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Daiei Gothic - Japanese Ghost Stories: Limited Edition
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Radiance Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (30th October 2024). |
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The Film
 "A collection of three of Japan’s most famous ghost stories that have haunted people for centuries. Kenji Misumi (Lone Wolf and Cub) directs The Ghost of Yotsuya, in which a woman returns from the grave as a horribly disfigured phantom to torment her husband and his new bride. In The Snow Woman, directed by Tokuzo Tanaka (Zatoichi), a woodcutter must keep his oath to a vengeful female spirit or pay the ultimate price. The Bride from Hades by Satsuo Yamamoto (Shinobi) sees a handsome samurai so enchanted by a courtesan’s beauty that he fails to realise she is a ghost. These three film versions from the Daiei studio form a pinnacle of atmospheric Japanese horror. Their elegant visuals and ominous shadows rival the best of Terence Fisher or Mario Bava, while their iconic female ghosts would greatly influence Asian genre cinema, from Hong Kong fantasy spectacles such as A Chinese Ghost Story to J-horror." The Ghost of Yotsuya: Without a master to serve, samurai Iemon (An Actor's Revenge's Kazuo Hasegawa) supports himself and his sickly wife Oiwa (Rodan's Yasuko Nakada) by making umbrellas, much to the offense of Oiwa's uncle (Adauchi's Hanzô Kataoka) who attributes Iemon's inability to secure a position to laziness and sets him up for an interview with Lord Ito (Resurrection's San'emon Arashi), assuring him that the traditional gift of a barrel of sake should be enough to flatter his potential employer. Iemon, however, is humiliated when Ito chooses another samurai – for what amounts to a security guard position on construction sites – who comes with an influential recommendation and a bribe; as such, he is spoiling for a fight when he scares off the drunken official's son harassing the beautiful Oume (Ninja, Band of Assassins's Yôko Uraji) who falls in love with him at first sight. Iemon's hangers-on Naosuke (Shogun's Hideo Takamatsu(), Akiyama (The Loyal 47 Ronin's Shôsaku Sugiyama), and Sekiguchi (Fujio Suga) see that they could also potentially benefit from Iemon marrying Lord Ito's daughter and plot behind his back,. Akiyama and Sekiguchi conspire to accuse Oiwa of adultery with faithful servant Kohei (Jôji Tsurumi). So jealous is Oume of Oiwa's beauty that her maid Omaki (Chieko Murata) and Naosuke conspire to disfigure her face. Both plans come together rather messily but all of the conspirators are seemingly successful and Iemon set for happiness and prosperity… that is, until The Ghost of Yotsuya unveils her chilling visage with an eye for vengeance. Based on a famous kabuki play, The Ghost of Yotsuya has been adapted to stage, manga, television, and film so many times that many J-horror enthusiasts looking into Japanese horror cinema's past may confuse this 1959 Kenji Misumi (Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance) version for Daiei with the better-known version by Nobuo Nakagawa made the same year for Shintoho – both are know in western references as "The Ghost of Yotsuya" but easier to distinguish in Japanese with the Nakagawa film titled "Tôkaidô Yotsuya kaidan" and the Misumi as just "Yotsuya kaidan" – indeed, it may be because of how familiar Japanese audiences were with the source material that Misumi and screenwriter Fuji Yahiro (Sansho the Bailiff) decided to take liberties with the plot while still hitting the horror high notes common to every version. Whereas Iemon in the original play was your typical faithless husband who takes an active part in his wife's murder and is justly haunted into killing his co-conspirators by his wife's disfigured apparition, here he is embittered and cynical but would rather be poor and starve than demean himself, his cruelty to his wife being an obliviousness to her overtures of kindness and wounded pride at her attempts to help him through avenues like her uncle. The machinations of those around him turn the story into a theatrical tragedy as Oiwa dies believing her husband responsible through the taunting of the real conspirators and Iemon avenging her out of feeling that he has wronged her rather than the love that she still possesses for him beyond the grave; indeed, it seems as if the threatening apparitions of her appear to those who feel guilt. Much of the backstory has been stripped out – including those bits that make Iemon more of a villain including slaughtering Oiwa's father in order to marry her in the first place – while other major characters have been included like Oiwa's sister Osode (New Tale of Zatoichi's Mieko Kondô) who works in a shop with her husband Yomoschichi (Tampopo's Narutoshi Hayashi) by day and as a geisha house hostess by night have been greatly-reduced (or completley erased like Iemon and Oiwa's infant with the film suggesting her ill health was the result of a miscarriage instead). The change in making Iemon the hero has the side effect of making Oiwa's yu-rei more of a jump scare but her make-up design here is a considerably creepier choice next to her counterpart in the Shintoho version. The film's color anamorphic photography is in keeping with