In a Thicket (1996) Characters, Setting & Themes Explained

Release, runtime and language

1996 · 88 mins · Japanese

Loading streaming availability…

Directed by

Hisayasu Satô

Starring

Koh Takasugi, Kaori Sakagami, Shunsuke Matsuoka, Shigeki Hosokawa, Zeeko Uchiyama, Hitomi Shiraishi

Sato’s re‑imagining of In a Grove, the story that inspired Rashomon, replaces the original’s web of lies with a tangled network of desires, perversions such as incest, and occult phenomena—including an oracle‑demon, hallucinations and human sacrifice. A detective is summoned to unravel the encounter of a man and a woman with a bandit‑rapist in the woods, but each clue only deepens the mystery, revealing ever‑more unfathomable motives and bizarre events.