A film adaptation of an ancient tale, taking us back to 12th century Japan. Two old men, each with an enormous growth bulging from his cheek, have adventures with mythical ogre-like creatures with magical powers; one man is punished, one rewarded. The script follows the plot of the original, but not its themes or logic. All the main incidents of the folktale are shown, and the characters understand their experiences in the way the legend has come down to us. But readers will find that the old men completely misinterpret the truth of what happens to them. Exploring the origins of the tale from a psychological point of view, the script purports to tell what actually occurred. It shows that the legend arises from misunderstanding, the failure of communication-between people, between cultures-a central theme in this retelling. Grave misunderstandings result; the wrong man is honored by human society, the wrong man suffers.
This version is not a moral tale. The main characters are not simple reductions to "good" and "bad," but are given fully developed personalities, each with his share of virtues and faults. It is their personalities, rather than moral or immoral behavior, that largely determine their fates.
The structure of the film falls naturally into three parts. PART I, which is episodic in form, establishes the characters' personalities and relationships, and introduces the ogres. PART II, which is in a more direct narrative form, shows the two men's preparations for and second meeting with the ogres. Here the original tale ends. The author has added PART III, a return to the episodic form, which shows what happens to the men after their second adventure with the ogres.
From the author's notes: "A principal attraction of this story was the opportunity it offered to depict Japanese farm life. For me the most beautiful architecture in the world is the Japanese thatch-roof farm house. And the life of the farmer, while very hard, is clean and spare. Involved as it is with the essentials of life, it translates for me into a kind of inner peace. It is my hope that, as well as the hardness, some of the simplicity and beauty of that world live in this screenplay."