One of an apparently dozen or so adaptations of this particular legend, the history of the Yotsuya Kaidan story is an integral part of Japanese folklore since it was first printed in 1825 by Tsuruya Nanboku IV. The story has been adapted hundreds of times in Kabuki theater as well as film versions dating back to the silent era, most of which are lost as of today. With over two dozen officially-named adaptations and many more variations over the years, the influence and power of the story is still felt in the Japanese film industry to this day. At the height of his career as the Father of Japanese horror, celebrated director Nobuo Nakagawa offered his own version of the celebrated story and stands as one of the finest efforts to date.
Tired of living in poverty with his wife, samurai Iemon Tamiya (Shigeru Amachi) hatches a scheme...
Tired of living in poverty with his wife, samurai Iemon Tamiya (Shigeru Amachi) hatches a scheme...
- 4/24/2020
- by Don Anelli
- AsianMoviePulse
One of the first Asian Masters of Horror, Japanese director Nobuo Nakagawa offered up numerous exceptional horror films in the late 1950s and early 60s with scores of important and legendary titles. After several tales offering variations of ghost tales, Nakagawa decided to go for a more existential tale of remorse and greed which scored him one of the biggest hits of his career and secured his reputation with a vengeance leading to who he is today.
Trying to move on in life, Shiro Shimizu finds that his involvement with Tamura taints his relationship with his fiancée Yukiko Yajima as his disdainful attitude really sours her. When they both get involved in a car accident that takes its victim, they again feel differently about reporting their involvement in the incident, and soon afterward, a series of personal tragedies effects him. As they both take the news normally,...
Trying to move on in life, Shiro Shimizu finds that his involvement with Tamura taints his relationship with his fiancée Yukiko Yajima as his disdainful attitude really sours her. When they both get involved in a car accident that takes its victim, they again feel differently about reporting their involvement in the incident, and soon afterward, a series of personal tragedies effects him. As they both take the news normally,...
- 4/9/2019
- by Don Anelli
- AsianMoviePulse
Paul Bradshaw Nov 22, 2018
Let’s all hope Hollywood has got this one wrong…
This article comes from Den of Geek UK.
Back in the old days, paintings, carvings and engravings of Hell were used to shock sinners into mending their ways – promising them an eternity of pain and suffering, usually at the end of a red hot poker. Most world religions have their own ideas about what Hell looks like, but filmmakers have since thrown in a lot of their own ideas too – with movie villains heading everywhere from fiery torture caves and spikey chasms to bottomless voids and empty prison cells.
Personally, we’re hoping for the one in The Good Place (because at least Ted Danson will be there), but almost anything is better than spending any time in any of the Hells on this list…
Hell’s Bells (1929)
There’s something inherently disturbing about the idea of...
Let’s all hope Hollywood has got this one wrong…
This article comes from Den of Geek UK.
Back in the old days, paintings, carvings and engravings of Hell were used to shock sinners into mending their ways – promising them an eternity of pain and suffering, usually at the end of a red hot poker. Most world religions have their own ideas about what Hell looks like, but filmmakers have since thrown in a lot of their own ideas too – with movie villains heading everywhere from fiery torture caves and spikey chasms to bottomless voids and empty prison cells.
Personally, we’re hoping for the one in The Good Place (because at least Ted Danson will be there), but almost anything is better than spending any time in any of the Hells on this list…
Hell’s Bells (1929)
There’s something inherently disturbing about the idea of...
- 11/22/2018
- Den of Geek
BAMcinématek is hosting a 10-film series exploring Japanese art and folklore post World War II called Ghosts and Monsters: Postwar Japanese Horror starting this Friday, October 26th through November 1st. Also in today's Highlights: Dermot Mulroney joins the cast of Trick and an interview with Ted Welch and Chris Blake from All Light Will End.
Ghosts and Monsters: Postwar Japanese Horror Screening Details: "From Friday, October 26 through Thursday, November 1, BAMcinématek presents Ghosts and Monsters: Postwar Japanese Horror, a series of 10 films showcasing two strands of Japanese horror films that developed after World War II: kaiju monster movies and beautifully stylized ghost stories from Japanese folklore.
The series includes three classic kaiju films by director Ishirô Honda, beginning with the granddaddy of all nuclear warfare anxiety films, the original Godzilla (1954—Oct 26). The kaiju creature features continue with Mothra (1961—Oct 27), a psychedelic tale of a gigantic prehistoric and long dormant moth larvae...