the standards of Daiei, but whereas theatrical lighting effects are common to the presentation of ghosts and monsters in most Japanese horror films, here darkness swallows and radiates Oiwa's disfigurement even in otherwise brightly-lit shots like Iemon's POV tilting up from Oume's kimono up to Oiwa's face; indeed, apart from Oiwa's visit to Lord Ito's home without disfigurement to make herself known just before Ito receives news of her death, Oiwa seems to otherwise travel through the darkness as a firefly. The sound stage interiors and exteriors are earthy with splashes of primaries from bloodshed and the women's clothing while the matte painting backgrounds take on a twilit scheme of blacks, blues, and shades of gray that give the film more of a "Gothic" western look than some of its Daiei contemporaries.  The Snow Woman: Shigetomo (Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters' Tatsuo Hananuno) and his young apprentice Yosaku (Harakiri's Akira Ishihama) hike deep into the woods in search the idea tree for his commission to carve a statue of the goddess Kannon. As night falls, the two shelter in a cabin and fall asleep around the fire. A blizzard springs up inexplicably and brings with it Yuki-onna, the Snow Woman who drains Shigetomo of his life essence, freezing him with her icy breath. She then notices Yosaku and is struck by his youth and beauty, sparing him but holding him to a promise that he will never speak of seeing her to anyone or she will find him and kill him. As Yosaku convalesces in the home of his master cared for by his widow (Rhapsody in August's Sachiko Murase), the tree that Shigetomo chose is delivered to the village and the monks of the temple offer Yosaku the commission to carve the statue which he reluctantly accepts despite believing his deferential claims that he is inexperienced and unworthy of the honor. Not long after, his master's widow gives shelter and hospitality to young Yuki (Zatoichi on the Road's Shiho Fujimura), an orphan stopping on a long trip to another village in search of work. Yosaku grows attracted to Yuki but their bond is sealed when his master's widow, on her death bed after being beaten by bailiff Lord Jitto (The Ghost of Yotsuya's Fujio Suga) for trying to protect children who ran into the path of his horse, beseeches Yuki to take care of Yosaku. Having grown obsessed with Yuki, Lord Jitto is determined to ruin Yosaku by bringing in his own artist (Godzilla 1985's Mizuho Suzuki) to carve a rival statue to be judged by the temple's High Priest. When Jitto attempts to take Yuki by force, she may have to betray her true nature as The Snow Woman (if that was not already obvious). Although the yuki-onna was a well-known yokai even before the publication of Lafcadio Hearn's story collection, the Hearn story indeed served as the basis not only for the telling in the Masaki Kobayashi's portmanteau Kwaidan but also for The Snow Woman (Hearn's collections having first been published outside Japan and then translated into Japanese and published there after his death). The basics of the story are the same – the appearance of the Snow Woman, the death of the elder woodsman, the promise under threat of death, the courtship of the younger woodsman and the orphaned Yuki, the inevitable point where he breaks his promise, and the outcome – but the expansion of the story to feature-length (even at under eighty minutes) is not unlike more modern attempts at turning urban legends into features like Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman or the many more recent feature-length takes on viral short horror films. The effectiveness of these stories lies in their cause-and-effect simplicity and the viewer's anticipation of what will happen when the protagonist does what they were told not to do. The notion of a yokai's love for a human being and whether Yosaku is in love with Yuki for who she is or some subconscious notion of who she really is, and what will cause him to break his promise take a back seat to melodrama as Yuki risks exposing herself to help her husband. On the other hand, since the story does end with Yuki once again sparing Yosaku for the sake of their children – although this film more so than the Kwaidan rendition does suggest that she still loves him in spite of his betrayal – rather than killing him as one would expect from a yu-rei (or even the unacknowledged gargoyle creature take on the legend in Tales from the Darkside: The Movie – the addition of the Lord Jitto character does give the audience a bookending depiction of the Yuki-onna's deadly powers. The film's Daieiscope/Eastmancolor cinematography by Chikashi Makiura (The Tale of Zatoichi) is appropriately "theatrical" in its lighting effects accompanying the yuki-onna's appearances but the production design of Akira Naitô (Daimajin) and the scoring of Akira Ifukube (Godzilla), on the other hand, are less "avant-garde" than the Kobayashi film. The special effects could either be described as more accomplished or just more "showy" in conveying the yuki-onna's icy breath and its freezing effect on the environment and flesh and blood beings. While the story is less-than-satisfying, The Snow Woman is a masterful visual delight. Director Tokuzô Tanaka started out at Daiei as an assistant director on Rashomon and would later helm the shapeshifting cat yu-rei movie The Haunted Castle for Daiei.  