Kwaidan is a four part anthology series based on the short stories of author Lafcadio Hearn. The remorseful Samurai (Rentaro Mikuni) awakens after his first night home with his first wife, in "The Black Hair," the opening segment of director Masaki Kobayashi's horror anthology Kwaidan, 1965. The film is based on stories from author Lafcadio Hearn's collections of Japanese folklore stories, namely Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. The decision haunts him. The four tales included in this anthology are entitled: Hoichi the Earless; The Black Hair; In a Cup of Tea; and The Woman of the Snow. He spent his life subverting the Samurai movie). Indeed the first tale that makes up Kobayashi's quartet, The Black Hair, bears striking similarities to Mizoguchi's moral fable. "Black Hair": A poor samurai who divorces his true love to marry for money, but finds the marriage disastrous and returns to his old wife, only to discover something eerie about her. It was released to Japanese theaters on January 6, 1965 and to American theaters on July 15 of the same year. From Japan, Kwaidan is a compilation of four short horror films made in the 1960s. A classic collection of four Japanese Horror stories. THE BLACK HAIR is about a samurai who is tired of living in poverty and he leaves his first wife and marries another woman to gain prestige - only to find out that he truly desires to be back with his first wife. Kwaidan by ultragoji2. Just two years after the seminal Seppuku which was done in stark black and white with a geometric, well disciplined style, Kobayashi returns with another tour-de-force, this time in extravagant, expressionistic colour. Each short is an adaptation of a piece of Japanese fiction. Product Information. The movie is nothing if not pictorial (and subtly emphatic in its use of color). Kwaidan (1964) is a collection of four stories, originally collected, transcribed for Western consumption at the turn of the twentieth century by one of the Meiji era’s most famous Occidental expats, Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904). Kwaidan (pronounced Kaidan) is probably one of the most unique films that one could possibly find within the exceptionally large number of arthouse Asian films. Kwaidan. The remorseful Samurai (Rentaro Mikuni) awakens after his first night home with his first wife, in The Black Hair, the opening segment of director Masaki Kobayashi's horror anthology Kwaidan , 1965. This story is pretty decent…. but my favorite remains the story of the blind guy, who losea his ears, and has visions of Samurai battles from days gone by. The Black Hair has various similarities to a subplot in Kenji Mizoguchi’s masterpiece Ugetsu, which was also a supernatural tale about the penalties for the ambitions of heartless men. [Kwaidan] Distributor: Production: Toho. Ninjin Club. Year: 1965 “Kwaidan” on Amazon. Kwaidan -- (Movie Clip) In a Cup of Tea. Kwaidan first published by Little White Lies, as entry 102 in my Cinema Psychotronicum column. Kwaidan is a bit like if Oliver Stone decided to direct a horror movie. Kwaidan (怪談, Kaidan, lit. Ghost Stories) is a 1965 horror anthology film produced by Ninjin Club and distributed by Toho. He looked about himself, and found that instead of embracing his wife he was holding a dry corpse, nothing but bits of flesh clinging to bone wrapped in long black hair. Kwaidan (1965), a haunting quartet of Japanese horror stories, fascinates with its theatrical, artificial sets as well as its subversive sound (composed by Toru Takemitsu). Kwaidan - (Movie Clip) The Black Hair. Kobayashi shot “Kwaidan” in an unused airplane hangar, where he could control every element. Kwaidan - The Black Hair (music by Toru Takemitsu) This is part 1 of my silent movie version of Masaki Kobayashi's 1964 Japanese horror film "Kwaidan" (aka Ghosts). Kwaidan (literally: “ghost stories”) is an anthology of four spooky Japanese folktales from the Edo period, all of which feature ghosts. Japanese Title. AKA: Kwaidan , Ghost Stories, Hoichi the Earless Kwaidan, Kaidan, Ghost Stories, Ghost Story. A collection of four Japanese folk tales with supernatural themes. The first story, "The Black Hair", and the last one, "In a Cup of Tea", are good but it's the two middle tales that make Kwaidan a great film. Kwaidan (怪談 Kaidan, lit. Four ghost stories are included 'The Black Hair', 'The Woman of the Snow', 'Hoichi the Earless' and 'In a Cup of Tea'- each with a classic Horror theme. