Kwaidan (1964) Kaidan (original title)

Director:

Masaki Kobayashi

Writers:

Yôko Mizuki (screenplay)
Lafcadio Hearn (novel)

Release Date:

22 November 1965 (USA)

Genre:

Fantasy | Horror

Plot:

This film contains four distinct, separate stories. "Black Hair": A poor samurai who divorces his true love to marry for money...

Plot Keywords:

Tea | Snow | Samurai | Promise | Spirit

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 5 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Michiyo Aratama	...	First wife (segment "Kurokami")
Misako Watanabe	...	Second Wife (segment "Kurokami")
Rentarô Mikuni	...	Husband (segment "Kurokami")
Kenjirô Ishiyama	...	Father (segment "Kurokami")
Ranko Akagi	...	Mother (segment "Kurokami")
Fumie Kitahara	...	(segment "Kurokami")
Kappei Matsumoto	...	(segment "Kurokami")
Yoshiko Ieda	...	(segment "Kurokami")
Otome Tsukimiya	...	(segment "Kurokami")
Kenzô Tanaka	...	(segment "Kurokami")
Kiyoshi Nakano	...	(segment "Kurokami")
Tatsuya Nakadai	...	Mi nokichi (segment "Yuki-Onna")
Keiko Kishi	...	Yuki the Snow Maiden (segment "Yuki-Onna")
Yûko Mochizuki	...	Minokichi's mother (segment "Yuki-Onna")
Kin Sugai	...	Village woman (segment "Yuki-Onna")
Noriko Sengoku	...	Village woman (segment "Yuki-Onna")
Akiko Nomura	...	(segment "Yuki-Onna")
Torahiko Hamada	...	(segment "Yuki-Onna")
Jun Hamamura	...	(segment "Yuki-Onna")
Katsuo Nakamura	...	Hoichi (segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Tetsurô Tanba	...	Warrior (segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Takashi Shimura	...	Head priest (segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Yoichi Hayashi	...	Attendant (segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Eiko Muramatsu	...	Kenreiinmon (segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Kunie Tanaka	...	Yasaku (segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Kazuo Kitamura	...	Taira no Tomomori (segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Ichirô Nakatani	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Masanori Tomotake	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Tokue Hanazawa	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Shizue Natsukawa	...	Taira no Tokiko (segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Susumu Tatsuoka	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Makiko Kitashiro	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Masakazu Kuwayama	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Mutsuhiko Tsurumaru	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Akira Tani	...	Huntsman #2 (segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Yôsuke Kondô	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Kiyoshi Yamamoto	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Kinji Omino	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Atsuo Nakamura	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Ginzô Sekiguchi	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi") (as Kinzô Sekiguchi)
Akio Miyabe	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Gen'ya Nagai	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Toru Uchida	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi") (as Tôru Uchida)
Hikaru Jinno	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Toshio Fukuhara	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Kirô Abe	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Toshiro Yagi	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi") (as Toshirô Yagi)
Yuriko Abe	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Yuri Satô	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Kyôichi Satô	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Nobuo Aikawa	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Taiji Kodama	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Nobuaki Maeda	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Teruhiko Shibata	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Haruo Kaji	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Michio Gina	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Seiji Tabe	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Mitsuko Narita	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Noriko Mikura	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Aiko Nagayama	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Michiko Nakahata	...	(segment "Miminashi Hôichi no hanashi")
Kan'emon Nakamura	...	Kannai - a Guard (segment "Chawan no naka")
Osamu Takizawa	...	Author / Narrator (segment "Chawan no naka")
Haruko Sugimura	...	Madame (segment "Chawan no naka")
Ganjirô Nakamura	...	Publisher (segment "Chawan no naka")
Noboru Nakaya	...	Shikibu Heinai (segment "Chawan no naka")
Seiji Miyaguchi	...	Old man (segment "Chawan no naka")
Kei Satô	...	Ghost samurai (segment "Chawan no naka")
Shigeru Kôyama	...	(segment "Chawan no naka")
Jun Tazaki	...	Kannai's Colleague #1 (segment "Chawan no naka")
Junkichi Orimoto	...	(segment "Chawan no naka")
Akiji Kobayashi	...	(segment "Chawan no naka")
Yoshirô Aoki	...	(segment "Chawan no naka")
Isao Tamagawa	...	(segment "Chawan no naka")
Hideyo Amamoto	...	(segment "Chawan no naka")
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Akiko Naraoka	...	Suzue, Kannai's Sister (In a Cup of Tea)

Directed by
Masaki Kobayashi

Writing credits
Yôko Mizuki		(screenplay)
Lafcadio Hearn		(novel) (as Yakumo Koizumi)

Produced by
Shigeru Wakatsuki	....	producer

Original Music by
Tôru Takemitsu

Cinematography by
Yoshio Miyajima

Film Editing by
Hisashi Sagara

Art Direction by
Shigemasa Toda

Sound Department
Hideo Nishizaki	....	sound
Tôru Takemitsu	....	sound designer

Camera and Electrical Department
Akira Aomatsu	....	lighting technician

Other crew
Kiyoshi Awazu	....	title designer

Production Companies

• Bungei
• Ninjin Club
• Toho Company
• Toyo Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Distributors

• Toho Company (1964) (Japan) (theatrical)
• Continental Distributing (1965) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Metropolitan Films (1964) (Belgium) (theatrical)
• Continental Home Vídeo (2005) (Brazil) (DVD)
• Criterion Collection, The (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Filmax Home Video (2001) (Spain) (DVD)
• Home Vision Cinema (2000) (USA) (VHS)
• Madman Entertainment (2006) (Australia) (DVD)
• Raro Video (2008) (Italy) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Toho Studios  sound stages

Also Known As:

"Kaidan" - Japan (original title)
"Ghost Stories" - International (English title) (literal title), USA (informal literal title)

Runtime:

183 min | Argentina:162 min | Spain:182 min (25 fps) (DVD edition) | USA:125 min | Japan:161 min (cut version)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Finland:K-16 | Spain:18 | Singapore:PG | Australia:PG | UK:PG (uncut version) | USA:Not Rated

Filming Locations:

Japan

Company:

Bungei

Trivia:

This is the film adaptation of four stories from the book "Kwaidan: Stories and studies of strange things" by Lafcadio Hearn and is actually a collection of Japanese ghost stories, taken from various sources, some even stemming from China. Originally published in 1904, there are actually seventeen ghost stories in total, as well as insect studies including butterflies, mosquitoes and ants.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Bulletproof Monk (2003)

Classical Japanese tragedy, Expressionist visual style

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.