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57 commentaires au total

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43 utilisateurs sur 47 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Classical Japanese tragedy, Expressionist visual style, 12 décembre 2000
Auteur : Paul Weiss de Oregon, USA

There's a good bit of discussion of this film as "horror"; may I suggest that it's horrific in the sense of the ancient Greek tragedies. There's no attempt to coerce your Hollywood-abused adrenals into delivering just one more squirt by means of some in-your-face special effect. In fact, for each of these slowly developed stories, once you've understood the premise, the story will unfold pretty much as you've guessed it must, inexorably, relentlessly. The ghosts aren't there to "spook" us, they're to show us our common human spiritual and emotional failings. The horror of a ghost wife, for instance, isn't that her chains drag noisily across the the hardwood parquet floor, but that we've created her by our insensitivity, our misplaced values, or our betrayals.

The visual style is stupendous! The action takes place in a disappeared, iconic world of classical medieval Japan, perfect, and admitting no trace of the reality of modern times. Overlaid is a European Expressionist color sensibility, with emotionally charged color displacements of sky and skin, as if Hokusai and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner had been working cooperatively on the sets and lighting.

This is a wonderful movie. Please ignore attempts to fit it into some box, some genre. Rather look at it as a mature work of art, which happens to choose old Japanese ghost stories as its starting point.

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29 utilisateurs sur 34 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
One of the most amazing Japanese movies I've ever seen!, 28 février 2004
Auteur : Infofreak de Perth, Australie

'Kwaidan' is an astonishing film, once seen never forgotten. It's labeled horror, but while the four stories within deal with ghosts and the supernatural, I doubt that anyone would be actually frightened watching it. Haunted, yes, scared, no. It's a beautiful movie, very stylized with a very imaginative use of colour. I can't think of anything else I've seen that comes close. Mario Bava, maybe. The movie consists of four stories. I think it's best watched as a whole to let each story blend in to the other, but if forced to choose I would say my favourite segment is the second one ('The Woman In The Snow') which I believe was left out of the version of the movie originally shown outside Japan. 'Kwaidan' is one of those rare movies that leaves you stunned the first time you see it. For me it's equal to 'Rashomon', 'Woman In The Dunes' and 'Branded To Kill' as the most amazing Japanese movies I've ever seen. Each one of these movies blew my mind. It's difficult not to gush about all four. They come with my highest recommendation. I sincerely believe that anybody who watches them will be incredibly impressed. They are all masterpieces.

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24 utilisateurs sur 28 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
One of the best films I have seen in a long time!, 7 juillet 2002

Auteur : anton-6 de sweden

This film looks much like a painting. It's really a piece of art. I love films with brilliant cinematography and godly colors wich this film has. I bought it on Criterion Collection cheap without knowing anything about it. But I got more and more in to it when I read the user comments here on the internet movie database.

The film is four Japanese horror stories. They are maybe not so frightening when you see them but later on when you think about the film they GET scary. The first one is about a samurai who leaves his wife because of that she are so poor and marries a rich woman. It all ends up in horror. The second story are about two woodcuters that meets a snow woman that kills one of them(the old man) but let the young boy live if he promise to not tell anyone.

The third story which are one of the best things I have ever seen on film. It's a masterful story and even if the three others also are superb this might be the best. And the last story is great. This is a masterful film. A must see

10/10

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24 utilisateurs sur 28 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Underappreciated, creepy little film, 14 février 2001

Auteur : Josh Leman (nuematsu8@aol.com) de Boulder, CO, USA

Kwaidan is one of the great underappreciated films: no one's heard of it, but you'll never, ever forget it once you've seen it. Parts of it may seem slow to some viewers, and most of the stories are extremely predictable, but I have to say this is one of the most beautiful, haunting movies I've ever seen.

Of all the stories I prefer "Black Hair," the first one. Though a rather pointless horseback archery scene just slows it down, it's by far the scariest and most nightmare-worthy of the stories, using sound to incredibly chilling effect. There's more terror in the last minute of this segment than in all three Scream movies put together. Trust me, if you consider yourself a serious fan of horror cinema, you have to see this.

