The Living Skeleton

The tale begins on the freighter Dragon King, which has been taken over by a motley band of good-for-nothings (led by a mysterious scarred man in sunglasses) looking to get their hands on the cargo of gold the ship is carrying. The passengers and crew, their legs bound by shackles and chains, are gathered on deck, where they are gleefully massacred by the thieves. With the witnesses dead and the gold theirs, the murderous thugs set the Dragon King drifting out across the vast Pacific.

Three years later all is quiet on the Japanese coast. In a small seaside church lives Saeko (Kikko Matsuoka, Black Lizard and You Only Live Twice), who was taken in by kindly priest (Masumi Okada, The Space Giants) after her only living family, her sister Yoriko, disappeared under mysterious circumstances three years earlier. Moody and frequently depressed, Saeko divides her time between serving the church that took her in and cavorting with her would-be suitor, young restaurant owner Mochizuki (Yasunori Irikawa). Of course things can’t stay quiet forever, and a while out on a fun-filled afternoon dive Saeko and Mochizuki stumble upon a gaggle of floating skeletons, all chained together by their feet. Such a discovery can only be an omen of bad things to come and soon the Dragon King itself, enshrouded in ethereal fog, appears just offshore. —wtf-film.com