Product Description

Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, Kwaidan features four nightmarish tales in which terror thrives and demons lurk. Adapted from traditional Japanese ghost stories, this lavish, widescreen production drew extensively on Kobayashi's own training as a student of painting and fine arts. Criterion is proud to present Kwaidan in a new ravishing color transfer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16232 in DVD
• Brand: Image Entertainment
• Released on: 2000-10-10
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Japanese
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 125 minutes

Amazon.com
A masterpiece of filmmaking artifice and mood-setting atmosphere, Kwaidan consists of four ghost stories adapted from the fiction of Greek-born Lafcadio Hearn (a.k.a. Yakumo Koizumi, 1850-1904), who assimilated into Japanese culture so thoroughly that his writings reveal no evidence of Western influence. So it is that these four cinematic interpretations--perhaps more accurately described as tales of spectral visitation--are sublimely Japanese in tone and texture, created entirely in a studio with frequently stunning results. There are painterly images here that remain the most beautiful and haunting in all of Japanese cinema, presented with the purity of silent film, sparsely accompanied by post-synchronized sounds and music (by Toru Takemitsu) that enhance the otherworldly effect of director Masaki Kobayashi's meticulous imagery. When viewed in a receptive frame of mind, Kwaidan can be intensely hypnotic.

Each of the four stories find their protagonists confronted by spirits that compel them to (respectively) make amends for past mistakes, maintain vows of silence, satisfy the yearnings of the undead, or capture phantoms that remain frightfully elusive. As each tale progresses, their supernatural elements grow increasingly intense and distant from the confines of reality. With careful use of glorious color and wide-screen composition, Kwaidan exists in a netherworld that is both real and imagined, its characters never quite sure they can trust what they've seen and heard. Vastly different from the more overt shocks of Western horror, the film casts a supernatural spell that remains timelessly effective. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

The greatest Japanese horror film ever made
Wow! What a gorgeous film this is! Kwaidan is quite possibly the most beautiful scary movie you will ever see. The cinematography in Kwaidan is superb, and the film has an epic feel to it, rather unusual for a horror film. In fact, I would even call this film the "2001" of horror movies, and I imagine that if Stanley Kubrick had gotten around to directing a Japanese-style horror movie, it would look a lot like this film.

Kwaidan was made in the mid-1960s, and at the time, it was the most expensive Japanese film ever made. It was a big success at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize. The film is a collection of four ghost stories, told with a decidedly Japanese flair. The first story is about a man who abandons his wife only to return years later. The second story is about a man's encounter with a snow vampiress. The third story, my favorite, is about a monk who gives nocturnal recitals for mysterious and ghostly hosts. The last story is about a man who drinks down a ghost. That's all you really need to know, as the stories are quite straight-forward. It is the manner in which they are told and photographed that makes them so powerful.

The pacing is very deliberate and slow but gives you plenty of time to appreciate the numerous beautiful images that appear on-screen. The director, Kobayashi, filmed Kwaidan in a very surrealistic fashion, and the entire soundtrack was post-dubbed. As such, the sound effects come and go in very unexpected ways, like nervous twitches. This lends a further eerie atmosphere to the film.

The DVD is by Criterion, so you can expect a great transfer. And the transfer is absolutely stunning! Just look at the trailer (included on the DVD) and compare with the quality of the film itself, and you will be amazed. The picture is crystal clear with bright colors and deep black (the many night scenes look great, not muddy at all). There are no pixelations or artifacts and barely a trace here or there of scratch marks that belie the film's age. Sound is monophonic. Too bad Criterion didn't include a commentary track, but I suppose with an almost 3-hour film, there wasn't much room left on the DVD for anything else.

Still, if you like eerie ghost movies like The Innocents or The Haunting (original B/W version) or The Changeling, you will really appreciate this film. Kwaidan is not horrifying or scary in a "Halloween" or "Scream" manner; rather it creates an uneasy sensation of dread and despair. Highly highly recommended!

The most beautiful film i ever saw
I remember seeing this movie on halloween night of 2002 on IFC when they were playing the most beautiful and bizarre films ever made, after watching a lot of classic american horror films, i was already bored of watching them, because i already knew what was going to happen. I remember it was around 8 pm, noone home i was on the computer typing something and figure it wouldnt be worth sitting down watching these movie, until this movie the first of the six movies they were playing. The credits alone at the beginning of the film and the music made me want to watch it and discover what this fascinating piece of art was, i wouldnt even consider it a film, its more of 4 storys of art. So beautiful, i read somewhere that it was the first color japanese film in Japan and thats the reason why there is so much color. Something this beautiful can only be watch on a good dvd at night to see this dazzling piece. If you like this movie, check out the movie others the director did, i seen them all and they are very good.

Fantastic piece of artwork
I became a fan of the more artistic genre of Japanese film with Kurosawa's Throne of Blood and Hidden Fortress, both black and white classics of the style. After I happened to see this collection of stories on TV, I ordered the video. Still impressed after several viewings, I've decided to purchase the DVD version when it comes out this fall so I can see the film in it's most perfect form for home viewing. The collection is based on a series of short stories by a Louisiannan writer, Lafacado Hearn. Kwaidan is Japanese for ghost stories, a type of fiction I've enjoyed since childhood introduction to MacBeth and The Christmas Carole, and these are some very well written examples. My favorites of this collection were the Woman in the Snow and Earless, the former for director Kobayashi's incredible sense of color, sound and setting, and the latter for his sense of historical pagentry and drama and its surprise ending. An incredible piece of artwork. I will probably give my video version to a friend who is also fond of the genra and an afficionado of all things Japanese.