Onibaba 1964 Japanese B1x3 Billboard
This is a Japanese B1x3 Billboard (86"x40") for Onibaba, a landmark horror film in Japanese cinema — striking in its visuals and also deeply unsettling and erotic. In the pecking order of Japanese posters, typically the bigger you get the more rare the poster. That makes this Japanese billboard, consisting of (3) overlapping B1 posters, probably the rarest country of origin poster for the film.
Set during a 14th-century civil war in medieval Japan, the story follows two women—a mother and her daughter-in-law—who live in a vast field of tall reeds. They survive by murdering lost, infighting samurai and selling their armor and belongings for food. The narrative centers on themes of survival, sexual jealousy, and betrayal after a neighbor returns from the war and begins an affair with the younger woman.
The film is celebrated for its stark, high-contrast black-and-white cinematography and its eerie, atonal free jazz score by Hikaru Hayashi. The poster itself is a rare Japanese B1x3 marquee format, composed of three panels joined together.