Kaidan (1964) Online

There's a good bit of discussion of this film as "horror"; may I suggest that it's horrific in the sense of the ancient Greek tragedies. There's no attempt to coerce your Hollywood-abused adrenals into delivering just one more squirt by means of some in-your-face special effect. In fact, for each of these slowly developed stories, once you've understood the premise, the story will unfold pretty much as you've guessed it must, inexorably, relentlessly. The ghosts aren't there to "spook" us, they're to show us our common human spiritual and emotional failings. The horror of a ghost wife, for instance, isn't that her chains drag noisily across the the hardwood parquet floor, but that we've created her by our insensitivity, our misplaced values, or our betrayals.

The visual style is stupendous! The action takes place in a disappeared, iconic world of classical medieval Japan, perfect, and admitting no trace of the reality of modern times. Overlaid is a European Expressionist color sensibility, with emotionally charged color displacements of sky and skin, as if Hokusai and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner had been working cooperatively on the sets and lighting.

This is a wonderful movie. Please ignore attempts to fit it into some box, some genre. Rather look at it as a mature work of art, which happens to choose old Japanese ghost stories as its starting point.

'Kwaidan' is an astonishing film, once seen never forgotten. It's labeled horror, but while the four stories within deal with ghosts and the supernatural, I doubt that anyone would be actually frightened watching it. Haunted, yes, scared, no. It's a beautiful movie, very stylized with a very imaginative use of colour. I can't think of anything else I've seen that comes close. Mario Bava, maybe. The movie consists of four stories. I think it's best watched as a whole to let each story blend in to the other, but if forced to choose I would say my favourite segment is the second one ('The Woman In The Snow') which I believe was left out of the version of the movie originally shown outside Japan. 'Kwaidan' is one of those rare movies that leaves you stunned the first time you see it. For me it's equal to 'Rashomon', 'Woman In The Dunes' and 'Branded To Kill' as the most amazing Japanese movies I've ever seen. Each one of these movies blew my mind. It's difficult not to gush about all four. They come with my highest recommendation. I sincerely believe that anybody who watches them will be incredibly impressed. They are all masterpieces.

A man returns to his abandoned wife seeking forgiveness and pays for his cruelty. A snow demon and a young man make a pact. A blind priest is summoned by the ghosts of dead warriors to recite the heroic battle that cost them their lives. A samurai is taunted by ghosts in his cup of tea...

Kobayashi's output has been small compared to his contemporaries' (Kurosawa, Ozu...) yet each of his films is an assault on the senses and a visual gem. After unleashing some of Japan's cinematic legends in two of the greatest samurai films ever made (Samurai Rebellion with Toshiro Mifune and the sublime Harakiri with Tatsuya Nakadai), the master moved on to the supernatural with this collection of ghost stories. Filming for the first time in color, Kobayashi wields it like few others before or since, blending spellbinding compositions together and giving us a film of a visual beauty that rivals the best of Kurosawa, Kubrick or Tarkovsky. The eerie feeling of dread is matched only by the film's sheer beauty and power, like watching a moving painting or experiencing a trance.

Kwaidan is not entertaining: it is captivating, bewitching, unique even by it's author's standards. For movie-goers, this is a unique experience. For amateurs of art, it is a feast.

Unmissable!

This is one of my favorite horror films, and I daresay one of my favorite films in general as well. Anyone who doubts that a horror film can be great art as well ought to give this one a try.

I will have to revisit this comment after viewing the film again, as it has been a while, but there were a few comments I thought people might find useful regarding the stories the film adapted.

Two of the stories can be found in Lafcadio Hearn's book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. These are "Hoichi the Earless" ("The Story of Mimi-nashi-Hôïchi") and "The Woman in the Snow" ("Yuki-Onna"). The other two can be found in other books of Hearn's; I'm grateful to Kenji Inadomi for pointing out that "Black Hair" can be found as "The Reconciliation" in Shadowings, and "In a Cup of Tea" is to be found in Kotto: Being Japanese Curios, with Sundry Cobwebs.

Many of Hearn's stories can be found online, including all of the above except "In a Cup of Tea." Attractive early hardcovers of Hearn's books are pretty plentiful, though, and not terribly expensive either.

