is a Japanese

Cinema of Japan

The has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world – as of 2009 the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. Movies have been produced in Japan since 1897, when the first foreign cameramen arrived...

 jidaigeki

Jidaigeki

is a genre of film, television, and theatre in Japan. The name means "period drama" and is usually the Edo period of Japanese history, from 1603 to 1868. Some, however, are set much earlier—Portrait of Hell, for example, is set during the late Heian period—and the early Meiji era is also a popular...

(period drama) film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 directed by Shiro Toyoda

Shiro Toyoda

was a Japanese film director.-Career:Born in Kyoto, Toyoda moved to Tokyo in his teens and began studying under the pioneering film director Eizō Tanaka. He joined Shōchiku's Kamata studio in 1924 and worked as an assistant director under Yasujirō Shimazu...

 and starring Tatsuya Nakadai

Tatsuya Nakadai

is a Japanese leading film actor.He became a star after he was discovered working as a Tokyo shop clerk by filmmaker Masaki Kobayashi during the early 1950s...

 and Kinnosuke Nakamura. It is based on the 1918 short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 Hell Screen

Hell Screen

is a short story written by Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. It was originally published in 1918 as a serialization in two newspapers. It was later published in a collection of Akutagawa short stories, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke zenshū.- Translation :...

by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

Ryunosuke Akutagawa

was a Japanese writer active in the Taishō period in Japan. He is regarded as the "Father of the Japanese short story". He committed suicide at age of 35 through an overdose of barbital.-Early life:...

.

Plot summary

The story, set in the Heian era, depicts the conflict between Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

n painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 Yoshihide (Nakadai) and his Japanese patron

Patronage

Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...

, the cruel and egotistical daimyo

Daimyo

is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...

 Horikawa (Nakamura).

Horikawa demands that Yoshihide decorate the walls of his new temple

Temple

A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...

 with an image of Buddha

Gautama Buddha

Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...

, but Yoshihide refuses, insisting that he cannot paint what he does not see. In Horikawa's realm, Yoshihide can see nothing but the suffering of peasants. He creates several gruesome images that appear to have some sort of magic

Magic (paranormal)

Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...

al power. (For example, a painting of a man killed by Hosokawa's soldiers at the beginning of the film gives off the stench of a rotting corpse.) These all appall Horikawa, and he demands that the paintings be destroyed.

Ultimately, Yoshihide asks that he be allowed to portray hell

Hell

In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...

 on a screen for the wall of the temple, and Hosokawa agrees. Yoshihide asks for one thing to be in the centre of his painting: a burning carriage with Horikawa in it. Hosokawa agrees to this, but to provide a model for the scene, he has Yoshihide's daughter, Yoshika (played by Yoko Naito), chained in the carriage. Yoshihide watches in horror as his daughter is burned alive, before going on to paint his masterpiece.

Before the completed screen is unveiled, Yoshihide hangs himself. When Hosokawa looks at the screen, he is horrified to see himself portrayed in hell. The climax of the film is slightly vague, but the audience is led to believe that Horikawa becomes trapped in his own private hell through the power of the portrait.