A master sculptor and his apprentice are trapped in a bad snow storm after finding a special tree for carving a statue for the local temple. Finding refuge in an abandoned hut they celebrate their luck in finding the tree but soon they are visited by the Snow Witch who freezes the sculptor to death but takes pity on the apprentice. He must promise to never speak of this or she'll return and kill him.
The story of the snow woman is well known within Japanese mythology, and there are numerous tales where Yuki-onna appears, but The Snow Woman specifically adapts Lafcadio Hearn's version from 1904. It's the same story that's included in Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan (1964), but a bit more fleshed out.
Although some of the horror elements have faded throughout the years since its release, I thought the image of the yellow-eyed snow witch with her piercing stare was genuinely creepy. The film has a theatre stage quality to it, and that becomes one of its true strengths with how beautiful the set design is throughout.
If you want a deeper dive into the story of the Yuki-onna (Snow Woman), look no further, the scenes of the film are literally pages from Japanese folklore coming to life.
Genre: Horror/Romance. 1h 20min.
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