Radiance Films has released a boxed set titled Daiei Gothic – Japanese Ghost Stories. The set includes three ghost stories from the 1950s and ’60s, produced by Daiei Studios. They are Kenji Misumi’s The Ghost of Yotsuya (1959 – not to be confused with Nobuo Nakagawa’s film of the same title also released in 1959), Tokuzo Tanaka’s The Snow Woman (1968), and Satsuo Yamamoto’s The Bride from Hades (1968).
Buy Daiei Gothic: Japanese Ghost Stories Blu-rayIn Kenji Misumi’s The Ghost of Yotsuya, Iemon (Kazuo Hasegama) is a talented, dangerous samurai. His wife, Oiwa (Yasuko Nakada), has recently had a miscarriage, and Iemon has become casually condescending and short with her. A young noblewoman falls for Iemon, and he is interested in her love and her money. But Iemon’s colleagues want to push the burgeoning relationship further and faster. They poison Oiwa thinking that will get her out of the way, but Oiwa has other plans and returns to exact her revenge as a disfigured demon. Other than the title, for the first half of the movie, there are no cues for a Western audience that one is watching a ghost story. No fatalistic atmosphere. No canted angles or preliminary scares. Instead, it is a slow build to terror. The look of the ghost and her movements have had an obvious impact on modern J-Horror: the white face, the dark eyes and mouth, the quirky movements. The Ghost of Yotsuya is, at its heart, a gothic romance, and a damn fine one at that. Watching Iemon move swiftly through an uncomfortable slate of emotions is quite the sight to behold. Half the fun in all three movies is debating with oneself over the “fairness” of the revenge that will be inflicted.
Tokuzo Tanaka’s The Snow Woman begins with two sculptors, a master and his apprentice (Akira Ishihama), delving deeply into the snowy woods searching for a grand tree to carve. They find the perfect specimen – a beautiful, massive tree they believe will be responsible for art works that will make their careers. But there is a blizzard heading toward them, and they get stuck that night riding out the blizzard in an abandoned, drafty, dark cabin. During their stay, a ghost (Shiho Fujimura) finds the two sculptors and uses her breath to freeze the master to death. She is surprised to see the apprentice is also in the room and offers to spare his life so long as he never speaks a word of what happened to anybody, not even his future wife. If he breaks the contract, the ghost will kill him. From there, we are left wondering how long it will take for the apprentice to tell his terrible secret. All three films have aspects that may be surprising to Western viewers. In these stories, ghosts can get married to living, human beings. They can have babies! They can be loving, caring partners for decades before returning to their true form as vengeance-filled ghosts and demons.
In Satsuo Yamamoto’s The Bride from Hades, Shinzaburo (Kojiro Hongo) refuses a marriage match sanctioned by the city’s elders. He does not love the woman and does not want to follow the usual path of working one’s way up the ranks to power. Instead, Shinzaburo wants to spend his life teaching the poor children of the village how to read and write. Each year, there is a sort of holiday where spirits are allowed to return to the world of the living. During this time, Shinzaburo meets Otsuyu (Miyoko Akaza) and they find that they are highly compatible. They quickly fall in love and are married. From Otsuyo and his assistant – a local ne’er-do-well, Shinzaburo is able to cobble together some of Otsuyo’s mysterious past. He learns that Otsuyo is a courtesan who has been greatly mistreated. And he learns that Otsuyo was murdered a year ago, but, for obvious reasons, he has trouble believing that part of the story to his own detriment. Unlike the first two features in this set, The Bride from Hades feels like a ghost story from its opening credits. Of the three movies, this is the only one to begin like a ghost story with broodingly atmospheric cinematography and music. The set design, also, adds a dark feel filled with sharp angles. The Bride from Hades feels most like what we would call a modern horror story.
Radiance Films has published a beautiful box set with excellent examples from the genre and a bounty of interesting extras. These movies are a slow burn and not for those who demand their horror directly in their face. Instead, sit back for three well told gothic romances, a brooding, dark storytelling style that always leads to satisfying conclusions, and witness the birth of modern J-Horror.
Bonus Features for The Ghost of Yotsuya:
- New 4K Restoration
- Uncompressed Mono PCM Audio
- Trailer
- Newly Improved English Subtitle Translation
- Appreciation by Filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa (2024, 20 mins)
- The Endless Curse of Oiwa – A Visual Essay by Japanese Film Expert Kyoko Hirano (2024, 22 mins)
- Reversible Sleeve Featuring Original and Newly Commissioned Artwork by Fillipo Di Battista
Bonus Features for The Snow Woman:
- New 4K Restoration
- Uncompressed Mono PCM Audio
- Trailer
- Newly Improved English Subtitle Translation
- Appreciation by Filmmaker Masayuki Ochiai (2024, 16 mins)
- The Haunted Mind of Lafcadio Hearn – A Visual Essay by Lafcadio Hearn Scholar Paul Murray (2024, 7 mins)
- Reversible Sleeve Featuring Original and Newly Commissioned Artwork by Fillipo Di Battista
Bonus Features for The Bride from Hades:
- New 4K Restoration
- Uncompressed Mono PCM Audio
- Trailer
- Newly Improved English Subtitle Translation
- Appreciation by Filmmaker and Screenwriter Hiroshi Takahashi (2024, 18 mins)
- Audio Commentary by Critic and Author Jasper Sharp
- Reversible Sleeve Featuring Original and Newly Commissioned Artwork by Fillipo Di Battista
The boxed set includes a 77-page booklet with the following:
- Cast and crew for each of the three features
- The Sword and the Shadow by Tom Mes (2024) – An essay introducing Daiei Gothic
- The Haunting of Japan by Zack Divisson (2024) – An essay covering the history of ghost stories in Japan
- A Review of The Ghost of Yotsuya by Mami Ogura (1959)
- A Review of The Snow Woman (1968)
- A Review of The Bride from Hades by Haruo Kosuge (1968)
- Yuki-Onna (1904) ghost story by Lafcadio Hearn, with a new introduction by Paul Murray
- A Passional Karma (1899) ghost story by Lafcadio Hearn, with a new introduction by Paul Murray
