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We have been waiting since the inauguration of the Cinematheque to show this great Japanese classic by master Masaki Kobayashi, and are extremely pleased to present it in a new print made especially for this series. Shot in Scope and colour, mixing extreme beauty and exquisite horror, the visually ravishing KWAIDAN consists of four ghost stories. “Black Hair” is about a poor samurai who leaves his faithful wife for a rich woman, but then returns to his former home, thinking his wife has waited for him. “Woman in the Snow” gets its scares from an icy succubus two lost woodcutters encounter when they take refuge from a winter storm. In the grisly, goose bumpy third tale, “Hoichi the Earless,” a blind singer in a monastery is commanded to perform by ancient ghosts, and thinks he is protected from their wrath by prayer verses painted over his entire body ... except his ears. In the fourth and final story, “A Cup of Tea,” a warrior glimpses the reflection of another in his tea and soon finds himself battling a phantom. Considered one of the most beautiful Japanese films ever made, with a cast that includes many of Japan's finest actors, KWAIDAN was meticulously shot on enormous studio sets, its eerie artifice adding to both the film's visual power and its unnerving atmosphere.
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