Ghosts and Monsters: Postwar Japanese Horror Screening Details: "From Friday, October 26 through Thursday, November 1, BAMcinématek presents Ghosts and Monsters: Postwar Japanese Horror, a series of 10 films showcasing two strands of Japanese horror films that developed after World War II: kaiju monster movies and beautifully stylized ghost stories from Japanese folklore.
The series includes three classic kaiju films by director Ishirô Honda, beginning with the granddaddy of all nuclear warfare anxiety films, the original Godzilla (1954—Oct 26). The kaiju creature features continue with Mothra (1961—Oct 27), a psychedelic tale of a gigantic prehistoric and long dormant moth larvae...
- 10/23/2018
- by Tamika Jones
- DailyDead
Horrors of Malformed Men
Blu ray – Region Code: B
Arrow Films
1969/ 2.35:1 / 99 Min. / Street Date September 17, 2018
Starring Teruo Yoshida, Yukie Kagawa
Cinematography by Shigeru Akatsuka
Directed by Teruo Ishii
The Toei Company made their mark in the 50s with a series of atmospheric horror films like Kinnosuke Fukada‘s Ghost Cat of Karakuri Tenjo and Tai Katô‘s The Ghost Story of Oiwa’s Spirit – esoteric shockers rooted in folklore and Kabuki theater that were rarely seen beyond Japanese cinemas. American audiences wouldn’t become familiar with the peculiar pleasures of Toei product until matinee-friendly fare like the animated charmer Alakazam the Great and the rubber-monster freak-out of The Green Slime invaded stateside theaters in the 60s.
Across town at Shintoho Studios – Toei’s closet competitors – director Teruo Ishii was busy shuttling between children’s fare (1957’s Super Giant) and tawdry exposes like 1961’s Sexy Chitai until the studio went...
Blu ray – Region Code: B
Arrow Films
1969/ 2.35:1 / 99 Min. / Street Date September 17, 2018
Starring Teruo Yoshida, Yukie Kagawa
Cinematography by Shigeru Akatsuka
Directed by Teruo Ishii
The Toei Company made their mark in the 50s with a series of atmospheric horror films like Kinnosuke Fukada‘s Ghost Cat of Karakuri Tenjo and Tai Katô‘s The Ghost Story of Oiwa’s Spirit – esoteric shockers rooted in folklore and Kabuki theater that were rarely seen beyond Japanese cinemas. American audiences wouldn’t become familiar with the peculiar pleasures of Toei product until matinee-friendly fare like the animated charmer Alakazam the Great and the rubber-monster freak-out of The Green Slime invaded stateside theaters in the 60s.
Across town at Shintoho Studios – Toei’s closet competitors – director Teruo Ishii was busy shuttling between children’s fare (1957’s Super Giant) and tawdry exposes like 1961’s Sexy Chitai until the studio went...
- 10/9/2018
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
If you ask me, Hell is the ultimate horror setting. Sure, creepy castles and abandoned outposts are great and all, but a realm of eternal torment just strikes me as a tad more terrifying. And of the major cultural interpretations of Hell out there, none are quite as grisly as the hell of Japanese Buddhism: Jigoku. Sure, there’s a way out of it, but the torments inflicted upon the damned in Jigoku make the ones Dante wrote about seem fit for children’s birthday parties. Jigoku consists of sixteen separate hells (eight “hot” and eight “cold”), with eight great hells that consist of tortures ranging from being charred in massive frying pans to being eternally smashed into paste and revived by massive rocks. It’s a brutal, depressing place where hope is faint and mercy can wait billions of years away. Naturally, it makes for a great topic for a horror movie.
- 12/2/2017
- by Perry Ruhland
- DailyDead
We Are The Flesh (Tenemos la carne)
Blu-ray
2017 / Color / 1:85 widescreen – though the aspect ratio changes at the director’s whim/110 min. / Street Date February 28, 2017
Starring: Noe Hernandez, María Evoli and Diego Gamaliel.
Cinematography: Yollótl Alvarado
Film Editor: Yibran Asuad and Emiliano Rocha Minter
Written by Emiliano Rocha Minter
Produced by Julio Chavezmontes and Moisés Cosío
Directed by Emiliano Rocha Minter
Teetering on that thin edge between the ludicrous and the even more ludicrous, Emiliano Rocha Minter’s We Are The Flesh is a spittle-flecked, willfully deranged vision of life in a post-apocalyptic Mexico. Since its release in 2016, Minter’s movie, adrift in bodily fluids and overwrought speechifying, has been turning both heads and stomachs at film festivals across Europe.
