Kwaidan - Criterion Collection

Kwaidan - Criterion Collection
by Masaki Kobayashi

Kwaidan - Criterion Collection
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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Kenjiro Ishiyama, Michiyo Aratama, Misako Watanabe, Ranko Akagi, Rentaro Mikuni
Director: Masaki Kobayashi
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Yoshio Miyajima
Editor: Hisashi Sagara
Producer: Shigeru Wakatsuki
Writer: Lafcadio Hearn
Writer: Y?ko Mizuki
DVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Japanese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 125 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-10-10
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion

Movie Reviews of Kwaidan - Criterion Collection

Movie Review: JUST A FORSAKEN CRITERION EDITION... REFUSE TO TAKE.
Summary: 1 Stars

Poor image quality was put onto a US theatrical cut of KOBAYASHI's masterpiece. What a shame! I'd rather believe Criterion didn't release this. In my opinion, MoC has released the best edition so far. Full-length director's cut, with brand new image restoration, although the trailer was lost, does it matter?

Summary of Kwaidan - Criterion Collection

Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, Kwaidan features four nightmarish tales in which terror thrives and demons lurk. Adapted from traditional Japanese ghost stories, this lavish, widescreen production drew extensively on Kobayashi's own training as a student of painting and fine arts. Criterion is proud to present Kwaidan in a new ravishing color transfer.
A masterpiece of filmmaking artifice and mood-setting atmosphere, Kwaidan consists of four ghost stories adapted from the fiction of Greek-born Lafcadio Hearn (a.k.a. Yakumo Koizumi, 1850-1904), who assimilated into Japanese culture so thoroughly that his writings reveal no evidence of Western influence. So it is that these four cinematic interpretations--perhaps more accurately described as tales of spectral visitation--are sublimely Japanese in tone and texture, created entirely in a studio with frequently stunning results. There are painterly images here that remain the most beautiful and haunting in all of Japanese cinema, presented with the purity of silent film, sparsely accompanied by post-synchronized sounds and music (by Toru Takemitsu) that enhance the otherworldly effect of director Masaki Kobayashi's meticulous imagery. When viewed in a receptive frame of mind, Kwaidan can be intensely hypnotic.

Each of the four stories find their protagonists confronted by spirits that compel them to (respectively) make amends for past mistakes, maintain vows of silence, satisfy the yearnings of the undead, or capture phantoms that remain frightfully elusive. As each tale progresses, their supernatural elements grow increasingly intense and distant from the confines of reality. With careful use of glorious color and wide-screen composition, Kwaidan exists in a netherworld that is both real and imagined, its characters never quite sure they can trust what they've seen and heard. Vastly different from the more overt shocks of Western horror, the film casts a supernatural spell that remains timelessly effective. --Jeff Shannon

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