The second story, "The Woman of the Snow," is good, though I wish it ended more like "Black Hair" (you'll see what I mean). "Hoichi the Earless," with its jaw-dropping sea battle sequence, is by far the biggest and most popular of the stories. It's also the most influential, with its main premise prominently re-used in Conan the Barbarian. The film ends with "In a Cup of Tea." This is the only story that doesn't completely telegraph its ending, and coming after three utterly predictable stories, its complexity is a bit unexpected and disorienting. Certainly it's as creepy and beautiful as the rest of the film, but I have to admit I don't really understand it.

Being a tremendous fan of elegant, understated horror movies, as well as a student of Japanese culture, I consider this film one of my all-time favorites. Granted, some viewers may be turned off by the leisurely pace and the theatrical, intentionally unrealistic sets. But this is undeniably a beautiful and chilling film, absolutely perfect to watch late at night, alone, in the dark.

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19 utilisateurs sur 21 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
If you have the time, this is a very rewarding film., 5 avril 2003

Auteur : Ron Chow de Ottawa, Canada

Over a time span of some 35 years, I saw Kwaidan twice on the large screen. I liked it the very first time, and it got better when I saw it the second time.

From the very opening when credits were introduced, color ink drops penetrating clear water generated an extremely soothing visual effect. The execution was low-tech, but it goes to show the power of human creativity before the age of fast computer chips. This opening also sets the tone of what you are about to get into - a film of great visual beauty, a film that requires a relaxed and unrushed mental frame of mind to appreciate.

It consists of four stories, all about ghosts, spirits and a blood-sucking woman in white. Some stories are better than the others, and my favourite is 'Hoichi the Earless', which also has the longest running time. It is about escapism, tales of morals, and cinema at its best.

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19 utilisateurs sur 21 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
A high-class horror anthology laced with unforgettable imagery.., 20 janvier 2000

Auteur : BaronWolfgangVonSchreck (radu@pipeline.com) de Brooklyn, New York

The words "beautiful", "lyrical" and "evocative" aren't ones that you would normally attribute to a horror movie, but they are precisely the ones that best describe Kwaidan, a quintet of Samurai Gothics based (interestingly enough) on the writings of an American author by the name of Lafcadio Hearn. Shot in gorgeous, sumptuous color way back in 1964 by director Masaki Kobayashi, Kwaidan is an unusual, unique and quite extraordinary entry in the old horror anthology genre best represented by 1945's Dead of Night and Milton Subotsky's Amicus anthology series (i.e. Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, Tales From the Crypt & Asylum).

Kwaidan differentiates itself from the pack in a number of significant ways. To begin with, all of the episodes eschew the usual O. Henry "twist" endings and deliberately telegraph their punches, case in point being "Hoichi the Earless", which gives away its climax with its very title! This film is also missing the compulsory "wrap-around" story normally employed by anthology films to tie all the stories together, and the horror elements are far more low-key than most horror aficianados are used to. Kwaidan is far less concerned with springing shocks and fraying nerves than it is in exploring the whirlwind of conflicting emotions that swirl in the dark night of the human soul.

"The Black Hair" is the tale of an impoverished samurai who abandons his loyal and loving wife to marry the daughter of a wealthy lord in another province, only to discover many years later that he is still in love with his first spouse. He returns to their decaying old house to find her exactly as he left her, affectionate and forgiving as could be. You know something in this household just ain't right. "The Woman in the Snow" concerns an apprentice woodcutter who encounters an eerily beautiful female ice-vampire - called a "Yuki-Onna - who spares his life on the condition that he never tell a soul about their encounter. (If you saw the last episode of the flaccid Tales From the Darkside movie, on which this was based, you have an idea of how this one ends).

"Hoichi the Earless", easily the most powerful of the bunch, regards a blind biwa (a stringed instrument resembling a guitar) player renowned for his moving rendition of the tragic tale of the battle between the Genji and Heiki clans. Each night he is summoned to the nearby graveyard to chant the epic tale for the ghosts of the warriors who fell in that battle, duped by the spirits into believing that he's performing in the home of a wealthy lord. When Hoichi disocvers that he has been decieved by the dead and refuses to perform for them again, the ghosts exact a terrible revenge.

