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Kwaidan

Rentaro Mikuni (Actor), Michiyo Aratama (Actor), Masaki Kobayashi (Director) Rated:
NR
Format: DVD
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 626 ratings
IMDb7.9/10.0
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DVD
October 10, 2000
The Criterion Collection
1
$51.90
$45.00 $20.96
DVD
September 15, 2009 		—
1
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DVD
October 20, 2015
Criterion Collection
2
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Kwaidan (English Subtitled) $3.59 $14.99
Genre Horror
Format Multiple Formats, Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Contributor Michiyo Aratama, Rentaro Mikuni, Tatsuya Nakadai, Masaki Kobayashi
Language Japanese
Runtime 3 hours and 3 minutes

Product Description

After more than a decade of sober political dramas and social-minded period pieces, the great Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi (The Human Condition) 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. This version of Kwaidan is the original three-hour cut, never before released in the United States. DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 2K digital restoration of director Masaki Kobayashi’s original cut • Audio commentary by film historian Stephen Prince • Interview from 1993 with Kobayashi, conducted by filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda • New interview with assistant director Kiyoshi Ogasawara • New piece about author Lafcadio Hearn, on whose versions of Japanese folk tales Kwaidan is based • Trailers • New English subtitle translation • PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien

Product details

  • MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ NR (Not Rated)
  • Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 4 ounces
  • Item model number ‏ : ‎ 2541
  • Director ‏ : ‎ Masaki Kobayashi
  • Media Format ‏ : ‎ Multiple Formats, Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
  • Run time ‏ : ‎ 3 hours and 3 minutes
  • Release date ‏ : ‎ October 20, 2015
  • Actors ‏ : ‎ Rentaro Mikuni, Michiyo Aratama, Tatsuya Nakadai
  • Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English
  • Studio ‏ : ‎ Criterion Collection (Direct)
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B011SDC24O
  • Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 2
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 626 ratings

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4.7 out of 5 stars
626 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • lisaleo (Lisa Yount)
    5.0 out of 5 stars A visual feast
    Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    This film of four ghost stories, based on Lafcadio Hearn’s retelling of Japanese folktales (though only one seems to be specifically from the book called Kwaidan), is a visual treat. It is more meditative than scary, having the ceremonial dignity of traditional Japanese theater. Indeed, with its live actors placed in artificial, sometimes even painted, sets and backdrops, it has very much the air of expanded stage plays. (Even the comic servants in the longest story, “Hoichi the Earless,” bear more resemblance to Shakespeare’s clown characters than to real people.) Its beauty lies not so much in the tales themselves as in the brilliant colors and dancelike movements with which they are told. Every shot is as carefully composed as a Japanese painting. The strange (at least to Western ears) music and sound effects add to the striking yet distancing mood.

    As Geoffrey O’Brien points out in the thoughtful essay included with the DVD, the four stories feature promises broken, deliberately or otherwise, and the dangers of interaction between the natural and supernatural worlds. In the first story, “The Black Hair,” a selfish samurai deserts his painfully patient first wife, then finds, after a long absence, that going home again is not as easy as he had hoped. The young woodcutter in the second story, “The Woman of the Snow,” more understandably forgets a promise he made long ago in what seemed like a dream—but with equally disastrous results. In “Hoichi the Earless,” the blind young musician-monk Hoichi does not willingly stop entertaining a court of long-dead nobles with his bardic account of the battle in which they all perished; he is more or less forced to do so by the older monks who are trying to protect him, but he is nonetheless the one who suffers when their protection proves not quite good enough. The final tale, “In a Cup of Tea,” is a suitably mystifying story-within-a-story that, in a sense, breaks a promise to its viewers in that it has no ending.

    This Criterion recording, a 2015 Blu-Ray reissue of Masaki Kobayashi’s 1965 film, is beautiful throughout, as they usually are, though it is a little grainy at times on a large TV screen. Its dialogue is in Japanese, with English subtitles. I recommend it highly to all lovers of the beautiful, the magical, and the surreal, portrayed with grace and style.
    11 people found this helpful
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  • L
    5.0 out of 5 stars Visually Stunning !!! Spectacular !!! Art at its finest !!!
    Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Kwaidan (1964) Japanese folk/ghost tales /fairy-tales with supernatural and theatrical like cinematography. That is right this film is very artsy and the settings, camera work, light is very nostalgic and Gone With the Wind-like. Actually, the cinematography of story # 2 is the equivalent of Scarlet O'Hara's Tara plantation set. The film is 183 minutes long. It is composed of four stories, approximately each one 40-45 minutes long. The budget of the film was estimated at the time for 350,000,000 Japanese Yen. Tremendous amount of money. I would not classify this entirely into a horror. Only the first two stories have something to do with horror. The last two stories are weakest and make this film lose its interest after the first two. Be there as it may, I still gave this film 5 stars. It is a feast for eyes...cinematographicly dazzling !

