He made the promise to a dying seventy-nine-year-old man named Yatabei who had performed the same function for fifty years based on the conviction that the water from Demon Pond will flood the populated areas of Kotohiki Valley beneath Echizen's Three Province Peak if it the bell is not rung at the correct times.

The giant crab Kanigoro cuts it open for him but there is only water inside the small letter box that the catfish is carrying.

The lovesick Princess Shirayuki is determined to visit the prince but her nurse Lady Myriad explains that she is bound to a vow made by her ancestors that she cannot leave as long as the bell is rung at the proper times or else the gods and buddhas will curse her and her kin of the pond as well, leading to their destruction alongside the humans.

Princess Shirayuki rushes to destroy the bell holding her prisoner but just when she is about to strike it she hears Yuri singing a lullaby to her baby doll Taro because she misses Akira.

Yamazawa arrives and admonishes the villagers for their intentions, revealing himself as a priest of the Honganji sect and a professor at Tokyo University.

They demand Yuri but Akira fends them off with his scythe and tells them that Princess Shirayuki was once a girl named Yuki who was sacrificed to an ox and in revenge set fire to straw placed on its back and sent it into the village to burn it.

The musical score was written by frequent Miike collaborator Kōji Endō, who had previously worked with him on Rainy Dog (1997), Full Metal Yakuza (1997), The Bird People in China (1998), Young Thugs: Nostalgia (1998), Ley Lines (1999), Audition (1999), Dead or Alive (1999), Man, Next Natural Girl: 100 Nights in Yokohama (1999), The City of Lost Souls (2000), Visitor Q (2001), Agitator (2001), The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001), Dead or Alive: Final (2002), Sabu (2002), Graveyard of Honor (2002), The Man in White (2003), Gozu (2003), One Missed Call (2003), Zebraman (2004), Three... Extremes (2004), and Izo (2004).

[3] In a positive review of the film, Michael Den Boer of 10kbullets.com wrote that "Demon Pond is like a rare flower which begs to be seen by a larger audience" and that "the strongest asset for this production is the acting which is mesmerizing from top to bottom.