A dead wife's promise turns honeymoon into horror-comedy chaos. Til death do us part? She disagrees.
One night, as pub owner Sotaro is caring for his sick wife, Shizuko, she asks him to promise that if she dies, he will never remarry. Thinking she is just being dramatic, he promises and tells her to go to sleep. When he wakes the next morning, however, Shizuko is dead. Sotaro keeps his promise, until one day he meets Satoko. The two quickly fall in love, and agree to get married. Their first night together, however, is interrupted by Shizuko, who is angry over her husband's broken promise. Sotaro and Satoko must find some way of appeasing the spirit before she drives them from their home.
Acting
Shigeru Muroi's dead wife steals every scene she's not alive in.
Direction
Watanabe balances warm romance and petty ghost tantrums.
Writing
Promise as horror premise: simple, cruel, weirdly funny.
Director
Takayoshi Watanabe
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Japanese 'onryō' (vengeful ghost) tradition typically features wronged women; here the 'wrong' is petty promise-breaking, subverting the trope.
1994 sat in a weird J-horror limbo: pre-Ringu, when ghosts could still be inconvenient ex-wives rather than crawling nightmares.
JP