An unconvincing mix of Living Theatre provocations and Eraserhead-like tableaus of bursting placentas and the drip, drip, drip of menstrual blood, Minter’s movie announces itself with the...
Blu-ray
2017 / Color / 1:85 widescreen – though the aspect ratio changes at the director’s whim/110 min. / Street Date February 28, 2017
Starring: Noe Hernandez, María Evoli and Diego Gamaliel.
Cinematography: Yollótl Alvarado
Film Editor: Yibran Asuad and Emiliano Rocha Minter
Written by Emiliano Rocha Minter
Produced by Julio Chavezmontes and Moisés Cosío
Directed by Emiliano Rocha Minter
Teetering on that thin edge between the ludicrous and the even more ludicrous, Emiliano Rocha Minter’s We Are The Flesh is a spittle-flecked, willfully deranged vision of life in a post-apocalyptic Mexico. Since its release in 2016, Minter’s movie, adrift in bodily fluids and overwrought speechifying, has been turning both heads and stomachs at film festivals across Europe.
An unconvincing mix of Living Theatre provocations and Eraserhead-like tableaus of bursting placentas and the drip, drip, drip of menstrual blood, Minter’s movie announces itself with the...
- 3/7/2017
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
The Ghost of Yotsuya is required viewing material for anyone who loves horror films. It tells a legendary eerie tale of betrayal, murder, and ghostly revenge! It’s one of the most famous Japanese ghosts stories of all time and was a huge influence on the Japanese horror films that we see today.
The story is based on the 1825 play Tōkaidō Yotsuya Kaidan, which was written by Tsuruya Nanboku IV. The basic premise of the story follows a woman who haunts her husband after she dies a miserable death.
A ruthless samurai named Iemon Tamiya wants to marry a woman named Iwa, but after her father refuses, “Iemon kills him and disposes of the body with assistance of Naosuke. Later, tiring of his wife and wishing to marry the heiress Ume Itō, Iemon plots to murder his wife by mixing a poison into her tea and also killing her admirer Takuetsu.
The story is based on the 1825 play Tōkaidō Yotsuya Kaidan, which was written by Tsuruya Nanboku IV. The basic premise of the story follows a woman who haunts her husband after she dies a miserable death.
A ruthless samurai named Iemon Tamiya wants to marry a woman named Iwa, but after her father refuses, “Iemon kills him and disposes of the body with assistance of Naosuke. Later, tiring of his wife and wishing to marry the heiress Ume Itō, Iemon plots to murder his wife by mixing a poison into her tea and also killing her admirer Takuetsu.
- 10/18/2016
- by Joey Paur
- GeekTyrant
It's the still in a process of refinement, but Indiewire has expanded their gateway to film criticism with Criticwire 2.0, which works as a catalog of critics and criticism that offers a much needed alternative to Rotten Tomatoes. It's less about looking for consensus than it is about offering a simple way of following the critics that interest you and discovering new ones along the way.
The Vienna Film Festival is underway, and while all of us who are not attending lament not being able to check out Mike Ott's DJ set, we have only the coverage of others to turn to for consolation. Turns out there isn't much of that available either, unless you can read German, so for now check out our coverage here in the Notebook, and hopefully there will be more to share next week. Ti West is prepping his next horror film, The Sacrament,...
The Vienna Film Festival is underway, and while all of us who are not attending lament not being able to check out Mike Ott's DJ set, we have only the coverage of others to turn to for consolation. Turns out there isn't much of that available either, unless you can read German, so for now check out our coverage here in the Notebook, and hopefully there will be more to share next week. Ti West is prepping his next horror film, The Sacrament,...
- 10/31/2012
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
"In his mid-50s and a festival favorite since the 80s, [Aki] Kaurismäki has joined the ranks of the master auteurs," writes Dennis Lim in the Los Angeles Times, "but in the Us at least, he has remained somewhat overlooked. Le Havre is being released by Janus Films, the sister company of the Criterion Collection, and for those looking to catch up, a pair of DVD boxed sets are available on Criterion's midprice line Eclipse. Compassionate chronicles of the romantic, economic and existential plights of blue-collar outsiders, the films in the Proletariat Trilogy set [Shadows in Paradise, Ariel and The Match Factory Girl], made between 1986 and 1990, put Kaurismäki on the international map. The Leningrad Cowboys set (out this week) shows off his goofier side, not to mention his taste for Soviet kitsch and American rockabilly."
This second trilogy — Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989), Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses (1994) and Total Balalaika Show (1994) — "chronicles eight years in the group's history, from their ramshackle...
