regarded witches. Only Kano begs to differ,
befriends the Tamoris, becomes sympathetic to their refusal to mine
uranium, and grows especially fond of family daughter Kaori, who has loved
him ever since before he had married Reiko. However, then disaster
strikes when the village well is poisoned, and while it's clear to Kano
that this is a side effect of the mining, everyone else feels more
comfortable in blaming the Tamoris, and eventually, a gang of local bikers
kills all of them but dad Tamori in a most gruesome fashion. Dad builds a
shrine to the Dog God and sees that Mako, the youngest daughter of
Kenomochi is possessed - even though she's the only one aside from Kano
who has shown sympathy to them. In the finale, Kano finds out the whole
dirty truth about the village and the Kenomochis: Decades ago, Kenomochi
stole Tamori's land - quite legally, using some crooked deals. For this,
Tamori cursed his eldest son, Sawa, whom Kenomochi has since kept in a
cage in his shed, away from everyone's sight. But now, Sawa has somehow
freed himself, and carnage soon follows which leaves pretty much everyone
dead, and it doesn't get any better when possessed Mako joins the fight.
Ultimately, Mako and Kano are the last two standing, and Kano somehow
tries to lift the curse from Mako, but kills her in the process, and then
kills himself to repent. It's only then that it turns out that Mako,
unpossessed, has survived after all. The last scene shows a funeral
procession that passes Kano's burning coffin. When Mako approaches the
coffin, Kano rises from it, but melts in the fire surrounding him ... A
subtly directed, very atmospheric and even creepy story full of
well-placed shocks and quite a bit of gore - that nevertheless fails to
convince. Basically, there's way too much story cramped into the film's
100 minutes of running time, and the story seems to go nowhere in
particular, and simply refuses to resolve in a satisfying way, instead
throws in a sudden subplot for no other reason than to get as many
characters as possibly killed in the finale. And the final scene with Kano
emerging from its burning coffin is ridiculous. On top of that, while the
film has a decent cast, the characters are uniformly pale and
two-dimensional, in other words unable to carry the overly complex story. But
again, the film is at least well-directed and well-acted, so it's not a
total loss - it's just not very good, either.
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