Synopsis
The heir to a family fortune discovers that a curse has been placed on it, put there centuries before by a band of samurai warriors. Adaptation of novel by Seishi Yokomizo
Village of Eight Gravestones
1977 ‘八つ墓村’ Directed by Yoshitaro Nomura
Cast
Kenichi Hagiwara Mayumi Ogawa Tsutomu Yamazaki Yōko Yamamoto Kiyoshi Atsumi Etsuko Ichihara Ninako Yamaguchi Ryoko Nakano Yoshi Katō Hisashi Igawa Masami Shimojō Takuya Fujioka Jun Hamamura Torahiko Hamada Junko Natsu Hatsuo Yamaya Junko Toda Hideji Ōtaki Tokue Hanazawa Atom Shimojo Katsuhiko Watabiki Isao Natsuyagi Kunie Tanaka Isao Hashimoto Yoshio Inaba
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Alternative Titles
Деревня восьми могил, Village Of The Eight Tombs, Yattsu haka-mura, 八墓村, 팔묘촌, Village of the Eight Tombs
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Theatrical
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Japan
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Japan
29 Oct 1977
- Theatrical
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A damn fine piece of rural detectivemystery with a young man returning to the mountain village of his birth, only to stumble upon a series of brutal murders all linked to an old curse when eight samurai were brutally murdered by the villagers. Somewhat slow at times and maybe a tad overlong, but maintains an excellent atmosphere throughout thanks to a great cast and stunning cinematography. And those superviolent flashbacks help a lot too. Being a Kindaichi movie I kinda feel that Kiyoshi Atsumi wasn't the best choice for the bumbling detective, playing it rather straight, but that's mostly just my personal preference having falling in love with Kôji Ishizakas interpretation. The score can be a bit overbearing and the denounment is anything but subtle but apart from those very minor annoyances this is top notch all around.
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Hampir sama kyk castle of sand cuma yang bikin kaget ada campy horrornya disini 😂
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Village of Eight Gravestones is a supernatural horror film, with bit of mystery and police procedural. Bloody scenes resemble more like a Yakuza-like slasher flick.
Kindaichi here, unfortunately looked more like a tourist. It's something I cannot understand. He didn't wear his signature hat and he didn't even scratch his head!
Still, it's a good film. Great direction. If you like Castle of Sand, you'll probably like it as much.
Except.
The ending is quite unsatisfactory. Sigh.
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Village of Eight Gravestones slowly reveals the details of a complicated mystery involving many different parties over its admittedly too long 2.5 hour running time. You need to be in a specific mood to enjoy this but I was vibing with it real fucking hard. The late seventies rural mountain village was a wonderful place to visit but beware! The green forests and friendly local faces might be hiding a sinister secret...
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I fucking adore Yoshitaro Nomura and I find it bewildering that he’s not better known among cinephiles. He was a frequent collaborator with Shinobu Hashimoto — who wrote Akira Kurosawa’s best-known films and worked with the likes of Masaki Kobayashi, Hideo Gosha, and Mikio Naruse — which means we’re talking top-tier Japanese cinema here. A small handful of Nomura’s films are on the Criterion Channel, but the rest are hard to find, including this one.
Nomura specialized in crime films that fused Hitchcockian suspense with Sirkian melodrama. Village of Eight Gravestones adds to this mix elements of supernatural horror and samurai folklore, and features a couple of frenzied, wildly gory set pieces that wouldn’t be out of place in a…
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I really liked the actual story of this. However, the most messed up part is not really the part focused on.
Like, okay.. it's a mess. But how did one person supposedly go mad after something happened.. when the whole thing happened following their prior horrific and crazy actions? So really, did you lose your mind or were you always that way? Like, let's be real about that for a second 💀
They didn't follow it up as well, when I kind of wanted that addressed a little more. I assumed that certain events didn't happen because of shame, embarrassment. So they just left without saying a thing to concerning parties. Alas! That was so sad.
The way they set…
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I am thinking if maybe I should have watched the Ichikawa version instead of this cause I could not get into it at all. Maybe his take on these mysteries is more up my alley...