As some others have noticed, there's an uncredited adaptation of "The Woman in the Snow" as the "Lover's Vow" segment of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990). It's not bad, but Kaidan (1964) is the one that got it right.

Over a time span of some 35 years, I saw Kwaidan twice on the large screen. I liked it the very first time, and it got better when I saw it the second time.

From the very opening when credits were introduced, color ink drops penetrating clear water generated an extremely soothing visual effect. The execution was low-tech, but it goes to show the power of human creativity before the age of fast computer chips. This opening also sets the tone of what you are about to get into - a film of great visual beauty, a film that requires a relaxed and unrushed mental frame of mind to appreciate.

It consists of four stories, all about ghosts, spirits and a blood-sucking woman in white. Some stories are better than the others, and my favourite is 'Hoichi the Earless', which also has the longest running time. It is about escapism, tales of morals, and cinema at its best.

This film looks much like a painting. It's really a piece of art. I love films with brilliant cinematography and godly colors wich this film has. I bought it on Criterion Collection cheap without knowing anything about it. But I got more and more in to it when I read the user comments here on the internet movie database.

The film is four Japanese horror stories. They are maybe not so frightening when you see them but later on when you think about the film they GET scary. The first one is about a samurai who leaves his wife because of that she are so poor and marries a rich woman. It all ends up in horror. The second story are about two woodcuters that meets a snow woman that kills one of them(the old man) but let the young boy live if he promise to not tell anyone.

The third story which are one of the best things I have ever seen on film. It's a masterful story and even if the three others also are superb this might be the best. And the last story is great. This is a masterful film. A must see

10/10

The words "beautiful", "lyrical" and "evocative" aren't ones that you would normally attribute to a horror movie, but they are precisely the ones that best describe Kwaidan, a quintet of Samurai Gothics based (interestingly enough) on the writings of an American author by the name of Lafcadio Hearn. Shot in gorgeous, sumptuous color way back in 1964 by director Masaki Kobayashi, Kwaidan is an unusual, unique and quite extraordinary entry in the old horror anthology genre best represented by 1945's Dead of Night and Milton Subotsky's Amicus anthology series (i.e. Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, Tales From the Crypt & Asylum).

Kwaidan differentiates itself from the pack in a number of significant ways. To begin with, all of the episodes eschew the usual O. Henry "twist" endings and deliberately telegraph their punches, case in point being "Hoichi the Earless", which gives away its climax with its very title! This film is also missing the compulsory "wrap-around" story normally employed by anthology films to tie all the stories together, and the horror elements are far more low-key than most horror aficianados are used to. Kwaidan is far less concerned with springing shocks and fraying nerves than it is in exploring the whirlwind of conflicting emotions that swirl in the dark night of the human soul.

"The Black Hair" is the tale of an impoverished samurai who abandons his loyal and loving wife to marry the daughter of a wealthy lord in another province, only to discover many years later that he is still in love with his first spouse. He returns to their decaying old house to find her exactly as he left her, affectionate and forgiving as could be. You know something in this household just ain't right. "The Woman in the Snow" concerns an apprentice woodcutter who encounters an eerily beautiful female ice-vampire - called a "Yuki-Onna - who spares his life on the condition that he never tell a soul about their encounter. (If you saw the last episode of the flaccid Tales From the Darkside movie, on which this was based, you have an idea of how this one ends).

"Hoichi the Earless", easily the most powerful of the bunch, regards a blind biwa (a stringed instrument resembling a guitar) player renowned for his moving rendition of the tragic tale of the battle between the Genji and Heiki clans. Each night he is summoned to the nearby graveyard to chant the epic tale for the ghosts of the warriors who fell in that battle, duped by the spirits into believing that he's performing in the home of a wealthy lord. When Hoichi disocvers that he has been decieved by the dead and refuses to perform for them again, the ghosts exact a terrible revenge.

A note of warning to those deterred by long foreign films: this shimmering jewel in Japanese cinema's crown clocks in at nearly three hours of length and is, of course, fully subtitled. Visually bold, rich and color and texture, and atmospherically photographed with a spine-tingling elegance, I can't guarantee that you'll like Kwaidan, but I think that I can safely assure you'll never forget it. Highly recommended, especially for Japanophiles and those with a taste for high class horror.