The Bride from Hades: When the second-born son of the Hagiwara samurai family dies shortly after becoming wed to Kiku (Sleepy Eyes of Death: Castle Menagerie's Atsumi Uda), the family attempt to pressure third son Shinzaburô (Yokai Monsters: Along with Ghosts' Kôjirô Hongô) to marry her lest her higher-ranked family take her back along with her dowry. While his family see him taking his brother's place in the family business interests is a move up from his "disgraceful" work teaching literature to children in the row houses, Shinzaburô is disgusted with the elitism of his family who look down on the people who work for them. On the first night of the three day Bon festival of the dead, Shinzaburô makes the chance acquaintance of the beautiful Otsoyu (Lady Snowblood's Miyoko Akaza) and her maid Oyone (Samurai Rebellion's Michiko Ôtsuka). Otsoyu tells Shinzaburô that she was sold into prostitution by the men who cheated her father but that due to being a samurai's daughter, she has thus far been able to keep her honor through the diversions of ikebana, conversation, and serving tea to her customers; however, a wealthy old lord has fallen for her and means to redeem her and she will no longer be able to resist his advances. Shinzaburô tells her that he would redeem her had he not been disowned. Oyone tells him that the sentiment is enough and convinces him to participate in a symbolic ceremony with Otsoyu who can be married to him for the length of the festival during which the Yoshiwara women are allowed to leave the pleasure quarters. Shinzaburô's servant Banzô (Yojimbo's Kô Nishimura) recognizes Oyone as he observes her leaving Shinzaburô's quarters before dawn and deduces that Otsoyu is a prostitute. He shares this gossip with Rokusuke (Ugetsu's Saburô Date) for the price of a drink only for the latter to joke that he must have seen a ghost because Oyone is dead. Initially frightened, Banzô attributes what he saw to the drink until he spies on Shinzaburô and sees him in the embrace of a skeleton, after which he goes to row house elder Hakuôdô (Ikiru's Takashi Shimura). They try to warn Shinzaburô but he assumes it is a ploy by his family until he attempts to find the dwelling place of Otsoyu and Oyone and discovers that they are buried at a nearby temple. Certain that further contact with the ghosts will mean death for Shinzaburô, the residents of the row house conspire to protect him but he is unable to resist Otsoyu and the ghosts are more cunning than expected. That each of the films in the "Daiei Gothic" set has an analogue in Toho's Kwaidan – demonstrates that that more internationally-targeted production deliberately chose not just Hearn's most popular stories but ones that demonstrated a sampling of Japanese yokai and yu-rei. While The Ghost of Yotsuya and "The Black Hair" has a wronged wife turned into a yu-rei, and the ubiquitous yuki-onna is the subject of both The Snow Woman and "Woman of the Snow", The Bride from Hades bares superficial similarities to "Hoichi the Earless" with people trying in vain to keep a victim from life-draining repeated contact with ghosts. In the case of this film based on the legend "The Peony Lantern" (and its literary adaptations), however, the contact is romantic and all-consuming as Shinzaburô sees in Otsoyu a victim of the samurai class like himself (more so than his sister-in-law Kiki whose willingness to honor tradition disgusts him even though she would have to live out the rest of her life as a nun if her family did not want to take her back). Shinzaburô is rendered a rather passive character throughout the film, attempting to resist Otsoyu not for his own sake but for the children for whom he provides promise of moving beyond their origins through education – even Oyone says that he should admire Otsoyu for killing herself in protest of an unjust world – and is subject to the machinations of both the ghosts along with Banzô and his scheming wife Omine (Vengeance is Mine's Mayumi Ogawa), the latter ultimately almost getting away with their betrayal but ultimately paying the price for being just a little too greedy. The Bride from Hades and its origins pre-kabuki theater and pre-Lafadio Hearn – the film's version of the legend is based on the novel by Enchô San'yûtei (Kaidan) which also served as the basis for The Haunted Lantern and the version in the direct-to-video anthology Junji Inagawa's Horror of Legend, but Hearn also wrote a version titled "A Passional Karma" published in his collection "Ghostly Japan" – is a Buddhist morality tale with some social commentary. The Bride from Hades was the only horror film directed by Satsuo Yamamoto who famously departed the Shinobi no mono series when Daiei wanted more sequels following what the director felt was the conclusion of the story at the end of the second film. The Eastmancolor Daieiscope photography is once again the work of The Snow Woman's Chikashi Makiura and utilizes a combination of kabuki stage effects and theatrical lighting to "animate" the film's ghosts; however, Makiura is also masterful at illuminating matte painting-augmented sets in a manner that makes them readable but also convincingly nocturnal as in the sequence of the lakeside floating lantern procession. 
