KWAIDAN is a Japanese anthology of four ghost stories, each based on an original story by Lafcadio Hearn originally written at the turn of the 20th century (I've read some of those stories, and they're well worth checking out if you're a literature fan, by the way). The initial story explores the fate of a man who leaves his loving wife, only to end up regretting his decision. I found this story to be a bit overlong – there's only so long you can drag out something when nothing's happening – but lovely to look at and exceptionally spooky, along the same lines as a similar '60s classic, ONIBABA.
The second story tells the tale of a vengeful snow spirit and is equally spooky, with some great hand-painted sky backdrops. Again, it's overlong, and the ending is something of a letdown, but the tale works as a whole and contributes to the icy atmosphere of the production. The third story is where things start to lose steam. It starts off promisingly enough, with a fine depiction of an epic sea battle, but then it goes absolutely nowhere with the plotting. The story is dragged out for a full hour – sometimes whole dialogues are repeated – until the admittedly decent climax.
The final story, about a haunted cup of tea, works far more effectively than it sounds. It's of a far better length (read: shorter) and all the more effective because of that. Sadly, despite this film's beauty and visual artistry it does end up being way too long (at over three hours) and just too slow-moving for my taste, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped. Certainly not a patch on ONIBABA: now that was a great movie!
The second story tells the tale of a vengeful snow spirit and is equally spooky, with some great hand-painted sky backdrops. Again, it's overlong, and the ending is something of a letdown, but the tale works as a whole and contributes to the icy atmosphere of the production. The third story is where things start to lose steam. It starts off promisingly enough, with a fine depiction of an epic sea battle, but then it goes absolutely nowhere with the plotting. The story is dragged out for a full hour – sometimes whole dialogues are repeated – until the admittedly decent climax.
The final story, about a haunted cup of tea, works far more effectively than it sounds. It's of a far better length (read: shorter) and all the more effective because of that. Sadly, despite this film's beauty and visual artistry it does end up being way too long (at over three hours) and just too slow-moving for my taste, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped. Certainly not a patch on ONIBABA: now that was a great movie!