Kwaidan is one of the great underappreciated films: no one's heard of it, but you'll never, ever forget it once you've seen it. Parts of it may seem slow to some viewers, and most of the stories are extremely predictable, but I have to say this is one of the most beautiful, haunting movies I've ever seen.

Of all the stories I prefer "Black Hair," the first one. Though a rather pointless horseback archery scene just slows it down, it's by far the scariest and most nightmare-worthy of the stories, using sound to incredibly chilling effect. There's more terror in the last minute of this segment than in all three Scream movies put together. Trust me, if you consider yourself a serious fan of horror cinema, you have to see this.

The second story, "The Woman of the Snow," is good, though I wish it ended more like "Black Hair" (you'll see what I mean). "Hoichi the Earless," with its jaw-dropping sea battle sequence, is by far the biggest and most popular of the stories. It's also the most influential, with its main premise prominently re-used in Conan the Barbarian. The film ends with "In a Cup of Tea." This is the only story that doesn't completely telegraph its ending, and coming after three utterly predictable stories, its complexity is a bit unexpected and disorienting. Certainly it's as creepy and beautiful as the rest of the film, but I have to admit I don't really understand it.

Being a tremendous fan of elegant, understated horror movies, as well as a student of Japanese culture, I consider this film one of my all-time favorites. Granted, some viewers may be turned off by the leisurely pace and the theatrical, intentionally unrealistic sets. But this is undeniably a beautiful and chilling film, absolutely perfect to watch late at night, alone, in the dark.

Kwaidan is a four-segment horror anthology but you'd be hard pressed to find one more removed from the typical plastic bats and cobwebs Gothic anthologies of Amicus or Hammer. While it can be billed as a "horror" movie and it deals with the supernatural, it's not really frightening. All four segments are more like traditional Japanese folk legends about ghosts, the kind of spooky stories you could hear an elder narrating to kids around a bonfire in a village near Kyoto or the outskirts of Okinawa. However if "work of art" was a genre, Kwaidan would be among the best it had to offer.

Just two years after the seminal Seppuku which was done in stark black and white with a geometric, well disciplined style, Kobayashi returns with another tour-de-force, this time in extravagant, expressionistic colour. A visual feast proving that in the right hands style can be substance. His camera with its slow tracking shots is like a brush, painting a celluloid canvas with vivid, lush compositions and it comes as no surprise to find out that he had a background in painting. The combination of eerie, supernatural material, the dreamlike atmosphere and the use of colour in lighting and sets reminded me of the great Italian maestro, Mario Bava; although Kwaidan by no means fits in the Gothic horror mold.

Conscious of the folk legend material he's working on, Kobaysi wisely shot the movie in studio sets using large painted backgrounds that look deliberately artificial as much as they look gorgeous. In many ways, it feels like a big stageplay or an elaborate dramatic poem. In that aspect, Kwaidan takes place somewhere between the real and the mythic. A land of some other order.

The stories all revolve around ghosts and are as simple and predictable as any spooky story that you might hear as an adult. But they do a great job of providing an eerie skeleton for Kobayashi to hang on his beautiful style. Style over substance one could argue. Isn't that an erroneous statement though? By making the distinction one implies that style is somehow insubstantial to a film, something that couldn't be further from the truth. The use of colour is incredible, the lighting, at times subtle and evocative or wild and expressionistic, the slow tracking shots, long stretches of silence, a body painted with holy text, Tatsuya Nakadai looking calm and happy for a change, Tetsuro Tamba in full plate samurai armor, white ghastly faces, bodies falling in blood-red waters, a painted sunset backdrop, an intelligent play on vague endings, the minimal score, chords echoing from somewhere. Kwaidan proves that style IS substance. A visual feast by all means.

It's really a shame that Kobayashi is not as widely celebrated as Akira Kurosawa. Kwaidan is just another in a series of absolutely brilliant films he did in the 60's. Beautiful, creepy, poetic, atmospheric as hell; it is the work of a master cinematician and one of the best Japanese movies you're likely to see.

