Rating: 
Summary: A Feast
Review: The best work of director Masaki Kobayashi is within calling distance of the achievements of other Japanese masters like Kurosawa and Mizoguchi. Perhaps inevitably uneven, given that it consists of four stories, KWAIDAN's best moments combine a graphic sense of composition, lush, dense colors, a tactile response to materials, and a tart, poetic use of sound. All, despite the occasional ragged shot, are served admirably by Criterion's transfer.Watching KWAIDAN is a lot like sitting down to a full meal. The first course, "The Black Hair," is a fairly bland and predictable salad, spiced with some extraordinary filmmaking. (The sound of the second wife's kimono gliding over the wooden floors hauntingly condenses her character to a single, silky detail, for example.) It isn't bad, just mildly disappointing, leaving us hungry for more. "The Woman in the Snow" would be a perfectly realized appetizer, except that with its powdered sugar snow, painted sunsets and theatrical lighting effects, it looks more like dessert. The sweet taste is a trick, however, a way of disarming us so that when the horror arrives, its raw simplicity is deeply frightening. "Hoichi the Earless," the main course, is simply stunning, executed at a virtually indescribable level of formal control. There are no fewer than *five* layers of representation in the segment. The relatively Realistic framing story of Hoichi seamlessly slides into dreams and fantasy in which mists and shadows creep around characters posed as motionless, hieratic masses. A legendary battle between the Genji and Heike clans is staged in Kabuki-like bright colors, broad gestures and theatrical backdrops, intercut with a painting of the battle, while the soundtrack provides a *third* description through both a musical recounting and a narration of the story. "Hoichi" has the pictorial extravagance of RAN's battle scenes, but where Kurosawa paints his canvas with broad, epic strokes, Kobayashi abstracts the action into a few, highly compressed gestures. The segment is marred only by some low-comedy scenes which fortunately are brief enough not to get in the way. The film concludes with "In a Cup of Tea," the most original as a story and, with its subdued colors, traditional editing and focus on the actors instead of the decor, the most Naturalistic as filmmaking. "Tea" combines a kind of Borgesian menace with an understated, knowing sense of humor. This is the real dessert, pleasant, surprising, occasinally funny but also, in its very last shot, an astringent reminder of what has come before. It is a suitably satisfying conclusion to a filling meal.
Rating:
Summary: Organic Color!!!
Review: The photography in this film is alive! The sets and costumes are vibrant and brilliantly hued and the cinematography captures it in all its painted glory! But besides that...the stories in this film are all interesting, with some very original ideas. They are four Japanese ghost stories, each one with either a surprise ending or a surreal plot twist that made me want to watch the next one. Some of the stories are genuinely creepy, while others are not so much creepy, but more along the lines of folklore, like tales form The Brothers Grim with an Eastern flavor. While I've read critical reviews hailing this as a masterpiece of traditional Japanese story-telling, I don't completely agree. There is plenty here to marvel at, and much of it does seem perfect for the time it was made(1965), but in the end it is a collection of ghost stories, well-made and thoughtfully produced, with memorable scenes that linger long after the film ends. This is a solid edition to my DVD collection, and it is easy to recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Organic Color!!!
Review: The photography in this film is alive! The sets and costumes are vibrant and brilliantly hued and the cinematography captures it in all its painted glory! But besides that...the stories in this film are all interesting, with some very original ideas. They are four Japanese ghost stories, each one with either a surprise ending or a surreal plot twist that made me want to watch the next one. Some of the stories are genuinely creepy, while others are not so much creepy, but more along the lines of folklore, like tales form The Brothers Grim with an Eastern flavor. While I've read critical reviews hailing this as a masterpiece of traditional Japanese story-telling, I don't completely agree. There is plenty here to marvel at, and much of it does seem perfect for the time it was made(1965), but in the end it is a collection of ghost stories, well-made and thoughtfully produced, with memorable scenes that linger long after the film ends. This is a solid edition to my DVD collection, and it is easy to recommend.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing!!!
Review: This collection of stories is a mysterious journey into the folklore of Japan. The emphasis, though in a visual format, seems to be the ancient oral traditions of myth from a society that remained relatively unchanged for hundreds of years. The cinematography is compelling, and the stories are scarey as hell. If you like scarey movies and have a passion for the culture and traditions of Japan, get this movie. If you are expecting ninjas or gunplay, this is not the movie for you
Rating: 
Summary: only okey dokey..maybe.
