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Kwaidan
This stunningly beautiful anthology of Japanese ghost stories is one of the most meticulously crafted supernatural films ever made.
Horror 1964 183 mins
Director: Masaki Kobayashi
Overview
Masaki Kobayashi’s stunningly beautiful anthology of Japanese ghost stories is both a captivatingly creepy horror film and an elegant treatise on death and loss to rank alongside Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu Monogatari. Comprising four nightmarish tales adapted from Lafcadio Hearn’s classic ghost stories, each of which has its own visual style, Kwaidan features some of the most breathtaking imagery in Japanese cinema, lavishly photographed from a series of immaculately handpainted sets.
Originally released in Britain in an 163-minute version, Kwaidan was recently restored to its full 183-minute glory, and the result remains a timeless classic that both chills the bones and enraptures the senses.
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