Among Yoshida's darkest films is his brooding and tempestuous adaptation of Brontë's best known work. Inspired by traditional Japanese ghost tales, Yoshida relocates Wuthering Heights to medieval Japan and draws upon the deep currents of violent, incestuous and necrophilic desire that run throughout the book. In Yoshida's hands, Brontë's classic tale of ill-fated love so revered text by the Surrealists—and by filmmakers from William Wyler to Jacques Rivette — becomes a fable about the dangers of an unnatural obsession with the past. A lush and darkly sumptuous film and Yoshida's only jidaigeki, or period film, Wuthering Heights was also to be one of the last great roles of legendary actor Yusaku Matsuda, who died the year after the film's release.