Masterful cinematography and beautiful imagery. The colours and the sets are incredible, and a truly haunting soundtrack.
Such a shame that after all the years of looking forward to watching this, but being a bit daunted by the length, finding that it could so easily have been reduced in length and, whilst looking wonderful, so lacking in interest. The segments are, in fact, easily watched seperately.
I like Horror anthologies, but no one does ghost stories best than the Japanese. Presented here are 4 ghost stories told with beautiful aesthetic, plus a lot of artistic poetry, well directed and paced.
A collection of four Japanese folk tales with supernatural themes.In his Harakiri review, Roger Ebert described Kwaidan as "an assembly of ghost stories that is among the most beautiful films I've seen".
The original version* of Japanese supernatural anthology Kwaidan clocks in at a whopping 183 minutes, which is quite the long haul (I could watch two Troma movies in that time); I wish I could say it was worth it, but I found the four stories rather bland and the pacing extremely slow (the third story, in particular, feels like it is never going to end).The film's main saving grace is its amazing visuals, director Masaki Kobayashi and cinematographer Yoshio Miyajima making almost every frame a work of art through the use of vivid colours, creative camera angles, imaginative scenery, wonderful costumes and stunning lighting.
Japan conjures up a myriad of directorial masters; Kurosawa, Miike etc, but Koboyashi's "Kwaidan" surpasses them all for the sublime impact of its imagery & symbolism. Maybe Rashomon gets close for framing & narrative, but Kwaidan is a wonderful visual spectacle to behold.
I love Masaki Kobayashi's movie Harakiri, I really do. What that movie has that this one doesn't I'm not sure.
I'm always a little daunted when I settle down in a cinema seat for a film that is 3 hours long - I fear the last glass of wine may have been one too many - but this simply flew by. It is a compendium of four different Japanese "poems" that deal with just about every emotion in the human panoply - love, hate, greed, joy, fear, envy, betrayal...
(Flash Review)This didn't do much for me. This was a film containing a few individual scary stories that all had the same cinematic approach.