Four exquisite, stylized stylish and beautifully arty Ghost Stories inspired by Japanese folklore and written
down by Yakumo Koizum. A Masterpiece of it's genre that was awarded the Jury Prize in Cannes 1965.

More about Yakumo Koizumi:

From the beginning Yakumo Koizumi was a westerner named Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) who was born in
Greece and grew up in the USA. He worked as a reporter and came to Japan in 1890 where he married a
japanese woman and took the name Yokumo Koizumi. He was a Japanophile who wanted to interpret things
Japanese to the west, and also their Ghost stories or Kwaidan, Weird Tales.

Lafcadio Hearn's "Kwaidan" first published in 1904 (this edition the 24th printing 1997)

The film consists of Four weird tales and i could see that Two of them can be found in the above seen book
Kwaidan - Stories and Studies of Strange Things: 1. The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi (The Story of earless
Hoichi) and 2. Yuki-Onna (The Woman in the Snow).
The first of the film's episodes "The Black Hair" and the last "Stories that not finished: In a Cup of Tea" i
couldn't find in the book.

Above: The Old US Criterion Collection DVD - region 1

Story 1: The Black Hair - A Poor and Lord-less Samurai are thinking of his career and when he gets a job in a
far-away province under a new master he dumps his wife and leaves. For the advancement of his career he
marries his masters daughter and finally he's rich.
But, his new wife is a bad person and the marriage is failed, and he starts thinking about the woman he left, his
first wife. How sweet and how beautiful she was and with her long black hair. After many years he returns to
Kyoto to look after his old wife. He finds that the house are in ruins but yes, she's there and she looks exactly
as the day he left her, she's gorgeous. He begs for her forgiveness and spends a night with her ....

Story 2: The Woman in the Snow (Yuki-Onna) - Two woodcutters, the old Mosaku and 18 year old Minokichi
are overtook by a snowstorm, and they seek refuge from the deadly cold in a boatman's hut. The young man
wakes up and horrified he sees a woman dressed all in white bend over the old sleeping man and breathing the
life out of poor old Mosaku. The woman in white bends over Minokichi too but spares him due to his young
age but warns him of ever telling anybody of what he has seen.
Later he marries a woman named O-Yuki (means Snow) ....

Story 3: The Story of Earless Hoichi (The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi / Miminashi Hoichi no Hanashi) - and
my favourite episode - In year 1185 there was a big sea battle between the Genji and the Heike Clans and where
the Heike Clan was obliterated to the last man. 700 years later there´s a Temple situated close to the coast
where the battle took place, at Dan-no-ura in the Straits of Shimonoseki. To calm the agitated Heike spirits
down a Buddhist temple was built in their honor.

Living in the castle is a young blind musician who's an expert of playing the Biwa (a four-stringed lute) and
singing the songs about the battle. One night Hoichi is left alone at the temple when he's called by a spooky
voice to come and play in a palace for a distinguished audience. Every night Hoichi has to play and sing his
songs and he's all exhausted. Finally the Buddhist priests get to know about it and they tell him that he has
been performing, not in a palace, but in a graveyard with the Heike's graves.
To make Hoichi invisible for the ghosts they paint the whole of him with buddhist Sutras as protection ....

Story 4: In a Cup of Tea - Unfinished Story - In 1684 the Samurau guard Kannai is about to drink a cup of tea
when he sees the unlikeable face of a younger man looking at him from the cup. It happens again and again
when Kannai lifts a cup of tea to drink it, WTF? Later in the evening when on night guard the man appears
in front of Kannai, and he says he's Hienai Shikibu and that Kannai has done him wrong !? But Kannai has
no idea of who he could be, or the other guards either. Later three ghost friends of Shikibu turns up at the
door of Kannai's home. They are annoying and tells him that he has done Shikibu wrong, whereupon the
furious Kannai tries to kill them. But they just disappear like shadows when he tries to hit them ....
(The Story then ends with a crazed and exhausted Kannai - It was funny, should have had an ending)

The nordic Blu-ray presents the film in an un-stated ratio, with japanese audio Dolby 2.0 and with swedish
subtitles, region B and No extras

(The Old US Criterion Collection presented the film in a 2.35:1 widescreen ratio with japanese audio mono
with english subtitles, region 1. Extra a text sheet and trailer)