Video
Overshadowed by the Nakagawa film made the same year, The Ghost of Yotsuya comes to Blu-ray from a new 4K restoration by Daiei owner Kadokawa Corporation. The 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray is the least of the three transfers in this set, but that has more to do with it being the oldest film and the predominately dark cinematography which gets the black levels right unlike some earlier Japanese SD and HD digital masters, but in doing so makes some of the night exteriors feel a bit murkier and flatter. The well-lit interiors sport great depth and good to great detail – this is the one film in the set where most of the actors are given the "glamour" treatment so their close-ups are not as defined as those in the other two films – but the balance of colors is impressive, with the Oiwa apparition's make-up seeming almost like an oil slick of dark bruising, oozing green, and popping red. There are no traces of archival damage.  Although it had some subtitled theatrical play stateside through Daiei's own theaters, The Snow Woman has only been available on DVD in Japan. Radiance's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray comes from a new 4K restoration by Kadokawa that is spotless and spectacular. Two minute jump cuts early in the film during the yuki-onna's first appearance are not damage but a deliberate choice to try to conceal the effect of the snow woman's changing features as she passes behind foreground objects. The element is spotless and there is nice detail in the wood grain of the sets, the textures of fake ice and snow, and in close-ups of faces and hair while some of the more intensely lit sequences almost look like they were shot yesterday.  According to IMDb, The Bride from Hades played in America via Daiei – who like Toho had theaters aimed at Japanese populations but their films were shown with English subtitles as well – but it has not been available in any official form outside of Japan until Radiance's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray which comes from a brand new Kadokawa 4K restoration. Once again, the elements are spotless, and this film out of all three boasts the clearest and crispest close-ups of its living characters while the ghosts are given an eerie glow that emphasizes the whiteness of their skin when looking normal and the green-gray and sometimes blue-black palor of their ghostly forms. The color scheme is once again earthy as appropriate to the period with the ghosts bringing in spikes of color through their clothing and the effects lighting, and it appears that most of the film's effects were achieved on the set with wires rather than opticals where the materials would be expected to look coarser (even the credits appear to be calligraphy on white, textured backgrounds rather than opticals printed on the backgrounds). 
Audio
Classic Japanese studio films have always boasted some of the best mono tracks in terms of creativity and fidelity – with the Westrex noiseless recording making some of the silences truly unnerving – and the LPCM 2.0 mono tracks on all three of the films in this set are immaculate with clear post-dubbed dialogue, effects, and scoring (there are no notes about the audio side of Kadokawa's restoration so we have no idea how much work was required or the state of the audio materials). Optional English subtitles are free of spelling errors, although there are some inconsistencies in The Ghost of Yotsuya where Oiwa is sometimes referred to as "Iwa" (we have no idea if this is meant to be a more intimate form or if some instances just evaded the proofing). 
