Movies - Portrait of Hell

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	Movies - Portrait of Hell

Portrait of Hell (地獄変 Jigoku-hen, 1969) is a Japanese jidaigeki film directed by Shiro Toyoda, starring Tatsuya Nakadai and Kinnosuke Nakamura, and based on a 1918 short story by Akutagawa Ryunosuke.

Plot summary

The story is set in the Heian era and revolves primarily around the conflict between a Korean painter named Yoshihide (played by Nakadai) and his Japanese patron, a cruel and egotistical daimyo named Hosokawa (played by Nakamura).

Hosokawa demands that Yoshihide decorate the walls of his new temple with an image of Buddha, but Yoshihide refuses, insisting that he cannot paint that which he does not see. In Hosokawa's realm, Yoshihide can see nothing but the suffering of peasants. He creates several gruesome images that appear to have some sort of magical power. (For example, a painting of a man that is killed by Hosokawa's soldiers at the start of the film gives off the stench of a rotting corpse.) These all appal Hosokawa, and he demands that they be torn up.

Ultimately, Yoshihide asks that he be allowed portray hell on the wall of the temple, and Hosokawa agrees. Yoshihide asks for one thing to be in the centre of his illustration: a burning carriage with Hosokawa in it. Hosokawa agrees to this, but instead of being burned alive himself he has Yoshihide's daughter Yoshika chained in the carriage. Yoshihide watches in horror as his daughter is burned alive, before going on to paint his masterpiece.

Before the picture is revealed, Yoshihide hangs himself, and then when Hosokawa takes a look at it he is horrified to see himself in hell. The climax of the film is slightly vague, but the audience is led to believe that Hosokawa becomes trapped in his own private hell through the power of the portrait.

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