Create Next App

Summary

A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality.

Cast

Tatsuya Nakadai

Mr. Okuyama

Mikijiro Hira

Dr. Hori

Machiko Kyō

Mrs. Okuyama

Kyôko Kishida

Nurse

Eiji Okada

The Boss

Miki Irie

Scarred Girl

Kakuya Saeki

Elder Brother of Scarred Girl

Minoru Chiaki

Apartment Superintendent

Etsuko Ichihara

Yoko

Hisashi Igawa

Man with Mole

Hideo Kanze

Male Patient

Kunie Tanaka

Mentally Ill Man #1

Sen Yano

Mentally Ill Man #2

Eiko Muramatsu

Secretary

Yoshie Minami

Old Lady

Bibari Maeda

Singer in Bar

Robert Dunham

Man in the Bar

Toru Takemitsu

Man Smoking in Bar (uncredited)

Mie Anso

Female Patient

Itomi Rei

Stabbed Woman

Yuriko Abe

Doctor's Wife

Shinobu Itomi

Crew

Director

Hiroshi Teshigahara

Novel, Screenplay

Kōbō Abe

Reviews

b

badelf

January 13, 2024

7

This is difficult because I expected to like this movie much more than I did. There is a lot of creativity in it, starting with the premise itself. The photography and sometimes other-wordly sets also impressed me.

What disappointed me was the absence of a communicated clear vision. At the end, I didn't know what I had seen or how I felt about it. I wasn't sure if the story was about mask & identity, or about cultural monster labels and prejudice, or about the aftermath of Nagasaki/Hiroshima bombing, or about love and the lack of it.