Watch out for women who spear you, strip you and throw you in a pit

I watched Kaneto Shindo's psychological horror classic "Onibaba" last night, while waiting for my wife Jill to return from a week in New Orleans.
Set in feudal Japan, the film follows the struggle for survival by two impoverished women -- a young war widow, played by Jitsuko Yoshimura, and her former mother-in-law, played by Nobuko Otowa.
The pair's survival technique blurs the lines between good and evil: In a swampy, reed-filled farm territory devoid of crops because of seemingly ceaseless wars, the women ambush traveling samurai, kill them, dispose of the bodies in a deep pit and sell the stolen armor to an unsavory man for food.
This approach aids their survival in two ways, by securing food and by eliminating roving samurai, whose raping and pillaging, combined with bad weather, helped destroy the crops the women so desperately need.
The women's relationship endures throughout their almost feral ambush attacks, but cannot endure when lusty neighbor Hachi, played by Kei Sato (one of my favorite actors) arrives back on the scene.
The above description simply scratches the surface of this wonderful film, released in 1964. There are supernatural elements, plot twists and beautiful cinematography to satisfy most film fans.
The acting is also superb. Last night, I concentrated my attention on the performance of Jitsuko Yoshimura (pictured inset), quite possibly my favorite Japanese actress of the 1960s.
I know Yoshimura for her range. In Masahiro Shinoda's "Ibun Sarutobi Sasuke (Samurai Spy)," Yoshimura plays Omiya, an orphaned girl who gradually falls in love with the protagonist as both try to decipher the complicated weave of deceit surrounding them. Yoshimura embodies refreshing innocence and seems refined to the point of delicacy in "Ibun Sarutobi Sasuke."
In "Onibaba," she hammers wet laundry dry with a ferocious rage and eats with her hands like a ravenous animal.
When she and Hachi consummate their lust, it is done sweating and screeching -- like the basest of animals.
"Onibaba" is a film to watch repeatedly -- like all great films -- and Yoshimura is an actress whose career I will continue to investigate. I promise to mind the pit, though.