Wuthering Heights (1988 film)

Wuthering Heights
Film poster
Directed byYoshishige Yoshida
Written byYoshishige Yoshida
Based onWuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë
Produced by
  • Kazunobu Yamaguchi
  • Francis von Büren
Starring
CinematographyJun'ichirō Hayashi
Edited byTakao Shirae
Music byTōru Takemitsu
Production
companies
  • Mediactuel
  • Seiyu
Distributed byToho
Release date
  • 28 May 1988 (1988-05-28) (Japan)[1][2]
Running time
143 minutes
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

Wuthering Heights (Japanese: 嵐が丘, Hepburn: Arashi ga oka) is a 1988 Japanese Gothic jidaigeki drama film written and directed by Yoshishige Yoshida. It is based on the 1847 novel of the same name by Emily Brontë,[1][2] with the setting transplanted to the Muromachi period[3][4] of medieval Japan.[2][5] Yoshida's film adapts both halves of the novel, unlike other adaptations. Wuthering Heights was a French-Swiss-Japanese co-production,[6] and shown in competition at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival where it was nominated for the Palme d'Or.[7] The film stars Yūsaku Matsuda, in one of his final performances, as Onimaru (Heathcliff) and Yūko Tanaka as Kinu (Catherine), alongside Rentarō Mikuni, Tatsuo Nadaka and Eri Ishida. Toho released the film on May 28, 1988, in Japan.[1][2]

Plot

A homeless orphan is found under a bridge by Lord Takamaru, patriarch of the wealthy Yamabe family. He takes pity on the child and brings him back to his estate, Higashi-no-sho (Wuthering Heights), a desolate region close to the volcanic Fire Mountain. Takamaru is a priest who worships a serpent god. His family are in charge of conducting Shinto rituals to satisfy their god, which they believe prevents the mountain from erupting. However, the house is divided into two clans, with a feud underway between the estate's east (Takamaru) and west (Nishinosho) mansions.

Takamaru names the adopted child Onimaru, so-called for his "demonic" appearance. He is both apprehensive of the boy's nature and excited by his "boldness." Onimaru is raised alongside the Lord's two children, Hidemaru and Kinu. Hidemaru, entitled and elitist, resents Onimaru for being favored by their father despite his "low-born" status. He treats Onimaru cruelly. Kinu, however, bonds with the boy. As the years pass, Onimaru grows into a brooding but charismatic man who has fallen in love with his foster sister. However, after Kinu has her first period, Takamaru tells her that women of their clan who come of age must serve as priestesses in the mountain shrine. Kinu rejects this familial obligation, desiring freedom instead. She marries Mitsuhiko, a wealthy man from the west mansion who befits her societal stature, to escape her fate, but not before seducing Onimaru the night before her wedding. This fills Onimaru with rage and resentment. He endeavors to gain stewardship of Higashi-no-sho and take back Kinu.

Hidemaru, disgusted by Takamaru's continued embrace of Onimaru, leaves for the city. He becomes successful and starts a family, with his wife Shino bearing a son, Yoshimaru. Later, a band of trespassing rōnin murder Takamaru right in front of Onimaru. After receiving news of the death of his father, Hidemaru decides to reclaim his birthright. Though the family discusses the possibility of Onimaru inheriting the estate, Hidemaru arrives and drives him off the land.

A few years later, Kinu is with child. Meanwhile, Onimaru has become a skillful fighter, gaining the Shogun's favor and a local lordship in the process. He reappears on the grounds of the estate, still obsessed with Kinu, who is torn between her affection for kindly Mitsuhiko and her lust for Onimaru. Soon after, Shino is waylaid by bandits, who rape and murder her. Hidemaru becomes a broken alcoholic in the wake of her death, no longer able to fulfill his duties to the serpent god. He wanders into a forbidden village, where he, too, is murdered by the locals. With the death of Hidemaru, Onimaru finally gains control of Higashi-no-sho. Onimaru vengefully exploits Yoshimaru, treating him as little more than an indentured servant.

