Kwaidan

This film of four ghost stories, based on Lafcadio Hearn’s retelling of Japanese folktales (though only one seems to be specifically from the book called Kwaidan), is a visual treat. It is more meditative than scary, having the ceremonial dignity of traditional Japanese theater. Indeed, with its live actors placed in artificial, sometimes even painted, sets and backdrops, it has very much the air of expanded stage plays. (Even the comic servants in the longest story, “Hoichi the Earless,” bear more resemblance to Shakespeare’s clown characters than to real people.) Its beauty lies not so much in the tales themselves as in the brilliant colors and dancelike movements with which they are told. Every shot is as carefully composed as a Japanese painting. The strange (at least to Western ears) music and sound effects add to the striking yet distancing mood.As Geoffrey O’Brien points out in the thoughtful essay included with the DVD, the four stories feature promises broken, deliberately or otherwise, and the dangers of interaction between the natural and supernatural worlds. In the first story, “The Black Hair,” a selfish samurai deserts his painfully patient first wife, then finds, after a long absence, that going home again is not as easy as he had hoped. The young woodcutter in the second story, “The Woman of the Snow,” more understandably forgets a promise he made long ago in what seemed like a dream—but with equally disastrous results. In “Hoichi the Earless,” the blind young musician-monk Hoichi does not willingly stop entertaining a court of long-dead nobles with his bardic account of the battle in which they all perished; he is more or less forced to do so by the older monks who are trying to protect him, but he is nonetheless the one who suffers when their protection proves not quite good enough. The final tale, “In a Cup of Tea,” is a suitably mystifying story-within-a-story that, in a sense, breaks a promise to its viewers in that it has no ending.This Criterion recording, a 2015 Blu-Ray reissue of Masaki Kobayashi’s 1965 film, is beautiful throughout, as they usually are, though it is a little grainy at times on a large TV screen. Its dialogue is in Japanese, with English subtitles. I recommend it highly to all lovers of the beautiful, the magical, and the surreal, portrayed with grace and style.

For those looking for cheap jump scares and gory special effects creatures, steer clear of Kwaidan. You will be as disappointed as you will be confused. Kwaidan is a horror movie in the classic storytelling tradition. The horror is in the atmosphere and in the imagination of the viewer not in the jump cut or special effect. The film is simply gorgeous! It's more like a moving picture scroll than a film. Kwaidan has a dream-like quality that takes you into the realm of the subconscious world of fairy tale.Kwaidan consists of four short stories.Black Hair - is about a selfish samurai who abandons his poor wife to get position and a wealthy wife. He grows tired of her and his new life and longs for his old wife. Their reunion is bittersweet and ghoulish.The Snow Woman - the beginning is just surreal with an imaginative painted backdrop from which the eyes of the snow spirit appear. It feels like stepping into one of those hoary old forests of fairy tales. Yuki Onna is the snow woman who freezes her victims. She represents the beauty and cruelty of winter. In this tale she lets a young woodsman live so long as he never tells his tale of their meeting.Hoichi the Earless - this is my favorite story! It tells of a blind biwa player who unknowingly plays for the ghosts of a defeated samurai clan. The battle scenes are beautiful and sad. The colors, the imaginary, and the sound of the biwa combine to make this story a masterpiece in every respect. To protect Hoichi from these restless forlorn spirits, he is covered in Buddhist texts from head to toe all save his ears...In a Tea Cup - this is a strange story that never really gets explained as the viewer will discover at the end. A samurai retainer to quench his thirst drinks from a tea cup from which the image of strange smiling man appears. Later the samurai is visited by this strange samurai and his retainers.If you like movies and you like good old fashion ghost storytelling then Kwaidan is for you. Just the set pieces alone are worth watching the film for.

Truly a masterpiece in filmmaking, and an especially spooky and original horror movie. It’s intelligent, and each of the stories in this trilogy is concise, focused and brilliantly acted and directed. The acting, directing, sets and cinematography are excellent. The music and sound effects are equally good. The stories are more unsettling, creepy and surprising rather than bloody and gory. The actors are all excellent.Kwaidan is very different from other horror films of the era, and the unexpected makes this movie even more memorable. It’s truly a classic.