Cinematographer Yoshio Miyajima did a marvellous job, although most of the visuals in this masterpiece are obviously invented by Kobayashi. It is clearly studio-work, but Kobayashi turns that to his advance by making the most marvellous background paintings I've ever seen in a movie and his virtuosity comes to full exposure in the light effects that are fabulous for such an old film. That together with the beautiful colors creates a mesmerizing and sometimes terrifying experience. 'Marco the magnificent' (Patelliere&Howard, 1964) reminded me of the visuals in Kwaidan, because of the beautiful environmental shots and because of the (supposed) history of mixture of eastern and western stories. Forget that movie instantly plz. Another film that has nothing to do with this one, but is brilliant and comparable only because of the episode structure, the fairy-tale nature and great cinematography is Kaos (Taviani, 1984).

Kwaidan has such a haunting effect because of the scary music and the sound effects are unnerving(-ly edited). Some call it horror. I thought the pace was rather slow for horror, but it is a film that does not let go easily. The actors (one of which is Takeshi Shimura) convince enthusiastically and they too make it an entertaining film. According to the user-rating this is Kobayashi's least interesting work of these three: Joi-uchi, Seppuku, and Kwaidan. I can't wait to see the other two, although I don't think they can surpass this masterpiece.

10 points out of 10 :-)

Spoilers herein.

In the 60's, Japanese audiences criticized Kurosawa for not being Japanese. This film is exemplar of what they had in mind: extremely styled after Japanese watercolors; very slow reactions in the actors; studied movements; highly elaborate, theatrical setups for the final horror. Many recommend it for the stylistic elements alone, and I can too.

But more interesting to my mind is how the Japanese deal with self-reference. These stories follow a literary tradition of self-aware fiction where the act of storytelling becomes subtly entangled in the story. And so too here:

--The first story is about the penalty of not coordinating one's narrative with reality.

--The second is about the penalty of telling that narrative inappropriately. The telling of the story often destroys elements in the story which overlap with the life of the storyteller.

--The third, the most elaborate and intended to be the centerpiece, is about all stories being dead. Stories keep the past alive, but since the story and reality are so confabulated, the past keeps stories alive. This sequence is the most elaborate in staging, but also the most elaborate metaphorically: the poet is protected by writing on his body. Terrifically powerful image, one elaborated by Greenaway in his Japanese-centric `Pillow Book.' But alas, writing and speech are different, so the poet has his ears stolen by the past.

--The final story looks at things the other way: the three previous were focused on the storyteller. Now here is the listener and about the penalties of swallowing the story. Even the smallest drink captures you. Your reality cannot be separated from that of the story (image).

Each of these self-referential Japanese story-morals is combined with two other arts, the art of watercolor as already mentioned and that of film. Quite rich.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.

Kwaidan is a somewhat difficult work. Its four stories, with the exception of one, are not very involving and they can even become a little boring in their narrative. They are not very frightening, although they all attain a level of creepiness. Except for "Hoichi, the Earless," one of the most stunning tales I've ever experienced in a film, you can see the ending coming from a long ways away (the final episode, "In a Cup of Tea," is a little different, in that it has no ending, per se; the ending the filmmakers do come up with is a little disappointing).

The reason that this film is a masterpiece is its masterful composition. I think I have heard that Kobayashi was a painter. Even if I just made that up, it would fit. The colors are godly. Any frame of the film is a masterful painting. If you are interested in composition and cinematography in film, this is the one to see. If you only care about narrative, read books. Don't watch films. But at least see "Hoichi the Earless" for its composition and story. I suggest buying the Criterion released DVD. It is one of the cheaper DVDs of that company. And you don't have to watch the four stories in succession. If you watch them apart, and they could very easily be watched apart, the boredom factor will fade from existence.

Four supernatural tales--all gorgeously filmed. "The Black Hair" is about a man who foolishly leaves his loving wife for a rich wife. He tries to return to her years later--but is it too late? "Woman of the Snow" (easily the scariest) involves a beautiful "vampire" woman who sucks the blood out of men caught in the snow. "Hoichi, the Earless" is the longest, most elaborate and dullest tale. Neat bloody ending though. "In a Cup of Tea" is very short and OK. The film is too long (165 min) and it is very slow at times (especially the "Hoichi" tale), and isn't really scary (except for the "Woman" one)...but it looks absolutely stunning. There's very little dialogue...the visuals tell the story. Quite simply, this contains the most incredible, beautiful wide-screen photography I've ever seen. That's the reason to see it. As for horror...well, there's very little blood, no gore, minimal violence, no sex, no nudity and predictable endings...this is an example of "quiet" horror. Still, worth watching--see it letter-boxed...DO NOT see it pan and scan!