A note of warning to those deterred by long foreign films: this shimmering jewel in Japanese cinema's crown clocks in at nearly three hours of length and is, of course, fully subtitled. Visually bold, rich and color and texture, and atmospherically photographed with a spine-tingling elegance, I can't guarantee that you'll like Kwaidan, but I think that I can safely assure you'll never forget it. Highly recommended, especially for Japanophiles and those with a taste for high class horror.

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15 utilisateurs sur 17 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
marvellous fairy-tales: directorial and cinematographic fabulous, 2 août 2001
Auteur : rogierr de Amsterdam, Pays-Bas

Cinematographer Yoshio Miyajima did a marvellous job, although most of the visuals in this masterpiece are obviously invented by Kobayashi. It is clearly studio-work, but Kobayashi turns that to his advance by making the most marvellous background paintings I've ever seen in a movie and his virtuosity comes to full exposure in the light effects that are fabulous for such an old film. That together with the beautiful colors creates a mesmerizing and sometimes terrifying experience. 'Marco the magnificent' (Patelliere&Howard, 1964) reminded me of the visuals in Kwaidan, because of the beautiful environmental shots and because of the (supposed) history of mixture of eastern and western stories. Forget that movie instantly plz. Another film that has nothing to do with this one, but is brilliant and comparable only because of the episode structure, the fairy-tale nature and great cinematography is Kaos (Taviani, 1984).

Kwaidan has such a haunting effect because of the scary music and the sound effects are unnerving(-ly edited). Some call it horror. I thought the pace was rather slow for horror, but it is a film that does not let go easily. The actors (one of which is Takeshi Shimura) convince enthusiastically and they too make it an entertaining film. According to the user-rating this is Kobayashi's least interesting work of these three: Joi-uchi, Seppuku, and Kwaidan. I can't wait to see the other two, although I don't think they can surpass this masterpiece.

10 points out of 10 :-)

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9 utilisateurs sur 11 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Style IS substance. Another masterpiece by Masaki Kobayashi., 4 juillet 2008

Auteur : chaos-rampant de Grèce

Kwaidan is a four-segment horror anthology but you'd be hard pressed to find one more removed from the typical plastic bats and cobwebs Gothic anthologies of Amicus or Hammer. While it can be billed as a "horror" movie and it deals with the supernatural, it's not really frightening. All four segments are more like traditional Japanese folk legends about ghosts, the kind of spooky stories you could hear an elder narrating to kids around a bonfire in a village near Kyoto or the outskirts of Okinawa. However if "work of art" was a genre, Kwaidan would be among the best it had to offer.

Just two years after the seminal Seppuku which was done in stark black and white with a geometric, well disciplined style, Kobayashi returns with another tour-de-force, this time in extravagant, expressionistic colour. A visual feast proving that in the right hands style can be substance. His camera with its slow tracking shots is like a brush, painting a celluloid canvas with vivid, lush compositions and it comes as no surprise to find out that he had a background in painting. The combination of eerie, supernatural material, the dreamlike atmosphere and the use of colour in lighting and sets reminded me of the great Italian maestro, Mario Bava; although Kwaidan by no means fits in the Gothic horror mold.

Conscious of the folk legend material he's working on, Kobaysi wisely shot the movie in studio sets using large painted backgrounds that look deliberately artificial as much as they look gorgeous. In many ways, it feels like a big stageplay or an elaborate dramatic poem. In that aspect, Kwaidan takes place somewhere between the real and the mythic. A land of some other order.

