Kwaidan

Kwaidan
by Masaki Kobayashi

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VHS Tape Cover Information

Actor: Keiko Kishi, Michiyo Aratama, Misako Watanabe, Rentaro Mikuni, Tatsuya Nakadai
Director: Masaki Kobayashi
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Subtitled); Japanese (Original Language), Analog
Format: Color, Letterboxed, NTSC
Running Time: 164 minutes
Release Date: 2000-06-13
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: Homevision
Studio: Homevision

VHS Movie Reviews of Kwaidan

Movie Review: Beautiful and eerie. Spellbinding. Theatrical.
Summary: 5 Stars

I endorse most every review before this one. Read them. Or just get the movie. The more I watched, the more i liked. Hoichi the Earless was my favorite... the biwa chants were ... quite ... tearfully good... (musicians take note, especially western guitarists and vocalists on the wildness and pure differentness)

I could spend many sentences advocating, but suffice it to say, if you like artful cinema and/or theater this movie is worth watching. Even if you end up not liking it, it's worth it to see.

But every minute I watched, I liked it more and more.... At least rent it. Any "art" house type movie watcher will appreciate it.

Cannes Jury award winner and Oscar nominated for best foreign film (you aren't the only ones who liked it!!)

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Summary of Kwaidan

Kwaidan is an engrossing masterpiece of four nightmarish tales in which terror thrives and demons lurk. Throughout each tale, director Masaki Kobayashi's handsomely conceived imagery conveys a sensual quality that immerses the viewer deep in the spiritual world. Combining visually stunning effects with beautiful use of color, Kobayashi has created a supernatural experience beyond the imagination.

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

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