☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
K(w)aidan (1964) – M. Kobayashi
Director Masaki Kobayashi
followed up his triumph Hara-Kiri (1962) with this film drawn from Lafcadio
Hearn’s book of Japanese folktales, Kwaidan (1904), which included many tales
of yokai and ghosts. The most famous are probably “Yuki Onna” (Woman of the
Snow) and “Mimi-nashi Hōichi” (Hoichi the Earless), both included here along
with two other tales “Black Hair” and “In a Cup of Tea”. The film is notable
for its astounding art direction – entirely artificial and studio-bound – but
it is admittedly slow (too slow for kids). As Ayako pointed out, it isn’t
exactly horror either but rather sad stories with spooky elements. The first
three tales take place in the samurai era. “Black Hair” finds an ambitious young man
leave his wife (who works as a weaver) to take up a position working for the
local lord – he remarries to afford himself a better social position. But he is
unhappy and years later returns to his first wife who lives in the same house
and seemingly hasn’t aged (a warning sign!). “Yuki Onna” stars Tatsuya Nakadai
as a woodcutter who gets lost in a snowstorm with his elderly partner; they
take refuge in an old hut whereupon a mysterious woman/demon descends upon them,
stealing the old man’s breath and forcing the younger one (Nakadai) to swear
never to tell another soul or suffer the same consequences. “Hoichi the Earless”
recounts the story of a blind cleric who is bewitched by a clan of ghosts to
sing the epic tale of their last sea battle night after night; when the head
priest discovers this, they cover Hoichi from head to toe with protective spells
-- but they miss two spots. Finally, “In a Cup of Tea”, takes place later in
1904, showing a writer who sees the image of another man in his tea, eventually
drinking it anyway, whereupon the ghostly man’s retainers show up to fight him.
We have the original Criterion DVD which is apparently a 161-minute cut but
newer releases run an even longer 183 minutes.
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