The Cats of Gokogu Shrine – first-look review

Nes­tled on the coast of south­ern Japan, about a 30-minute dri­ve from Okaya­ma, is the port town of Ushi­ma­do. It’s a rel­a­tive­ly qui­et place with less than 8000 human res­i­dents, and – in 2021 at least – about 30 fer­al felines. The stray cats pre­dom­i­nant­ly reside at the Gokogu Shrine, at the top of a large hill that over­looks the har­bour, and are the result of aban­doned pets being left to fend for them­selves over many years. For the most part, the cats and human res­i­dents have learned to coex­ist peace­ful­ly, but their pres­ence is the source of some debate among the towns­peo­ple. Some believe the cats could be good for tourism in a town with few eco­nom­ic prospects. Oth­ers feel the cats are unsan­i­tary, and their pres­ence con­tributes to lit­ter and poten­tial­ly more aban­doned ani­mals, as igno­rant own­ers feel adding anoth­er cat to the pop­u­la­tion won’t make any difference.

Kazuhi­ro Soda’s obser­va­tion­al doc­u­men­tary records these con­flicts, as well as the dai­ly lives of both feline and human res­i­dents, dur­ing a sin­gle year. The impact of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic appears in men­tions of vac­ci­na­tions and job redun­dan­cies, but the heart of the film remains the ups and downs that occur when ani­mals and humans have to share an envi­ron­ment. The city of Setouchi (which incor­po­rates the towns of Ushi­ma­do, Oku and Osa­fu­ne) has fund­ed a trap, neuter, release pro­gramme for the Gokogu cats, which sees vol­un­teers attempt to cur­tail the breed­ing of the exist­ing colony, while almost pro­vid­ing food and med­ical treat­ment. The idea is that with no new kit­tens being born, the pop­u­la­tion will decrease year on year, until ​“One day there will be no cats left,” as a local reflects sombrely.

While some of the elder­ly com­mu­ni­ty wel­come the even­tu­al end of Gokogu’s fer­al cat pop­u­la­tion, oth­ers will miss their pres­ence. A few reg­u­lar vis­i­tors come to the town to feed and socialise with the cats – one young woman takes care to wipe their dirty faces, and is wor­ried because she can’t find her favourite cat (Uchi, which means cow, as he’s black and white). She explains she loves cats but isn’t allowed one in her rent­ed apart­ment. ​“I come here to heal,” she tells Soda. Mean­while, the small har­bour is shared between retirees who spend their days fish­ing, and the cats who eager­ly await a share of the day’s catch. One gin­ger cat is par­tic­u­lar­ly adept at steal­ing the fish that are giv­en to them. The cam­era fol­lows her as she slinks away, fish in mouth, to give the food to her two young kittens.

Soda him­self is not unaf­fect­ed, as a cheeky gin­ger cat invites them­self into his home despite some protest. Dur­ing a typhoon, the cat arrives at Soda’s door seek­ing shel­ter, and Soda per­mits the ani­mal to stay in his porch to avoid the rain. The cat is shown asleep hap­pi­ly while the weath­er thun­ders down. This act of kind­ness is a recur­ring theme through­out the film, as var­i­ous mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty show their com­pas­sion for their neigh­bours. Even those who aren’t so keen on the cats don’t wish any bad for­tune upon them, rather con­cern them­selves with how they can clean up all the cat poop and the food detri­tus that comes from well-mean­ing custodians.

Immanuel Kant once said ​“We can judge the heart of a man by his treat­ment of ani­mals” and the sen­ti­ment rings true in The Cats of Gokogu Shrine, where humans and nature must try to co-exist as best they can. Yet there’s an under­ly­ing melan­choly about the film too, as old-timers reflect on how the town seems to have been left behind in urban­i­sa­tion, and the cat pop­u­la­tion begins to dwin­dle due to the suc­cess of the neu­ter­ing pro­gramme. The film ends with title cards that show the human and feline res­i­dents of the town who have passed away since film­ing, under­scor­ing the pas­sage of time and the inevitable changes to Ushimado’s land­scape. Soon there might not be any cats left at Gokogu Shrine, but the lives they have touched remain, and Soda’s spar­ing, sweet film is a gor­geous trib­ute to the inde­pen­dent felines, and the kind peo­ple who lived in har­mo­ny with them.