Rating: 
Summary: Elegant cinematography
Review: Kobayashi captured the quintessence of the Japanese ghost story.
It's amazing that a non Japanese , Lafacadio Hearn, wrote these stories.(I recommend reading him also).
From the first credits ..to the end, we are watching a painting in motion.
Rating:
Summary: Four tales of the supernatural from Japan. Magnificant!
Review: Kwaidan presents four stories of the supernatural. Each story is beautifully produced and thought provoking. Kwaidan is not a horror film in the American context of freightening images and fast pace. Freightening aspects of this movie are generated by realizations and associations that occur in the viewer, as a result of the images and story line presented by the movie. It is a much more personalized form of horror than we normally experience.I recommend this movie highly to anyone with a thoughtful turn of mind.
Rating: 
Summary: Ok, I always get sucked into these ghost stories
Review: Lesson 1, always look at the date of the movie and then read the premise. I always read the premise, get the movie and then once it's in, realize that it's more of a Sinbad Saturday Afternoon movie then the Sixth Sense. The last story was cool about the boy who is on the cover but the rest are boring.
Rent-Maybe
Buy-No
Rating:
Summary: Ok, I always get sucked into these ghost stories
Review: Lesson 1, always look at the date of the movie and then read the premise. I always read the premise, get the movie and then once it's in, realize that it's more of a Sinbad Saturday Afternoon movie then the Sixth Sense. The last story was cool about the boy who is on the cover but the rest are boring.
Rent-Maybe
Buy-No
Rating:
Summary: Just about the best Japanese film I've ever seen
Review: Man, this is awesome. Haunted teacups, ghosts, snow vampires, blind men with bodies covered with Japanese simbols. What more could a viewer want. And this film has an exellent use of color. Ingenoius cinematography and art direction make incredible images you won't soon forget. Wow! Tape has a crystal clear print and is subtitled
Rating: 
Summary: a classic from kobayashi, with uneven moments
Review: Of the four stories, "Hoichi the Earless" is the most memorable. Not only is the famous composer Takemitsu Toru's music used most eeriely, the ghosts really have a reason to be grumpy (they all died "heroic" deaths in a battle from ancient Japanese history.) This third tale also features Takeshi Shimura, who reprises the role of a priest from Seven Samurai - for real this time. His presence in reassuring, even after he admits to the mistake that costs Hoichi his appendages. The uneveness mainly has to do with the first two tales, "Black Hair" and "Woman of the Snow", both of which suffer from weak editing/pacing of the narrative. "Black Hair" does live up to the promise of a ghostly tale by the end --- a beautiful fusion of restrained eerieness and horrifying effects of camera-induced disturbance. Famed actor Tatsuya Nakadai remains his own profile in "Woman of the Snow", however, making the most disappointing segment of the movie (even the eye in the sky is more contrived than the corlorful battle-scenes of Hoichi!) These first 2 stories are also typical of demonizing the female as threatening supernaturals, but that's a construction the movie obeys rather than creates. All in all, Kwaidan's successfully rendered atmosphere of horror and despair in the last two tales are well worth the time. Don't skip the beginning though - for Takemitsu's masterful music and the effective dye-in-motion that introduce the tales.
Rating:
Summary: color, action, scary ... not to be missed!
Review: Some useful thoughts for the prospective viewer: 1.At last! The beautiful KWAIDAN on DVD! We can expect even better color and visuals than even the VHS transfers. 2. KWAIDAN was originally released on two (count 'em: two) VHS tapes. It's long! On VHS, at 2-and-one-half-plus hours, the new release on a one-tape cassette version is pushing it, and prone to damage. ( I've had similar problems with my one-cassette VHS edition of Bergman's lengthy 'Scenes from a Marriage.') Get a DVD player, and the KWAIDAN DVD, in preference to the more fragile one-cassette VHS release. 3. Despite its careful pacing this film is scary. One two tape edition was released with warnings on the box that KWAIDAN is not for children. KWAIDAN is not for the pacemaker crowd, either. Like watching Bergman, be sure you've been eating your Wheaties. You may not actually need a doctor's clearance to watch KWAIDAN, however... but be forewarned: KWAIDAN is a powerful film, full of surprises. 4. "slow?" Broaden your horizons ... think of film from a new point of view. Films like KWAIDAN use such pacing to contribute to the film's overall impact. Director's use pacing of whatever type, for a reason. Better than rushing thru the experience, believe me. Put your ideas about Disney-paced ghost stories aside, please. Kwaidan is a work of art, to put it in a nutshell. Give yourself the time and chance to get into KWAIDAN. It's worth it. Time well-repaid, you will be richly rewarded. 5. "Only four stories?" some reverse psychology hiding in such an idea: would that all similar oriental ghost stories could receive a similar excellent/superior treatment! The real regret here may be that they are done so well, it 'disappoints' us because other ghost stories don't all receive such lavish and excellent professional treatment. ie, KWAIDAN is so excellent, it's almost unfair! One begins to realize, at some point in viewing KWAIDAN, how much expense and trouble went in to the making of this film. 6. Film illiteracy and immaturities block many of us from full appreciation of KWAIDAN. Just "don't let this happen to you!"
