Director Tai Kato’s 1961 ghost story adapts a classic Japanese tale about a scorned and deceived wife who exacts her revenge from beyond the grave. While Oiwa is a presence, the story is more about her lousy husband, Iemon (Tomisaburô Wakayama), a low-class samurai who grabs for the brass ring when the daughter of a rich family takes a liking to him. That’s Iemon with a capital I, not the fruit, although the character is revealed to be a real lemon of a husband.
Buy The Tale of Oiwa’s Ghost Blu-rayAs Iemon tries to climb the social ladder, he’s also faced with the dilemma of how to kick his faithful, supportive wife off the lowest rung. Settling on a permanent solution, he selects poison as his weapon of choice and disposes of his old baggage, at least until she returns as a disfigured ghost. Wakayama is superbly effective at developing the character, with almost comical brazenness in his weasely, slouching nonchalance about his character’s self-serving sins. He’s the real draw, with his female co-stars hitting their marks but remaining largely unmemorable. Kato spins Iemon’s tale in a largely conventional but beautifully lensed drama that examines society’s ills instead of thrills and chills.
The film is presented in 2.39:1 aspect ratio utilizing a new hi-definition digital transfer and uncompressed mono PCM audio. The transfer by Toei shows enough specks to indicate little clean-up restoration was performed, but the black-and-white photography is crisply defined, with deep blacks and luminous whites providing startling clarity in even the most dimly-lit scenes. Bonus features are sparse, but include an introduction to the film and an interview with Mari Asato, along with a unique visual essay about female ghosts by Lindsay Nelson that is long on artfully remixed visuals but short on descriptive essay elements. As usual with Radiance releases, the sleeve is reversible, with both original and newly commissioned artwork depending on your preference. The limited edition includes a booklet with new writing by Tom Mes focusing on the career of Kato in relation to the history of Japanese cinema as a whole.
A note about potential playability issues: the original pressing of the disc contained an apparent authoring flaw that rendered it incompatible with certain players. In my case, the disc failed to successfully launch to a menu or the film on both a PlayStation 4 and an Xbox One, returning just a black screen after displaying the Radiance logo. Radiance is aware of this issue and has reissued the disc, so if you happen to encounter the original release in the wild, simply reach out to Radiance for replacement. The corrected disc version is properly labeled with a revised catalog number on the disc, RAD114BD-US/R2.
Despite its supernatural trappings, Kato’s film is much more aligned with chamber drama than spooky horror. Kato shies away from sensationalizing any of the ghost encounters, shooting with mostly conventional angles and lighting even through the final comeuppance. As such, the film is more suitable for fans of the mainstream consistency of the likes of Kurosawa and Ozu, rather than of genre films pushing the envelope of experimental photography, lighting, and effects along the lines of House, Kwaidan, and Kuroneko. Put simply, Oiwa’s Ghost is classy, not trashy, with the ghost more a cautionary symbol than a fearsome spectre.
