In a hospital during a power outage, Dr. Tetsuichiro Kuzumi [Toshio Hosokawa] finds his thoughts drifting to a chain of memories. A memory unfolds in which he and his wife, Yoriko, leave bustling Tokyo behind, moving to a centuries-old house in Kyushu to help cure her tuberculosis. They are not alone; Yoriko is accompanied by her elder brother Kenichi. As the car glides along the road, their driver [Eijir Kawai] notices a black cat cross their path, and a near accident sends them teetering toward a railing and the sea. They eventually reach Spiraea Mansion, a looming, spine-tingling estate, where Yoriko’s first impressions are filled with unease: a cat, a flock of crows, and a bloodstained wall, and a fleeting glimpse of an eerie old woman, Old Woman, who vanishes before others can confirm her presence.
Inside, Tetsuichiro transforms part of the mansion into a clinic, hoping the setting will aid Yoriko’s fragile health. The old woman reappears at the clinic, startling Tetsuichiro’s assistant and triggering the dog Taro to bark. When the assistant departs to fetch the doctor, the old woman vanishes—only to return moments later and choke Yoriko, though she does not kill her. Later, the same figure reappears and tells Tetsuichiro that a family has a sick child, prompting him to ride out on a rickshaw. He arrives and finds that the family did not summon him, and in his absence the old woman murders Taro and copies Tetsuichiro’s voice to gain entry, where she again strangles Yoriko. Yoriko later speaks of dreams in which cats bite her. Curious and unsettled, Tetsuichiro and Kenichi visit a Buddhist temple, where a priest begins to recount the mansion’s history and its dark reputation.
The story then slips back in time to the Sengoku period (c. 1467–1600). The house is revealed to be Spiraea Mansion, governed by the short-tempered lord Ishido Sakon no Shogen [Arata Shibata]. When Kokingo, a samurai, is ordered to teach Shogen how to play Go, Kokingo accuses the lord of cheating, and Shogen murders him with a sword. Miyaji, Kokingo’s blind mother, learns of her son’s death and Shogen’s role in it. In the wake of tragedy, Miyaji urges her cat Tama to avenge Kokingo and Miyaji. The cat licks up Miyaji’s blood as a cursed thread winds through the generations. Shogen’s son Shinnojo longs to marry a servant named Yae [Noriko Kitazawa], but their union faces class barriers. An attempted blessing from Shogen is refused, and Shogen’s abuse continues; Shinnojo confronts his father, and apparitions of Kokingo and Miyaji haunt the dining hall. The shape-shifting bakeneko (a supernatural cat) uses Miyaji’s appearance to strike, killing a servant named Sato, and ultimately both Shogen and Shinnojo perish in a sword fight. The tale—told by a temple priest—links Saheiji to Yoriko, revealing that Saheiji is Yoriko’s ancestor and offering a protective charm to ward off evil spirits.
As a storm rages that night, the wind tears away the charms. Tetsuichiro moves to close the shutters, and the old woman resurfaces to strangle Yoriko once more. The wall of Yoriko’s room crumbles, unveiling the mummified skeleton of Kokingo. Back in the present hospital, it’s explained that Yoriko and Tetsuichiro buried Kokingo’s remains properly, giving him a final rest. Yoriko, now sensing a new sense of peace, discovers a small cat and joyfully adopts it, a quiet and hopeful note after the long night of hauntings.
The film moves with an unhurried, steady rhythm that threads a medical crisis in the present with a tragic lineage from the past. The atmosphere blends clinical immediacy with an almost folkloric dread, as the house’s walls seem to whisper the stories of lovers and warriors, ghosts and go-sleep cat legends, and a family lineage that ties Yoriko to Saheiji and beyond. The performances fuse quiet, restrained emotion with supernatural suggestion, inviting viewers to feel the weight of history pressing down on a single family across centuries. In the end, the bone-deep resolve of Yoriko and Tetsuichiro to acknowledge and honor Kokingo’s memory offers a measure of closure, even as the mansion’s shadows linger in memory.
