Fever dream paranoia meets coffin-breaking betrayal in this unhinged 1962 double feature.
During a fever, Tateo, the male protagonist believes he is dying and has the hallucination that his beautiful wife, Reiko (Tamaki Katori), the daughter of a wealthy family, is having an affair w/ another man. He then tells her an ancient Chinese story: the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi wanted to test the faithfulness of his wife, so he faked his own death; the wife was grief-stricken and went into mourning. While funeral arrangements were in progress, a handsome young man came to call on Zhuangzi. Zhuangzi's wife soon fell into love w/ the young man and decided to marry hi. However, the young man fell ill; his servant said that the only medicine to cure him is human brain. Zhuangzi's wife eventually decided to break his husband's coffin and take his brain. However the young man turns out be Zhuangzi in disguise.
Acting
Tamaki Katori's fever-dream wife trapped between desire and suspicion.
Direction
Kobayashi's sweaty paranoia versus Lo-Hui's theatrical moral fable.
Director
Shao Lo-Hui
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Zhuangzi tale is a classic Chinese 'test of fidelity' story that appeared in Yuan dynasty drama; this Japanese-Taiwanese co-production repurposes it as pan-Asian moral panic.
Tamaki Katori was a major pink film star—her casting brings an uncomfortable layer of exploited sexuality to the 'unfaithful wife' archetype the film condemns.
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