(by Watuma on 23 February 2003)

Although unusually elaborate in some of its set pieces, The Ceiling at Utsunomiya is similar to many chambara films of its period. However, it's the first of Nobuo Nakagawa's movies to include a ghost (albeit very briefly), and introduces several of the devices the director was to repeat in later films as he became more involved in supernatural tales, such as snakes, bloody head wounds, facial disfigurement, vengeful spirits, an ambivalent attitude towards samurai and lengthy tracking shots.