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Ghost cat films can often be about the ways in which the unresolved past continues to echo in the modern era. The curse is not lifted by vanquishing the evil spirit, but only by coming to an accommodation with and making recompense for wrongdoing in the distant past. This is especially the case when the film involves bookending sequences set in the modern day as in Yoshihiro Ishikawa’s Ghost Cat of Otama Pond (怪猫 お玉が池, Kaibyo Otama-ga-ike) in which a young couple accidentally become trapped within the orbit of a vengeful spirit after stopping off on their journey to get their parents’ approval for their marriage.
To that extent, the fact that they keep walking in circles and always end up back at the lake might hint at their mutual sense of anxiety about their decision to marry. “What will marriage be like if you’re like this now?” Tadahiko (Shozaburo Date) asks in exasperation, accusing Keiko (Noriko Kitazawa) of being “difficult” as she blames him for the decision to come to the lake in the first place and insists she’s too tired to continue walking. Their relationship is further strained by the lingering possibility that the parents may object to the marriage and that arriving late for their visit might not help their chances.
Their situation is mirrored in the circumstances that led to the creation of the ghost cat as related to Tadahiko by a local priest whom he consults after Keiko falls into a coma near the ruined house where they take shelter. Long ago, their ancestors Yochimaru (Shozaburo Date) and Kozasa (Noriko Kitazawa) were in love and wanted to marry, but their families were sworn enemies who strongly opposed the union. When Yachimaru was sent to serve in the capital swearing to call for Kozasa once he’d established himself, her villainous father Gensai (Yoichi Numata) moved against Yachimaru’s father Shinbei (Akira Nakamura) who had been attempting to protest the unreasonable taxes levied against local peasants who were on the verge of causing unrest. Consequently, they killed him and dumped his body in the pond. Shinbei’s beloved cat Tama drank some of his blood and became a ghost cat hellbent on avenging its master.
Tama is quite a popular name for a cat, but in this case it seems to be that it got its name from the lake where it was found which hints at a deeper origin story for this vengeful spirit. Unlike that in other similar films, it seems to have the power to manipulate people physically, at least to a degree, and also to pull them into an alternate reality as happens to Keiko during her coma when she is transported back to the Edo era before the house fell into ruins. It also seems to collect and unify various desires for vengeance though all against Gensai and his allies including the corrupt magistrate and entitled son Gorota (Hiroshi Shinguji). Though it originates with the death of Shinbei, the ghost cat later mainly takes the form of Kozasa after she drowns herself in the pond having been bewitched and seen the ghost of Yachimaru.
In the end, this curse is only resolvable through the relationship between Keiko and Tadahiko. The ghost cat is vanquished by natural forces putting an end to the curse and releasing Keiko from her coma. After undergoing this experience, they are able to find their way back from the lake as Tadahiko resolves that they will still get married no matter what their parents say in direct contrast with Yachimaru and Kozasa who were constrained by samurai mores and unable to defy their families. In the modern era, they are free to live in the city and do as they please without needing to pay much attention to these outdated rituals, and so the ghost cat’s curse is no longer necessary as the rift is healed with their union just as if Yachimaru and Kozasa were finally united. Ishikawa conjures a suitably gothic, eerie atmosphere around the misty lake achieving ghost effects mainly through lighting in which they take on a familiar greenish hue. Away from the lake, however, it becomes more difficult to tell who is a ghost and who alive, while the ghost cat manipulates those that have wronged it into harming those they love and by extension themselves until finally laid to rest by a new generation resolving to leave the past behind.
Trailer (no subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 