Fuse: teppô musume no torimonochô

It's about a young girl who was raised by her grandfather in a remote mountain area. All she knows about life is hunting. After her grandfather dies, her ne'er-do-well brother invites her to come to Edo to live with him. The story of the film is set in the latter part of the 19th century. That's when the novel by Kyokutei Bakin was written. The original novel was set around the year 1490. Anyway, the imagery of the film draws heavily on Tokugawa Period woodcuts and the Kabuki theater. The art work is very high quality. It is occasionally easy to get confused because there are a lot of references that are understandable only if you have a strong knowledge of Japanese culture of that period. When the girl comes to Edo she meets a young man who is a fuse. That's pronounced foo-say. A fuse is a sort of were-dog. The girl, named Hamaji, gets caught up in a conflict between caring about the young man and hunting him to collect the bounty. As I said, the art work is extraordinary and the backgrounds are jam-packed with slice-of-life images of the common life of that period.