Being Film #22 for Hooptober 2025
I came away from Demon Pond with a lot of questions. Not about the plot: this is a relatively straightforward folktale about forest spirits, obligations and the ramifications of not obliging them. The film is made with an abundance of care and no small amount of visual flourish. But in the end I left asking myself “why?” Why did this need to be told? There are shades of questions around modernism encroaching on nature, the winnowing of religion as humanity shifts to more capitalistic, selfish gains, and the time-old debate about the death of one serving the many (the same thing at the heart of the new Fantastic Four reboot, which I watched the same day). But why this movie? Maybe I’m being hard, but I walked away from it with no benefit other than having chalked a film off my Hooptober list as well as my ever-increasing Criterion pile.
THE QUICK SUMMARY: Scholar Yamasawa travels through the parched lands in search of something called the Demon Pond, where legend has it a dragon dwells. He passes a town in desperate need of relief from the drought and comes upon a lone cabin in the woods overlooking the town. There’s a bell and a young woman. There’s also a hidden man, Akira, Yamasawa’s close friend who disappeared some years ago. Now he’s married to the mysterious Yuri and compelled through obligation to ring the bell three times, or else the Demon Pond will overflow and wipe out the town. Soon this obligation becomes an impediment to both the thirsty town and the spirits who wish to travel. It ends badly for almost everyone…
Like many Criterion editions, the film looks fantastic, and director Masahiro Shinoda has an eye for creating some vibrant images; Demon Pond takes a big left-hand turn about mid-way through the film to focus on the spirits of the forest, and the costumes and transitions are beautiful.
Shinoda has a fascination with older forms of storytelling, and he makes great use of Kabuki to tell the story, the feature of which is the performance from Bandō Tamasaburō V, one of the preeminent female impersonators of his time. He plays both Yuri the wife and the Dragon Princess, and both performances are nuanced and capture a dreamlike magic that carries the more fantastical elements of the film.
At over two hours, there’s a lot of Demon Pond that gets bogged down, and the end feels somewhat inevitable, especially if you’ve ever seen Raiders of the Lost Ark. Overall it’s a fine movie, has a great middle with the fantasy elements, but otherwise feels like something that was very much of its time, leaving little impression now.
Although again: could just be me.
Cinema Dual 
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