Review: this film is 4 stories of japanese folklore told back to back and is filmed the just like the stories are read...that isn't always a good thing...the sets and the atmosphere are Awesome! Beautiful! But...It was super duper slow...there are not so much to the stories for them to be taking 30 minutes each...adding to the boredom, there is hardly any dialogue, just lots of cold stares from the actors...I own a couple of Japanese folklore books and the stories usually wont even last a whole page...the stories are very quick and very to the point....but the short films are not that great but very pretty...I wish these kind of sets were on more films....anyways...I regret spending this much money on the film...
Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest fims of all time.
Review: This film is so utterly magnificent, it's on eof the greatest films of all time. It has the most gorgeous art work, dream-like visuals, color photography I've ever seen in film. This is based on tales by Lafcadio Hearn. A bizzare, eerie and horrifying musical score by Toru Takemitsu works exellently with the beautiful visuals. This video also has a gorgeous color Cinemascope widescreen presentation. The first tale Black Hair, is a bit slow, but's it's so worth it in the unbelievable horror climax. The second tale, Woman in the Snow, is one of the best and most beautiful in the whole film. Masaki Kobayashi uses just all white during the blizzard sequinces with some blood reds, lush greens, dream like blues, and odd purples. The third story, Hoichi, the Earless, begins with one of the most beautiful scenes in the film. An epic sea battle between the Heikie and Genji clans. This scene feautures all kinds of bizzare and beautiful colors including a firey red sky. The rest of the film concerns a young blind man's horrifying ordeal with ghosts. I can see some references to this segment in Akira Kurosawa's Ran. The final segment is called In a Cup of Tea and is the weakest. It's too short, and too fast moving. It does feature lots of gorgeous visuals to make up for it. I recommend this film to anyone, if you haven't seen this film. CLICK BUY RIGHT NOW!
Rating:
Summary: The definitve art film masterpiece
Review: This film leaves the viewer exhausted. You will keep asking, "What is the truth" . Kurosawa has created a masterpiece that many films try to emulate to this day, but will never approach.
Like an artist he paints the scenery with contrasts. Powerful performances by all the actors, and the action never ceases it just builds from the begining to end.
Rating:
Summary: Tepid filmaking / drawn-out stories / not scary
Review: This is one of those tried and true Criterion titles of yore, and let me tell you, it's a shaggy dog of a movie -- each one of these stories has the same frickin punchline -- it's.......a ghost! Whoooo! Although the premise for a couple of the stories is moderately eerie, their denoument is so obvious that one can only ask --- why is this movie so long? I know, it seems too good to be true, an epic widescreen Japanese horror film from the early 60s all styled out... and, it is too good to be true. The exceedingly outdated "special effects" are downright laughable, and everything has the look of the Toho backlot. The supernatural elements of Rashomon are much more intruiging than this entire film. I'm selling this one-discer.
Rating:
Summary: Tepid filmaking / drawn-out stories / not scary
Review: This is one of those tried and true Criterion titles of yore, and let me tell you, it's a shaggy dog of a movie -- each one of these stories has the same frickin punchline -- it's.......a ghost! Whoooo! Although the premise for a couple of the stories is moderately eerie, their denoument is so obvious that one can only ask --- why is this movie so long? I know, it seems too good to be true, an epic widescreen Japanese horror film from the early 60s all styled out... and, it is too good to be true. The exceedingly outdated "special effects" are downright laughable, and everything has the look of the Toho backlot. The supernatural elements of Rashomon are much more intruiging than this entire film. I'm selling this one-discer.
Rating:
Summary: Slow moving but beautiful and horrifying
Review: This movie isn't for all tastes obviously. It is extremely slow paced and some people can't handle that. But if you can allow yourself to fall into the eerie visuals and sound, the pacing winds up making the film that much more haunting when it finally does become scary. The stories are very simple but dark parables. One of the keys to the film's quality, in addition to the beautiful visuals, is the music/sound by Toru Takemitsu. He often incorporates sounds into the music, for example, breaking wood or a creaking spindle, to a fabulously creepy affect. At other times he replaces sounds with a musical representation of the sound like the "sounds" of the storm in the "Hoichi the Earless" segment. Takemitsu was such an assett to every film maker he worked with. Kobayashi is a terrific film maker... "Harakiri" and "Samurai Rebellion" are also must sees. "Kwaidan" is very different from those films, but then again, it's also very different from every other film ever made. It's a totally unique work of pure art.
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