Extras
The Ghost of Yotsuya is accompanied by a new appreciation by filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa (19:33) who discusses the kabuki origins of the story and its various adaptations, directly comparing the Misumi and Nakagawa versions, admiring both but preferring the former. He also discusses the ways the film departs from the source, particularly with regard to depicting Oiwa both in life and death. He also discusses the influence of the film on Daiei's house style for "dark" color photography. "The Endless Curse of Oiwa" (22:08) is a visual essay on the history and adaptations of the classic Ghost of Yotsuya story by author Kyoko Hirano who covers the stage origins and the earlier adaptations including the lost silent ones and the 1949 two-parter as well as the more recent adaptations, the enduring appeal of the story not only for audiences in anticipating how each director will approach their favorite fright scenes but also as a part of Japanese culture's social commentary on the position of women which extends to modern J-horror with its grudge-carrying female ghosts as victims of male violence or the single mothers given no choice but to move into haunted places like Dark Water. The disc also includes the Japanese theatrical trailer (1:43).  The Snow Woman is accompanied by an appreciation by filmmaker Masayuki Ochiai (15:49) who discusses the Hearn story and the legend, as well as discussing the difference between prank-playing yokai and grudge-carrying yu-rei (and why the latter seem to be more popular in modern J-horror). "The Haunted Mind of Lafcadio Hearn" (6:47) is a visual essay by scholar Paul Murray who discusses the effect of religion on Irish writer Hearn's belief in the supernatural as the child of a Greek Orthodox mother, protestant father, having as a guardian a Catholic aunt, and encountering Buddhism when he was writing for a newspaper in New Orleans. Murray also discusses a precursor for his Japanese folklore collections from his time in the West Indies, and then his trip on assignment to Japan where he would stay for fourteen years and become immersed in Buddhism and Shintoism. The disc also includes a Japanese theatrical trailer (2:16).  The Bride from Hades is accompanied by an audio commentary by author Jasper Sharp who discusses the various adaptations of the story and its origins in Chinese folklore, and points out the technical and artistic quality of this film as one of the last Daiei horror films in the context of their equal artistic output in other genres at the time even though the writing was on the wall (the studio went bankrupt in 1971 which is how publisher Kadokawa ended up with the library). He also discusses the film's approach to the supernatural in contrast to the contemporary genre output of Toei and Shochiku while also noting that Daiei also made genre work aimed at children as well as more mainstream and popular works like the ghost cat films. Sharp also provides some social context including the ghosts women's position as Yoshiwara prostitutes, religious practices, as well as the film's and source story's erotic element (more explicity explored but not necessarily exploited in the softcore Roman Porno adaptation Hellish Love) and the strain of Buddhist erotic morality tales dealing with the "fear of erotic allure" and danger of "obsessive love." The disc also include an appreciation by filmmaker Hiroshi Takahashi (17:39) who discusses the film's Chinese folkore origins and its adaptation during the Edo period as a rakugo play and then later as a kabuki version, pointing out that the scenes of the ghosts floating and flying were likely achieved with the sort of wirework seen in kabuki plays rather than the Hong Kong wuxia-type effects, and instead of comparing the film to "Hoichi the Earless" he looks a little farther west but still in Asia to the Russian fantasy film The Viy from the previous year. The disc also includes the Japanese theatrical trailer (2:24). 
Packaging
The discs are housed in three full-height Scanavo cases with reversible sleeves featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings. The cases are housed inside an elegant slipcase designed by Time Tomorrow and including a limited edition 80-page perfectbound book featuring "The Sword and the Shadow" in which Tom Mes provides an introduction and overview to the Daiei form of the Gothic, "The Haunting of Japan" in which Zack Davisson discusses the "enduring allure of kaidan" in Japan from ancient folklore, yurei stories emerging from Japan's historic wars, kaidan stories as entertainment on stage and screen, and the evolution of Japanese ghost stories (and ghosts) in the digital age, vintage Japanese reviews of all three films (translated by Mes), and reprintings of Hearn's versions of "Yuki-onna" and "A Passional Karma" with introductions and annotations by Paul Murray. 
Overall
That each of the films in the "Daiei Gothic" set has an analogue in Toho's Kwaidan – demonstrates that that more internationally-targeted production deliberately chose not just Hearn's most popular stories but ones that demonstrated a sampling of Japanese yokai and yu-rei while the Daiei films in the set demonstrate an approach on behalf of the studio and its contract directors that balances tradition and creative innovation. 
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