I found that focusing on the curse aspect of the story rather than the more conventional mystery kinda ended up making the whole thing... weird but not in a good way. And I do love a good curse along with visuals and everything but something about the execution felt out of tune and unnecessarily convoluted. Technically, it should have worked for me but it left me cold. -
Added to: Yoshitaro Nomura, Ranked & Reviewed
Adapted from the detective novel of the same name by the renowned mystery novelist Seishi Yokomizo, who also wrote Gokumon Island and The Inugami Clan (all were adapted at least once by Kon Ichikawa, in the case of The Inugami Clan, twice!), VILLAGE OF EIGHT GRAVESTONES features a series of mysterious murderers intermingled with secrets of a large family in a remote village. It’s part of the Detective Kindaichi series and this time he was played by "Tora-san" Kiyoshi Atsumi in a relatively slacken, unadorned performance as he’s mostly a side character with an expository function.
The film suffers greatly from its slow pace and expository scenes, the latter is perhaps inexorable since the…
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Based on a famous japanese detective/horror novel, this adaptation struggles, and oh does it struggle, to find a proper narrative to stuff what is clearly a story full of way too many details. Even with more than 2 hours of running time the story never developes the characters. It's way more busy throwing mystery after flashback after plot device after who knows what. At some point in the final act a character sits down to explain the entire story to the rest of the cast, and the audience. Characters sitting down to explain things is never a good sign for any movie. You're not missing anything if you skip this one. Just a couple of spooky scenes here and there.
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Menitikberatkan pada legenda dan supranatural gotik, internal keluarga diguyur kental ketika Tatsuya diperkenalkan kepada setiap kerabat lagi sepupu, maka bisa dimengerti alasan mengutamakan sentral karakter Tatsuya di depan. Dengan perbandingan Kindaichi-Atsumi Kiyoshi yang nantinya condong sebagai “storyteller” di balik panggung. Polisi Arai sempat menyiratkan konteks tersebut, motivasi dan latar solid mendukung tapi bagaimana dengan fakta atau metode, yang dirasa-rasa acak kebetulan dan dekoratif lupakan soal metode. Agak menyamping dari aspek rutin Yokomizo-Kindaichi, jika ingin strict, unsur keterikatan antartokoh lebih longgar namun panjang teramat kuna. Satu-satunya tali yang menguatkan plot cerita adalah dibukanya keterlibatan sulung laki-laki Tajima menjelang ajal, terhadap mulai ulang masa depan Tatsuya. Proyeksi kisah hantu pada Yatsuhakamura membuat bergidik, kepala buntung samurai dipasang berjejer, pun kemunculan Yamazaki Tsutomu termakan kutukan membantai satu kampung melesat di sepanjang semi pohon sakura. Tak terkecuali, eksklamasi akbar di luaran gua serta memandangi dari pundak kuburan bukit tanda terakhir keberadaan nama Tajima, lanskap mendebarkan visual menyeringai, bersama Tatsuya dan kepuasan batin leluhurnya.
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Great mystery time. Bummed to realize this wasn't the Kon Ichikawa series but more bummed to realize Koji Ishizaka wasn't the Kindaichi this time. Kiyoshi Atsumi does quite well and the nature of *Village of Eight Gravestones* means he doesn't have to do a lot of heavy lifting. But he's not my Kindaichi. He doesn't bring any of the quirks to the picture, looks too clean-cut and reliable. Doesn't quite leave the same oomph.
Ending spoilers from here on: after everything Tatsuya went through in this flick, I'm shocked he even spared a thought for his real dad. I'm glad this supposed remaining family interest was off-screen. I'm choosing to imagine Tatsuya got an envelope that said "here's the location of another lost family member, for real this time" and immediately ripped it to pieces. Bleak in all the right ways.
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I’ve tempered this at a 3 despite its goofy and disappointing final act that verges on the terrible. Ostensibly about a Baskerville-like curse involving affronted samurai and an estranged/illegitimate son returning to the village of his birth, the overlong plot builds with excellent tone and atmosphere. It doesn’t successfully pull off its marriage of murder mystery, familial intrigue and folk horror elements, essentially picking and choosing as it goes instead of melding or subverting. Still, you get a real sense of the temporal distance between traditional village and modern city life.