Kwaidan = Kaidan
(Blu-ray)

Based on the writings of folklorist Lafcadio Hearn (aka: Yakumo Koizumi).

Originally released as a motion picture in 1965.

Wide screen (2.35:1).

Trailer, picture galleries and additional information on the film available at the Criterion Collection's website.

Special features: Commentary (features film scholar Stephen Prince); Masaki Kobayashi (conversation between director Kobayashi and filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda about the making of the film in 1993); Kiyoshi Ogasawara (assistant director Ogasawara discusses working with director Kobayashi and the original version of the film); Lafcadio Hearn (English literature scholar Christopher Benfey, profiles Lafcadio Hearn who played a crucial role in popularizing Japanese folklore for Western audiences, his stories providing the basis for the film); Trailers. Insert includes an essay by critic Geoffrey O'Brien.

Director of photography, Yoshio Miyajima ; editor, Hisashi Sagara ; music, Tōru Takemitsu ; costume designer, Masahiro Kato ; production designer, Shigemasa Toda.

Kurokami: Aratama Michiyo, Watanabe Misako, Mikuni Rentarō, Ishiyama Kenjirō, Akagi Ranko.

Yukionna: Nakadai Tatsuya, Kishi Keiko, Mochizuki Yūko.

Miminashi Hōichi no hanashi: Nakamura Katsuo, Tanba Tetsurō, Shimura Takashi, Hayashi Yoichi.

Chawan no naka: Nakamura Kan'emon, Takizawa Osamu, Sugimura Haruko, Nakamura Ganjirō, Nakaya Noboru.

After more than a decade of sober political dramas and social-minded period pieces, the great Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi shifted gears dramatically for this rapturously stylized quartet of ghost stories. Featuring colorfully surreal sets and luminous cinematography, these haunting tales of demonic comeuppance and spiritual trials, adapted from writer Lafcadio Hearn's collections of Japanese folklore, are existentially frightening and meticulously crafted. In The black hair, a poor young samurai leaves his first wife to marry a rich woman. When he is unhappy in his second marriage, he returns to his first wife, who at first appears unchanged from when he last saw her. In The woman of the snow, a woodcutter is spared by a mysterious ghost-like woman in the snow, but must promise never to tell anyone what he has seen. In Hoichi, the earless, a blind musician-monk named Hoichi is commanded by a gathering of ghosts to sing the saga of their ancient deeds. The head monk paints Hoichi's body with prayer verses to protect him, but unfortunately overlooks Hoichi's ears. In In a cup of tea, a writer wonders what would happen to a person who drinks another's soul and finds out.

Not rated.

Blu-ray; Region A; Monaural; requires Blu-ray player.

In Japanese, with English subtitles.

Cannes Film Festival, 1965: Jury Special Prize.