The stories all revolve around ghosts and are as simple and predictable as any spooky story that you might hear as an adult. But they do a great job of providing an eerie skeleton for Kobayashi to hang on his beautiful style. Style over substance one could argue. Isn't that an erroneous statement though? By making the distinction one implies that style is somehow insubstantial to a film, something that couldn't be further from the truth. The use of colour is incredible, the lighting, at times subtle and evocative or wild and expressionistic, the slow tracking shots, long stretches of silence, a body painted with holy text, Tatsuya Nakadai looking calm and happy for a change, Tetsuro Tamba in full plate samurai armor, white ghastly faces, bodies falling in blood-red waters, a painted sunset backdrop, an intelligent play on vague endings, the minimal score, chords echoing from somewhere. Kwaidan proves that style IS substance. A visual feast by all means.

It's really a shame that Kobayashi is not as widely celebrated as Akira Kurosawa. Kwaidan is just another in a series of absolutely brilliant films he did in the 60's. Beautiful, creepy, poetic, atmospheric as hell; it is the work of a master cinematician and one of the best Japanese movies you're likely to see.

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9 utilisateurs sur 11 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Painting of a Painting, 27 octobre 2002
Auteur : tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) de Virginia Beach

*** Ce commentaire peut contenir des spoilers ***

Spoilers herein.

In the 60's, Japanese audiences criticized Kurosawa for not being Japanese. This film is exemplar of what they had in mind: extremely styled after Japanese watercolors; very slow reactions in the actors; studied movements; highly elaborate, theatrical setups for the final horror. Many recommend it for the stylistic elements alone, and I can too.

But more interesting to my mind is how the Japanese deal with self-reference. These stories follow a literary tradition of self-aware fiction where the act of storytelling becomes subtly entangled in the story. And so too here:

--The first story is about the penalty of not coordinating one's narrative with reality.

--The second is about the penalty of telling that narrative inappropriately. The telling of the story often destroys elements in the story which overlap with the life of the storyteller.

--The third, the most elaborate and intended to be the centerpiece, is about all stories being dead. Stories keep the past alive, but since the story and reality are so confabulated, the past keeps stories alive. This sequence is the most elaborate in staging, but also the most elaborate metaphorically: the poet is protected by writing on his body. Terrifically powerful image, one elaborated by Greenaway in his Japanese-centric `Pillow Book.' But alas, writing and speech are different, so the poet has his ears stolen by the past.

--The final story looks at things the other way: the three previous were focused on the storyteller. Now here is the listener and about the penalties of swallowing the story. Even the smallest drink captures you. Your reality cannot be separated from that of the story (image).

Each of these self-referential Japanese story-morals is combined with two other arts, the art of watercolor as already mentioned and that of film. Quite rich.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.

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13 utilisateurs sur 19 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Masterpiece of Japanese Supernatural, 16 novembre 2005

Auteur : Claudio Carvalho de Rio de Janeiro, Brésil

This film presents four supernatural tales:

"Black Hair" ("O Cabelo Negro"): In ancient Kyoto, a samurai decides to leave his poor but beloved wife and become rich marrying a wealthy wife. He misses his loved wife, and years later, when he returns to her, he finds a surprise waiting for him.

"The Woman in the Snow" ("A Mulher da Neve"): And old and a young woodman are surprised by a snow storm, and the younger is saved by the spirit of a snow woman. He promises never telling what happened with him. Years later, he breaks his promise, telling the secret to his wife.

"Hoichi the Earless" ("Hoichi, O Sem Orelhas"): The blind Hoichi lives in a temple and magnificently plays his biwa and tells the sea battle of Dan-No-Ura between the clans of Genji and Heike. One night he is invited to perform his skills to a rich family and their guests in their house.

"In a Cup of Tea" ("Em Uma Xícara de Chá"): a samurai drinks water in a cup of tea, and he sees the soul of a former samurai. Later, he is haunted by the spirit.

"Kaidan" is the first work of Masaki Kobayashi that I have had the chance to see, and I am really impressed with such masterpiece of Japanese supernatural. Beginning with the visual using of awesome colors and cinematography, which look like paints on exhibition, all the stories are amazingly great without exception. The title of the third story spoils the twist, and the storyline of the second story was adapted in one episode of "Tales From the Crypt" years later. My vote is ten.

Title (Brazil): "Kwaidan, As Quatro Faces do Medo" ("Kwaidan, The Four Faces of Fear")

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