The film reaches back to a real place where people died from poison gas, then whispers why: a fox-spirit woman, beautiful enough to topple an empire, wearing the land itself as a weapon. That's not folklore, that's a curse with a face, a story that explains why certain ground never forgives. A 1968 film trusting you to sit with the weight of that.
A nine-tailed fox in ancient China takes the shape of a lovely young woman, wins over the emperor and brings disaster after disaster upon his realm. She later makes her way to Japan, where she becomes a beautiful maiden named Tamamo and charms that emperor as well. In the end she is exposed and slain, but with her dying breath she curses those who killed her and turns into Sesshoseki, a deadly stone. The film is based on a novel by Okamoto Kidou, which draws on the legend tied to a barren stretch of ground at the foot of Mt. Chausu, an active volcano in Tochigi Prefecture. Since the Heian period, poisonous gases seeping from that spot have claimed the lives of animals and people who strayed too near. The result is a fantasy feature that turns a real and dangerous landscape into myth.
