Kwaidan contains four seperate ghost stories, and all of them has roots in old Japanese folk tales. Black Hair: a poor samurai who divorces his true love to marry for money, but finds the marriage disastrous and returns to his old wife, only to discover something eerie about her. The Woman in the Snow: stranded in a snowstorm, a woodcutter meets an icy spirit in the form of a woman who spares his life on the condition that he never tell anyone about her. Hoichi the Earless: Hoichi is a blind musician, living in a monastery who sings so well that a ghostly imperial court commands him to perform the epic ballad of their death battle for them. But the ghosts are draining away his life, and the monks set out to protect him by writing a holy mantra over his body to make him invisible to the ghosts. In a Cup of Tea: a writer tells the story of a man who keep seeing a mysterious face reflected in his cup of tea.
For me, the most striking things with Kwaidan aren't the creepy stories, it's the sets and the beautiful matte paintings that I'll remember long after the film is over. The haunting atmosphere is thick, and because the film is made up of four stories instead of one it never feels like it outstays its welcome even though it's three hours long. Directed by Masaki Kobayashi two years after his thought-provoking and original samurai film Harakiri, he by far proved he's one of the heavyweights in Japanese cinema. One of the most classic and eerily captivating ghost anthologies in film history, a crash course in Japanese folklore and full of lush set design, Kwaidan proves to be a true force when it comes to all sorts of spectres, and a stunning work of art.
For me, the most striking things with Kwaidan aren't the creepy stories, it's the sets and the beautiful matte paintings that I'll remember long after the film is over. The haunting atmosphere is thick, and because the film is made up of four stories instead of one it never feels like it outstays its welcome even though it's three hours long. Directed by Masaki Kobayashi two years after his thought-provoking and original samurai film Harakiri, he by far proved he's one of the heavyweights in Japanese cinema. One of the most classic and eerily captivating ghost anthologies in film history, a crash course in Japanese folklore and full of lush set design, Kwaidan proves to be a true force when it comes to all sorts of spectres, and a stunning work of art.
Genre: Drama/Fantasy/Horror
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