Big surprise, The Devil’s Temple is another buddhist-oriented film from director Kenji Misumi, after the Satan’s Sword series. Starring Shintaro Katsu, written by Kaneto Shindo (Naked Island), this film is about Mumyo, a coward-then-thief living in an abandoned temple with his lover, Aizen, and his ex-wife. One day, a high priest comes by.
This is a nihilist spiritual drama set during the civil war, in a time where people are consumed by fear, hate, power. No place for faith, for Buddha. Also, in the Buddhist tradition, Mumyo means Ignorance and Aizen, Lust. That’s why here, Mumyo is doing everything Aizen wants.
Let’s see 2 examples:
On this image, you can see, Mumyo’s ex-wife on the left, Mumyo at the center, and Aizen on the right. See the 2 statues, one has a mask, the other owns a sword. There was a Buddha at the center, but it was burnt. So Mumyo occupies his place now. This scene is about the ex-wife trying to get his husband back, and everyone is on the same level. She’ll fail, and to be clear, later, the masked statue will be cut (obviously, you can pretend to be a buddha and cut statues, it’s no problem in this world…).
On this 2nd image, it’s the high priest facing Aizen. He’s here to teach her Buddha’s teaching. As you can see, the high priest’s face is where Mumyo was, and Aizen is still on the right side (almost in front of the statue). Notice the fire, and the camera angle, as if the high priest was just another victim for Aizen. This times it’s not about Ignorance facing Lust, it’s about Buddha itself facing human desires. An interesting fight.
Because there’s no much action here, these examples should be enough to convince you, even when it’s about filming people talking, Misumi did a great job.
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