Kwaidan
Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.
From the archive
Kwaidan is a 1964 Japanese anthology horror film directed by Masaki Kobayashi. It is based on stories from Lafcadio Hearn's collections of Japanese folk tales, mainly Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, for which it is named. The film consists of four separate and unrelated stories. Kwaidan is an archaic transliteration of the term kaidan, meaning "ghost story".The film consists of four separate stories based on Japanese folklore, primarily drawn from Lafcadio Hearn's writings. The tales include "The Black Hair," about a samurai haunted by his past, "The Woman of the Snow," featuring a woodcutter and a snow spirit, "Hoichi the Earless," which follows a blind musician summoned by ghosts, and "In a Cup of Tea," a story about a samurai tormented by a mysterious presence.
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Kwaidan (1965) is hosted by the Internet Archive as a public-domain or openly licensed work, which means its copyright has expired, lapsed, or was released by the rights holder. The uploader declared an explicit licence, linked in the source panel. Nitrate streams the file directly from the Archive and hosts no video itself.
- Director
- Masaki Kobayashi
- Starring
- Michiyo Aratama, Rentaro Mikuni, Misako Watanabe, Kenjirō Ishiyama, Ranko Akagi, Fumie Kitahara, Kappei Matsumoto, Yoshiko Ieda
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