This film presents four supernatural tales:

"Black Hair" ("O Cabelo Negro"): In the ancient Kyoto, a samurai decides to leave his poor but beloved wife and become a rich man marrying a wealthy wife. He misses his wife, and years later, when he returns to her, he finds a surprise waiting for him.

"The Woman in the Snow" ("A Mulher da Neve"): An old and a young woodmen are surprised by a snow storm, and the younger is saved by the spirit of a snow woman. He promises to never tell what had happened to him. Years later, he breaks his promise, disclosing the secret to his wife.

"Hoichi the Earless" ("Hoichi, O Sem Orelhas"): The blind Hoichi lives in a temple and magnificently plays his biwa and tells the sea battle of Dan-No-Ura between the clans of Genji and Heike. One night he is invited to perform his skills to a rich family and their guests in their house.

"In a Cup of Tea" ("Em Uma Xícara de Chá"): a samurai drinks water in a cup of tea, and he sees the soul of a former samurai. Later, he is haunted by the spirit.

"Kaidan" is the first work of Masaki Kobayashi that I have had the chance to see, and I am really impressed with such masterpiece of Japanese supernatural. Beginning with the visual using of awesome colors and cinematography, which look like paints on exhibition, all the stories are amazingly great without exception. The title of the third story spoils the twist, and the storyline of the second story was adapted in one episode of "Tales From the Crypt" years later. My vote is ten.

Title (Brazil): "Kwaidan, As Quatro Faces do Medo" ("Kwaidan, The Four Faces of Fear")

I cherished hopes to experience the touch with the Japanese culture (music, lifestyle) and mystic things when I bought the DVD.

The film was interesting to watch and think about because it tells 4 interesting mystic stories covering Japanese life of the Middle ages and later periods.

The plots of the stories have the intrigue aspects and the moral teaching good things. The moral about true love to the lady, wisdom in the good words, passionate feeling about art and many other ideas.

The soundtrack is interesting to listen, because the Japanese national instruments were used.

The sounds of the biwa (the Japanese lute) and the words of the song about sad battle with many deaths, do provide mystic feeling and some time for reflections about passionate feeling of music associated with the life of musician.

My expectations did not change when I remember the private view at the University in 2005.

I did hope to remember the comments of the American professor, a good specialist of religion and anthropology who told about this movie for a large audience from Siauliai University (the city of Siauliai, the Republic of Lithuania) after the private view with professors and students.

I was surprised to find the small booklet with the text of the stories told in this film and additional comments on the film.

A good film, a must to have in your collection of DVD films...

I like Toho movies, for the most part anyway. They have a real charm about them but when they merge their bleak samurai films with horror they just don't seem to be able to pull it off and Kaidan (Otherwise known as Ghost Stories) is an example of this.

Standing at just over three hours in length it's a 4 story horror anthology all set around the same feudal Japanese time period. Each is a ghost story but alas the quality is not consistent, I'd say two are bad, one is really bad, and one is extremely enjoyable.

The second story really does save this but immediately looked familiar. If you've ever seen Tales from the Darkside (1990) you'll recognize The Woman in the Snow as Lovers Vow and is the highlight of Kaidan.

What I have to point out though is how good it all looks, this is of course a fairly early Toho film to be released in color and they truly make the most of it. The film has some astonishing visuals and on that front they unconditionally knocked it out of the park.

I always go into Toho movies wanting to like them and for the most part I do, this however is three quarters bad and is only notable for the one single story (Which is well worth a watch).

Should have been better.

The Good:

Some incredible visuals

Second story is very good.

The Bad:

Some really bad sound editing

Most of the stories just aren't very interesting

KWAIDAN is a Japanese anthology of four ghost stories, each based on an original story by Lafcadio Hearn originally written at the turn of the 20th century (I've read some of those stories, and they're well worth checking out if you're a literature fan, by the way). The initial story explores the fate of a man who leaves his loving wife, only to end up regretting his decision. I found this story to be a bit overlong – there's only so long you can drag out something when nothing's happening – but lovely to look at and exceptionally spooky, along the same lines as a similar '60s classic, ONIBABA.