    *Favorite stories out the four:
    1) "The Black Hair" [husband leaves wife for a wealthier woman...the new marriage is unhappy...years go by...husband leaves the second wife and heads back to the previous wife...upon his return...
    2) "The Woman of the Snow" [young lumberjack together with his master gets trapped in a snow storm in the middle of a forest...the two find
    a hut to wait-out the blizzard...a young woman dressed in white appears and kills the master...she lets the young man live, but asks him to keep a secret about what has occurred or else he too will be killed, to-which he agrees...the young man gets back to his home where quickly recovers from sickness and soon meets a young and pretty lady he marries...the couple have children...years go by...

    Worth mentioning is also the music...it is creepy at times and very oriental.

    If you like the literature by Edgar Allan Poe, The Grim Brothers, and Christian Andersen this film should blow you away.
    The film very much reminded of such cult films as: Gone With the Wind (1939), The Saragossa Manuscript (1965) and Ran (1985).
    3 people found this helpful
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  • maribel cotarelo llorente
    1.0 out of 5 stars DVD no válido
    Reviewed in Spain on June 30, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    No se puede visionar este DVD.
    Incompatible con video reproductor esoañol
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  • Mr. Christopher A. Seaman
    5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning representation of traditional Japanese mythology
    Reviewed in Canada on February 2, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Criterion delivers a wonderful restoration of KWAIDAN, giving viewers a full cut of the film and all of the glory it possesses in terms of production values. The tales themselves may seem to modern fans of horror very tame and their staginess distracting compared with contemporary efforts, but I would say to them the films they enjoy so much would not exist if weren't for excellent sources of inspiration like KWAIDAN. Seek it out and spend a night with it. Watch the second disk to gain historical insight on the stories that inspired the film.
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  • Alan Garcia
    3.0 out of 5 stars Sin extras
    Reviewed in Mexico on November 28, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Creí que tendría más extras, además solo viene un triptico genérico, costó mucho para lo que vale, para rematar no lo lee todos los blurays, pero el servicio de Amazon excelente
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  • Client d'Amazon
    5.0 out of 5 stars Visuel envoûtant de films de fantômes du Japon
    Reviewed in France on August 9, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Ayant vu l'exposition temporaire du Quai Branly sur Enfers et Fantômes d'Asie , plusieurs semaines avant, j'ai eu l'envie de découvrir quelques uns de ces anciens film d'horreur japonais. Le DVD est arrivé en très bon état et j'ai commencé à le regarder. Esthétiquement très beau pour un film des années 60 cela donné envie de lire le très célèbre livre des fantômes du Japon par Lafcafio Hearn.
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  • Thomas Cox
    5.0 out of 5 stars Kwaidan takes us on a spell-binding journey into the heart of Japanese folklore and aesthetics.
    Reviewed in Japan on August 19, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    I love Kwaidan because it embodies all of the elements that make traditional Japanese horror such a unique, instructive, aesthetically rich cinematic genre. It is no accident that one Japanese horror movie after another has been remade by Hollywood. No other country in the world makes horror movies that are as revered by Hollwood as Japan. Aesthetic richness and originality is one thing that sets Japanese horror apart. One sees this very clearly in Woman Of The Snow. Many of the images on the hand-painted backdrops in this cinematic story look like a giant eye. This is a subtle yet powerful way to symbolically indicate the presence of spiritual forces. The stories in Kwaidan also teach us important lessons. Woman Of The Snow, for example, teaches us that past events can, and do, catch up with us in important and unexpected ways. The stories in Kwaidan also illustrate a fascinating difference between Japanese and American horror. In American horror there is usually a titanic struggle between good and evil. This usually ends when the forces of darkness are destroyed in some way. Traditional Japanese horror is different. Japanese horror movies often end with the forces of darkness running (or flying) off into the night. In this way a balance between good and "evil" is restored in one way or another. In traditional Japanese horror the goal is almost never to destroy the forces of darkness, but to maintain a balance between them and the forces of good.
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