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, Kwaidan features four nightmarish tales adapted from Lafcadio Hearn’s classic Japanese ghost stories about mortals caught up in forces beyond their comprehension when the supernatural world intervenes in their lives: “The Black Hair”, “The Woman of the Snow”, “Hoichi the Earless”, and “In a Cup of Tea”. Kwaidan Synopsis: This film contains four distinct, separate stories. The longest of the four stories is Hoichi the Earless – and Earless isn’t a typo with a missing F. Hoichi is a gifted young biwa player who specialises in singing songs of ancient battles. Kwaidan – Black Hair Download The first part of the Japanese Horror Classic – Kwaidan , The Black Hair is ready for streaming, downloading the mpeg-1 files, or perusing the image library. View Kwaidan .docx from JPN 158 at University of California, Davis. Directed by Masaki Kobayashi. 怪談. Kwaidan (怪談, Kaidan) is a 1964 Japanese horror film based on a Lafcadio Hearn novel and directed by Masaki Kobayashi. It includes: (1) The Black Hair- A man leaves his devoted wife to be with a woman of greater wealth. Ghost Stories) is a 1965 horror anthology film produced by Ninjin Club and distributed by Toho.The film is based on stories from author Lafcadio Hearn's collections of Japanese folklore stories, namely Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things.It was released to Japanese theaters on January 6, 1965 and to American theaters on July 15 of the same year. The samurai was woken in the morning by the bright morning sun that battered the house more harshly than had the previous autumn moon. The Black Hair. Kwaidan is an odd one for Kobayashi, who tends to pack his movies with social and political commentary (Or rather, criticism. Kwaidan subtitles. Writer(s): Mizuki Yoko. The Japanese ghost story I share here-- The Black Hair is the original—this story is re-told in the modern-day film Kwaidan. Often cited in Critic's top ten lists, Kwaidan is a truly outstanding experience - available uncut for the first time. Kwaidan was filmed almost entirely on massive sets constructed in a converted airplane hangar – as no Japanese studio was big enough to satisfy Kobayashi’s vision for his work. Features "Black Hair", "The Woman in the Snow", "Hoichi the Earless" and "In a Cup of Tea". Related Videos. While such classic black and white chillers as The Uninvited, The Innocents and The Haunting teasingly speculate on the existence of ghosts, this lavish widescreen and color production deals with the spirit world head-on, as something completely … The Black Hair is not my favorite of the Kwaidan anthology – the best are the two stories in the middle – but it does a good job of setting the tone about what to expect for the rest of the film. Along with Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu Monogatari (1953) and Akira Kurosawa’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Throne of Blood (Kumonosu-jō, 1957), Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan (1964) – aka Kaidan, or ‘ghost stories’ – is one of the peaks of the Japanese cinema during its golden era, and one of the most superbly atmospheric supernatural films ever produced in any country. Expressionistic flourishes, like the ghoulish makeup on Rentaro Mikuni’s tormented samurai in opening story, “The Black Hair,” distinguish Masaki Kobayashi’s 1964 horror anthology. One of the most meticulously crafted supernatural fantasy films ever made, Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan (1964) is also one of the most unusual. Director: Masaki Kobayashi. With Rentarô Mikuni, Michiyo Aratama, Misako Watanabe, Kenjirô Ishiyama. Although throughout the film we rarely get harassed by jump scares or CGI monsters, Kobayashi chills us … Toho's Cannes Film Festival Prize Winner. The first, Black Hair, focuses on a poor samurai who abandons his wife to marry a woman from a rich family, only to be consumed by guilt. A poverty-stricken but proud and ambitious samurai (Rentaro Mikuni) leaves his lowly wife (Michiyo Aratama) in order to take up … However if "work of art" was a genre, Kwaidan would be among the best it had to offer. This is a traditional story "kwaidan"—a Japanese ghost story—that Lafcadio Hearn shared in one of his books entitled Kwaidan. I just love it. Kwaidan is comprised of four stories introduced by an unseen narrator. Broken into four chapters, each dealing with a different story on the super natural. Kwaidan (怪談) Country: Japan. SYNOPSIS. As with the epitome of the kaidan genre, Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu (Ugetsu Monogatari, 1953), the ghost is used as a device to reveal man's folly and weakness. The first segment ‘Black Hair’ takes a standard trope of East Asian horror, and spins a morality tale of the purest existential dread. Kwaidan is a 1964 drama with a runtime of 3 hours and 3 minutes. Hearn’s history is shared here, along with another Yurei (ghost) story he collected. Writing Assignment #3"Black Hair" (DQ #7) Although Kwaidan is characterized as a horror film without having any of the typical