The second story tells the tale of a vengeful snow spirit and is equally spooky, with some great hand-painted sky backdrops. Again, it's overlong, and the ending is something of a letdown, but the tale works as a whole and contributes to the icy atmosphere of the production. The third story is where things start to lose steam. It starts off promisingly enough, with a fine depiction of an epic sea battle, but then it goes absolutely nowhere with the plotting. The story is dragged out for a full hour – sometimes whole dialogues are repeated – until the admittedly decent climax.

The final story, about a haunted cup of tea, works far more effectively than it sounds. It's of a far better length (read: shorter) and all the more effective because of that. Sadly, despite this film's beauty and visual artistry it does end up being way too long (at over three hours) and just too slow-moving for my taste, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped. Certainly not a patch on ONIBABA: now that was a great movie!

Somewhere between Mizoguchi's Ugetsu and Kurosawa's Yume comes Kobayashi's Kwaidan, a chronicle of four traditional Japanese ghost stories (though the person who wrote them was originally Greek before moving to Japan). These contain the same foreboding presence and stylistic acumen as the latter two directors, though Kobayashi is slightly lesser known (his works don't pop up in regards to cinema nearly as often as the former two cited directors... and it's a crying shame, because Harakiri is one of the greatest Japanese movies ever made).

First comes "Black Hair", a surprising forerunner to the "girl with long black hair" cliché made so popular and familiar with Ringu. It's a classic tale of sinful pride as a husband leaves his wife to gain prestige in the world, only to be miserable, return, and be haunted by her ghost. Then comes "The Woman of the Snow", possibly the most recognizable of the stories in the West, as it involves a malevolent specter giving lenience to a young man as long as he just keeps his mouth shut. Of course he can't... but in the meantime, it's the most "painterly" of the four, as the sets are literally painted with a theme of watching eyes in the environment. The story that strikes me as the most "Japanese" would be "Hoichi, the Earless", a tale of a character attempting to ward off dead samurai, but unfortunately forgetting to protect his ears. This one admittedly could have been shorter and dragged at places, but still had its moments. And possibly the most cryptic one, "In a Tea Cup" really kind of eludes explanation... a man drinks a soul by accident and, as a result, ends up trapped in a barrel of water. It sounds bad on paper, but of all the stories, this last one is the one that really strikes me as something people should really try to see.

"Painterly" is the way Kwaidan is typically described, but I can't say I like it as much as Harakiri or Samurai Rebellion. The stagy quality of the imagery felt a little bit more emotionally removed than the expressionistic style of Kobayashi's earlier work. To be sure, there is some very striking imagery in this movie, and anyone who likes Yume but hasn't seen this needs to go out and rent it immediately. However, Kobayashi as a recent discovery of mine was much more surprising and effective earlier, and I felt a little let down by some of the imagery and pacing of this movie. It's not bad, it's just not as good as his other work.

--PolarisDiB

After unleashing some of Japan's cinematic legends in two of the greatest samurai films ever made ("Samurai Rebellion" with Toshiro Mifune and "Harakiri" with Tatsuya Nakadai), Kobayashi moved on to the supernatural (think X files with Samurai) with "Kwaidan", a collection of ghost stories. Kobayashi's output has been small compared to his contemporaries (Kurosawa and Ozu), but most of his films are visually interesting.

Filming for the first time in colour, Kobayashi doesn't disappoint. Each frame is packed with gorgeous colours and stark compositions. The film's eerie feeling of dread is matched only by it's creepy beauty. It's like watching a moving painting or experiencing a trance.

8/10 - Captivating.

Kaidan can best be described as a series of breathtakingly gorgeous paintings brought to life, immortalized on film. While watching, one cannot help but appreciate the stunning visuals -- from bright splashes of color stretched across the evening sky to the perfectly elegant, yet surprisingly simple make-up that can transform the face of an ordinarily lovely woman into that of an icy, inhuman mistress. My particular favorite, however, was the portrait of Hoichi's entire body covered with hand-paintings of ancient texts. Story wise, I believed the first tale to be by far the most personally moving, literally to tears at one point.

But while the film may be a delight to look at (and it is), but I fear I must say it is by no means an exceptional piece of cinema -- at least not as far as plot is concerned. Despite the wealth of attractive imagery, I found myself bored and distracted after the first story wrapped itself up and consistently thereafter -- which is not to say that the individual tales themselves are unimpressive, just poorly executed, in my opinion.

