Main Cast: Rentaro Mikuni, Michiyo Aratama, Misako Watanabe, Keiko Kishi, Tetsuro Tamba, Tatsuya Nakadai, Katsuo Nakamura
Release Year: 1964
Country: JP
Run Time: 164 minutes
Plot
Kwaidan is an impressively mounted anthology horror film based on four stories by Lafcadio Hearn, a Greek-born writer who began his career in the United States at the age of 19 and moved permanently to Japan in 1890 at the age of 40, where he eventually became a subject of the empire and took on the name Koizumi Yakuno. Hearn became a conduit of Japanese culture to western audiences, publishing journalism and then fiction incorporating traditional Japanese themes and characters. "Black Hair," the first tale, concerns a samurai who cannot support his wife; he leaves her for a life of wealth and ease with a princess. Returning years later, he spends the night with his wife in their now-dilapidated house, only to awake to a horrifying discovery which drives him insane. In "The Woman of the Snow" (deleted from U.S. theatrical prints after the film's Los Angeles opening; it is on the DVD version), two woodcutters seek refuge during a snowstorm in what appears to be an abandoned hut. A snow witch appears and kills one of them but lets his partner free. Years later, the survivor meets and married a lovely young woman, only to learn her true identity. The most visually impressive tale is "Hoichi the Earless," in which a blind musician is asked by the ghost of a samurai to play for his late infant lord at a tomb. The monks who house the musician cover him with tattoos to prevent any harm coming to him, but they forget his ears. He returns from the engagement with his ears cut off; however, his misadventure propels him to fame. "In a Cup of Tea" concerns a samurai who is haunted by the vision of a man he sees reflected in his tea. Even after he drinks from the cup, he still sees the man while on guard duty. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Review
Elegantly shot in widescreen by Yoshio Miyajima and impressively scored by Toru Takemitsu (Japan's greatest film composer), Kwaidan is a visual or aural feast. It's also the last great film by director Masaki Kobayashi, best known for his epic World War II trilogy The Human Condition. For contemporary western film audiences used to slice-and-dice horror films cut to rock & roll rhythms, it will seem impossibly slow and tame, but that's because it makes no concession at all to western sensibilities. On its original release in 1965, the film was greeted with indifference by U.S. audiences, whose idea of Japanese horror was honed by the pulpy exploits of Godzilla and Mothra. Lafcadio Hearn's source stories delve into the psyches of men who venture into unknown territory; they often begin fearlessly but wind up mad or maimed by their experiences, often at the hands of evil women. In an odd way, Kwaidan resembles a series of film noir tales. Ultimately, though, it is a series of very spooky ghost stories, clearly mounted with great skill on lovingly constructed studio sets (designed by Shigemasa Toda), whose artificiality actually ratchets up the sense of dislocation. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
"The Black Hair" was adapted from "The Reconciliation", which appeared in Hearn's collection Shadowings (1900). A man living in Kyoto divorces his wife, a weaver, for another woman, in order to attain greater social status. The marriage is unhappy, and his wife expels him from their home. He returns to his first wife, who readily accepts him, but later he discovers her to be no more than clothing, hair and a skull.
"Hoichi the Earless" is also adapted from Hearn's Kwaidan (though it incorporates aspects of The Tale of the Heike that are mentioned, but never translated, in Hearn's book). It depicts the folkloric tale of Hoichi the Earless, a blind musician, or biwa hoshi, whose specialty is singing the The Tale of the Heike, about the Battle of Dan-no-ura, a war fought between Emperor Antoku and Minamoto no Yoritomo during the last phase of the Genpei War. Hoichi eventually finds himself singing to the ghosts of the very heroes that are the subject of his song.
"In a Cup of Tea" is adapted from Hearn's Kottō: Being Japanese Curios, with Sundry Cobwebs (1902).
Style
While Kwaidan is often described as a horror film, it is not gory or sensational, relying instead on slow buildups of tension and on quiet suspense. Kobayashi's visual style is expressionist, using obviously artificial sets and colorful backdrops lit from behind for many of his outdoor scenes, lending them an almost fairy tale-like quality (the graveyard scenes in "Hōichi the Earless" and the background depicting the giant eye of "The Woman of the Snow" are examples).