As we all know, attitudes and prejudices can be destructive. Would that we had such a democratic attitude towards excellent film! Our appreciation of KWAIDAN is thereby immeasurably enriched, enhanced. Educational (*yawn*) it is, but is also enjoyably rich, lavish, and exciting, once you get into it. Believe me, your senses will not be cheated! I'm no massively huge fan of artistic orientalia either, on film or otherwise - but that doesn't keep me from loving KWAIDAN! As an impatient foreign language teacher of mine used to say, "Don't be a cultural boor!" 7. 'Uneven' moments ? Perhaps. However, we must allow for cultural/artisitic differences between modern West and ancient East. You needn't be a sinophile Kabuki or 'Noh' drama fan to get alot out of KWAIDAN. Not being oriental, we may not be in a position to fairly judge. But that is no reason to miss KWAIDAN. It's not an excruciating gymnastic effort of a cultural leap, to dial oneself to come to appreciate the rich momentum of this film. We can bravely give ourselves the permission, and allow ourselves to be receptive to KWAIDAN. This would not be cultural snobbery. Grant yourself the privilege! 8. KWAIDAN easily competes with 'Gates of Hell' (50s) as one of the most beautiful films ever made in Japan. Relish it. 'The Snow Queen' tale is visually colorful and magnificent. The battle scenes in 'Hoichi the Earless' episode easily compete with anything else in color ('Kagemusha' fans, take note!)...no need to extenuate. Let's not cry and spill our coca-cola and popcorn because KWAIDAN isn't 'Terminator 2.' There is another kind of excitement and action here to enjoy and appreciate. This is a lavish film! Certainly KWAIDAN ranks with 'Seven Samurai' and 'Tokyo Story' as one of the top handful of films ever to come out of Japan. 9. Soundtrack: effective and haunting music of a classic oriental style. This film no doubt caused pop stars of the 60s to introduce such music and oriental instruments into their repertoire, for effect. No better example than KWAIDAN to derive from. Quite the presentation. 10. DON'T miss Kobayashi's other excellent film 'Harakiri,'(b&w, 60s) which many consider at least as excellent as KWAIDAN (though shorter, and not in color.)Ie, there's more excellent Kobayashi where KWAIDAN came from ... one needn't feel deprived.
Rating:
Summary: One of a kind film.
Review: Spoilers --yes, it is important always to announce coming spoilers because there are still people who haven't seen this film. (After hearing about it for a decade, I hadn't seen it till this past week.) There is surely little I can add to what's already been said here about this film. So maybe what I have to say boils down to a YES vote for the pacing, atmosphere and story content of Kwaidan. But I will venture a few comments. Unlike some other reviewers, I don't consider the first two tales, Woman of the Snow and The Black Hair-- nor the last tale, In a Cup of Tea-- negligible. Your pulse and breathing slows, the pitch of your senses drops an octave and even time seems to step off its treadmill to oblivion as you enter into the warp and weft of Kwaidan through The Black Hair. Over all, the director showed great ingenuity in the way he 'shot around' moments that could have been sunk by the formative level of special effects at that time. (How many films of this vintage are ruined for modern viewers by the universal presence of the veritable zipper in the back of the monster suit? Nearly all. This film avoids that pitfall, and yet still manages to give you something awesome to look at. --In other words, the director didn't just lazily avert his camera's gaze, as low budget horror films of the time often do, and fall back on what became an abused old saw that "the audience can always supply stronger horrors in their mind than I could for them." The director gives us plenty to look at and remember visually later.) Woman of the Snow develops a poignant relationship between a wife-- who is not what she appears-- and her husband. Their story is sweet. You hope they prosper as a family, while you fear otherwise. A tone that is basically domestic and anti-horrific is set. When the serenity of their lives is climactically shattered, it is doubly hard to watch. You feel pity and sorrow for the man, and even for the monster, more than horror. There is no gore. A beautiful way of life is dissolved forever by a careless word, a moment of candor with a loved one that prompts unforeseeable consequences. That is real horror. Hoichi is probably the standout story, if only because it is given the full space in time for which storytelling at this sort of pace begs. The visual effects in those scenes involving Hoichi's visits to the dead are handled with incredible deftness. They are the best this pre-cgi, pre-morph technology era could have hoped to achieve and they still stand up amazingly. I fairly gasped when I saw these scenes.(The most beautiful use of what are essentially dissolves I have seen.) This segment makes some of the best use of silence and near silence also. As the ghost assaults Hoichi, there are sparse, muted musique concrete plocks and bings on the soundtrack. The effect is suffocating. No flurry of Wagnerian sturm und drang could have worked as well for this rending scene. After the breadth and luxury of the Hoichi segment, In a Cup of Tea may seem a little abrupt. This is not a bad thing. Hoichi was allowed enough latitude that they even managed some rare comic relief there. A Cup of Tea is a tart, terse afterword of a segment. It's like an episode of the half hour Alfred Hitchcock Presents in that it explodes the surprise at the very end, then exits with no comment at all. This is perfectly in keeping with Hearn's source stories or a John Collier or W.W. Jacobs short story. --Anything written in the form after Poe, really. Everything builds toward the final effect. If you haven't seen Kwaidan, I recommend it. You need a grey day, first of all, or a night to view it. You need to banish all your irreverant, overly-ironic friends who might surprise you and 'get it', but as likely won't. And you have to want to like it. If all these conditions are in place, I can almost guarantee you'll be very glad you invested the time in the film.
Rating:
Summary: Japonaiserie
Review: Strange, haunting and memorable. A work of the imagination that you will never forget. Based on tales by Lafcadio Hearne,the separate stories are visually compelling and dramatically striking. People who enjoyed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon will find some of the same magic here.
Rating:
Summary: unforgettable
Review: Superb Japanese anthology film.Ravishing photography and incredibly beautiful sets make this a visual treat.Director Masaki Kobayashi does a wonderful job with the Lafcadio Hearn ghost stories instilling each with its own haunting quality.A must buy disc.
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