Mitsuhiko's sister Tae comes to work at the east mansion. She propositions Onimaru, saying that his intense jealousy of Mitsuhiko proves he is "more man than demon." Onimaru takes her words poorly and, in his rage, assaults her. Afterwards, Tae commits suicide by hanging. Simultaneously, the Nishinosho clan is attacked by bandits. It is revealed that the bandits were hired by Onimaru. Mitsuhiko is killed in the fray, while Kinu births their daughter. As she lays dying due to complications from childbirth, Kinu gives her daughter her own name, then promises to drag Onimaru to hell. Kinu dies and is buried. Onimaru, haunted by the memory of Kinu, exhumes her corpse.

Twelve years later, daughter Kinu has grown into a young woman. She has worked her whole life as an orphaned servant at Higashi-no-sho, under the increasingly deranged Onimaru. She falls for Yoshimaru, now grown and filled with ire for his oppressive uncle. They plot to rebel against Onimaru, who rules the estate with an iron fist, though he is aging and maddened by an unanswerable love for Kinu.

The final straw occurs when Onimaru brings the coffin containing Kinu's remains to Higashi-no-sho, intending to have sex with her. Enraged at the way her mother's body has been defiled, Kinu finally turns against Onimaru, while Yoshimaru, drawing a sword, cuts off his right hand. They expel him from the Yamabe estate. As Fire Mountain erupts, Onimaru takes the coffin into the crater, disappearing into its fiery maw.

Cast

Background

In a 2009 interview, Yoshida stated, "Then I made Wuthering Heights... as pure cinema, just as a cinematic challenge."[3][8] Yoshida also said that his adaptation, "owes as much to Georges Bataille as to Emily Brontë."[3][4]

Critical analysis

According to Film at Lincoln Center, Yoshida's adaptation is "a powerfully stark, elemental take on the story." They also describe it as expressionistic, "savage" and "[approaching] primeval horror".[9]

Hayley Scanlon of Windows on Worlds stated, "Yoshida’s vision is darker, more disturbing than that of the big budget epics which aimed to recapture golden age glories."[6] She described the story as one of generational trauma and classism, also writing, "Yoshida’s Wuthering Heights is less a story of forbidden, transgressive loves than it is of elemental destruction, the anger of the gods manifested as imploded repression and its fiery aftermath."[6]

Dana Reinoos, writing for Screen Slate, described the film as an "unruly" outlier in Yoshida's filmography.[3] Reinoos states that, though the film is an adaptation, "Yoshida pulls and molds the novel’s essence until it is a thoroughly Japanese film,"[3] emphasizing the desolate setting, Takemitsu's score of Japanese flutes, taiko drums and biwa, and the "purposeful physical movements and barren set design reminiscent of traditional Noh theater."[3] Reinoos concluded that Yoshida's adaptation is surprising to fans of the director as well as fans of the novel, and that "Yoshida audaciously mixes Gothic romance, Japanese tradition, and French philosophy into an otherworldly swirl of ghosts, blood, and romance from beyond the grave."[3]

Awards and nominations

41st Cannes Film Festival

13th Hochi Film Awards

12th Japan Academy Awards[10]

43rd Mainichi Film Awards

References

  1. ^ a b c "嵐が丘" (in Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. Retrieved 16 July 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d "嵐が丘(1988)" (in Japanese). Kinenote. Retrieved 16 July 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Reinoos, Dana (3 December 2023). "Wuthering Heights". screenslate.com. Retrieved 16 February 2026.
  4. ^ a b Catania, Saviour (2014). The Bronte Sisters in Other Wor(l)ds. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 169–190. ISBN 978-1-137-40515-9. Retrieved 16 February 2026.
  5. ^ Harrison, Sam (12 February 2026). "Wuthering Heights on Screen". scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk. Retrieved 16 February 2026.
  6. ^ a b c Scanlon, Hayley (21 September 2019). "Wuthering Heights (嵐が丘, Kiju Yoshida, 1988)". windowsonworlds.com. Retrieved 16 February 2026.
  7. ^ "Arashi ga oka". Festival de Cannes. Retrieved 16 July 2023.
  8. ^ Fujiwara, Chris (2 April 2009). "No Wasted Moments: The anti-cinema of Kiju Yoshida". movingimagesource.us. Archived from the original on 13 June 2016. Retrieved 16 February 2026.
  9. ^ "Wuthering Heights (1988)". filmlinc.org. Retrieved 16 February 2026.
  10. ^ a b c "The 12th Japan Academy Award for Excellence". japan-academy-prize.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved 16 February 2026.
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