The bottom line is as follows: Kaidan is worth watching for its enchanting imagery alone, but I might suggest breaking up your viewing onto 4 separate occasions to avoid intense, mind-numbing boredom. Grab some popcorn and an uncomfortable chair. Avoid pillows, plush sofas and hot drinks -- don't tempt yourself to fall asleep.

7/10

I have to place this film in the category of very pretty to look at, but lacking substance. Kwaidan is essentially four horror stories stuck together into a very long film. There are four tales: one of an abandoned first wife, one of a snow woman, one of a monk and ghosts, and the last (and most interesting, but not necessarily my favorite) about people in water.

First of all, the imagery in this film is fantastic. Despite the fact that the films are clearly all shot in a studio setting and lack realism, the amount of control and precision placed into each shot, the costumes, the sets, all result in a very amazing look.

The stories themselves are fairly interesting, although simple and very much like oral tradition stories, rather than the more complex stories typically told via film. That is to say, the the ideas in the story are quite good. However, the execution of the stories leaves a lot to be desired. The pace of the film is remarkably slow. It's like molasses.

Granted, I don't usually mind slow moving films. However, there's so much time and energy spent on allowing the images to marinate that I got hypersaturated. At many points, I saw all that I wanted to see and wanted to move on. Each story could easily be told in a five-to-ten minute oral recitation, which would retain all the story points and make it more compelling. But in Kwaidan, each story is essentially stretched out to almost half an hour, spending large chunks of time with images unnecessary to the storytelling. These stories are very poorly told, and I'm not decrying taking time to set up a scene or to relax a viewer into the scenes. Because of the length of the wait, the payoffs are a little diminished--when they finally happen, I was left thinking, "I waited all this while for that?" I mean, again, the stories are good, but imagine sitting for two-and-a-half hours listening to a guy tell four short ghost stories. It's just not efficient.

However, there is a tremendous display of culture (and even some history) present in the film. I can see the interest and value of the film for that, combined with its visual artistry. However, I feel that only those with an intense interest in Japan will find all the elements worthwhile. That is to say that Kwaidan is really just for a select audience. Average moviegoers and even many cinephiles will find it lacking. I certainly had a hard time staying awake through its chapters. My favorites story: The Woman of the Snow. Most Interesting: Cup of Tea. Most cultural display: Hoichi the Earless. Scariest story: Black Hair.

Even with all that, I can't recommend it except to those with extremely strong interest in Japan and Japanese culture (or those that just love pretty pictures). The rest of you, I suggest you find a Japanese storyteller to tell you the stories. You'll get a better effect in about a fifth of the time. Pass. 5/10.

This is a film that is simultaneously visually beautiful and boring as dirt. If you feel like staring at a painting for a couple of hours, it's worth a look. If you're looking for stories with more complexity than fairytales and anything remotely resembling action, however, you probably won't want to sit through this entire film.

I came across this gem whilst looking for movies on a online rental store, and I was not disappointed. Kwaiden is quite possibly the most beautiful film I have ever seen. At a astonishing 184 minutes, the tales are all ones we have heard at some point before, but that does not mean that they are told the same, not at all. In 'black hair',an uncaring samurai leaves his sweet loving wife, to find fortune as he is sick of being poor. Whilst away, he marries a rich girl, but discovers he is far from happy. He returns to find his first love, but when they re-unite, there is something not quite right about her. In 'woman in the snow', a poor woodcutter is shown mercy by a strange woman he encounters on a snowy night, only to lose her years later from a promise he didn't keep. In 'hoichi the earless' a young blind performer with a beautiful voice is drawn to perform every night for a secretive lord who lives in the woods. It is soon apparent that they are ghosts, and when Hoichi refuses to play for them, they exact revenge. And in the final tale,' in a cup of tea', a warrior sees an unknown ghostly face in his cup when he is drinking tea one day.

Hailed as the most expensive movie of its time made in japan, and on the largest sound stage, Kwaiden's stories are unique and none of them use the same set, actors, or props. Each one is uniquely different, and you will agree if you have the chance to watch them! On a backdrop of bright colour, and an unnerving musical score, Masaki Kobayashi's adaptation of American Lafcadio Hearn's novel will leave you with a definite taste for Japanese cinema, if you don't have one already that is!