Kwaidan (1964)

[Mr. Arkadin]

Comes on tonight (or early morning tomorrow). I have not seen this, but have heard of it. Anyone have info?

[jdb1]

Mr. A, I mention this one in a posting I made under Coming Up on TCM.

I think it's a visually beautiful film, but it's very slow in pace. It's made up of several traditional Japanese ghost stories, which are the scary vehicle of choice in Japan.

You can read the stories online - they were gathered together and translated by the Greek-Irish journalist Lafcadio Hearn, who lived in Japan.

Hearn married a Japanese woman and used the surname Koizumi. I recall that only recently there was something in the NY Times about his Japanese family and a memorial to Hearn.

[moira finnie]

I fell asleep just before Mr. Wu came on and awoke for the last, very evocative, beautifully photographed 15 minutes of Kwaidan (1964), aka Kaidan, which I now must see! Did this film remind anyone else of Kurosawa's Dreams (1990)?

In the meantime, here's a link to a bio of Lafcadio Hearn and his online stories which include the Kwaidan tales:
Bio: http://www.lafcadiohearn.jp/misc/life.html

Online Books: http://tinyurl.com/332t9r

[MikeBSG]

I have seen "Kwaidan" a couple of times.

There are four stories in the movie. The first three strike me as very traditional folktales, while the fourth has a far more "modern" feel. I love stories #3 and 4, and while the first two are well-filmed, I can't really warm up to them.

Story #3, "Hochi" is terrific. Anyone who has ever thrilled to a Kurosawa samurai film will thrill to the opening of this story, which has a samurai battle at sea. The images of samurai warriors emerging out of the sea's mists are incomparable. As good as these images are, the rest of the story manages to avoid being an anti-climax

[Mr. Arkadin]

Well, yesterday was a total washout for me. I fell asleep right before Mr. Wu started, then I set my alarm for Kwaidan at 2:30am. Woke up, hit record went back to sleep. Woke up this morning and realized I forgot to extend the record time to four hour mode to get this film.

So did anybody record it? I think Moira would like a copy as well.

[Mr. Arkadin]

Mr. A, I mention this one in a posting I made under Coming Up on TCM.

I think it's a visually beautiful film, but it's very slow in pace. It's made up of several traditional Japanese ghost stories, which are the scary vehicle of choice in Japan.

You can read the stories online - they were gathered together and translated by the Greek-Irish journalist Lafcadio Hearn, who lived in Japan.

Hearn married a Japanese woman and used the surname Koizumi. I recall that only recently there was something in the NY Times about his Japanese family and a memorial to Hearn.

Thank you. I need to check that thread more often.