This second trilogy — Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989), Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses (1994) and Total Balalaika Show (1994) — "chronicles eight years in the group's history, from their ramshackle...
- 10/19/2011
- MUBI
For the horror buff, Fall is the best time of the year. The air is crisp, the leaves are falling and a feeling of death hangs on the air. Here at Sound on Sight we have some of the biggest horror fans you can find. We are continually showcasing the best of genre cinema, so we’ve decided to put our horror knowledge and passion to the test in a horror watching contest. Each week in October, Ricky D, James Merolla and Justine Smith will post a list of the horror films they have watched. By the end of the month, the person who has seen the most films wins. Prize Tbd.
Justine Smith (11 viewings) Total of 31 viewings
Purchase
Spider Baby or The Maddest Story Ever Told
Directed by Jack Jill
This movie is very fun, not so much scary as gleefully depraved. The film revels in it’s childhood attitude,...
Justine Smith (11 viewings) Total of 31 viewings
Purchase
Spider Baby or The Maddest Story Ever Told
Directed by Jack Jill
This movie is very fun, not so much scary as gleefully depraved. The film revels in it’s childhood attitude,...
- 10/18/2011
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
Criterion tried playing a fast one this week by releasing all the new films while we were recording our super two year anniversary special. Sneaky Criterion, how could you do such a thing? But lo and behold they gave us another 11 titles, which again just goes to show that Criterion/Janus have multiple tricks up their sleeves. Especially this week, they gave us a couple of catalog titles and the rest are new and exciting, especially one that is the original edit of a particular film that was put on the page last week. Once again, if you want to join what a million other people are enjoying right now, please sign up here. It will help the series of articles and you’ll get to experience the best bang for the buck.
First up is the original version of a film that was put up last week, which is...
First up is the original version of a film that was put up last week, which is...
- 7/12/2011
- by James McCormick
- CriterionCast
NYC Japan Society's monthly film series Zen & Its Opposite: Essential (& Turbulent) Japanese Art House showcases some of the best classical films of Japanese cinema. Based on the Six Planes of Existence in Wheel of Life (Bhavacakra), the film series highlights five Planes, (excluding the Deva/God Realm, Blissful State) with five distinctive films representing each plane:
Ashura/Demigod Realm is represented by Kihachi Okamoto's bloody samurai epic Sword of Doom (1966). Ashura is filled with jealousy, struggle and combat stemming from being envious of Deva Realm. As Tatsuya Nakadai's merciless swordman hacks away in a violent purgatory, the film is a perfect match.
Masaki Kobayashi's stunning 1965 Cannes Palm d'Or winner Kwaidan is Manusya: the Human Realm plagued by passion, desire, doubt and pride.
Tiryag-yoni a.k.a. Animal Realm is reflected in Onibaba (1964, dir. Kaneto Shindo), a gritty tale of survival and animal lust in feudal era Japan.
Ashura/Demigod Realm is represented by Kihachi Okamoto's bloody samurai epic Sword of Doom (1966). Ashura is filled with jealousy, struggle and combat stemming from being envious of Deva Realm. As Tatsuya Nakadai's merciless swordman hacks away in a violent purgatory, the film is a perfect match.
Masaki Kobayashi's stunning 1965 Cannes Palm d'Or winner Kwaidan is Manusya: the Human Realm plagued by passion, desire, doubt and pride.
Tiryag-yoni a.k.a. Animal Realm is reflected in Onibaba (1964, dir. Kaneto Shindo), a gritty tale of survival and animal lust in feudal era Japan.
- 10/13/2010
- Screen Anarchy
In previous editions of the Hideo Nakata interview at the 2008 Nifff (Neuchatel International Fantastic Film Festival) we have covered upcoming projects, horror remakes and more. In this last part of the interview we go over Amityville Horror and filmmaker Nobuo Nakagawa. I had read slight pieces here and there with Nakata referencing or slightly mentioning Amityville Horror, but never much where it was specifically asked or gone into any detail. So in this clip we get much more to flesh out how this series influenced him. In addition we cover his thoughts on legendary filmmaker Nobuo Nakagawa, which includes him mentioning a conversation he had with him in a dream.
In this interview we talk about:
* The Amityville Horror Influence
* The Nobuo Nakagawa Influence
* On Jigoku aka Hell (1960)
Interview after the link bump.
In this interview we talk about:
* The Amityville Horror Influence
* The Nobuo Nakagawa Influence
* On Jigoku aka Hell (1960)
Interview after the link bump.
- 7/22/2008
- by Blake
- Screen Anarchy
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