Many films are works of art. Some are undeniable masterworks. Only a handful are so visually arresting that practically every frame could be hung in the Louvre or the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Masaki Kobyashi’s Kwaidan (1964) is one of these elite few.
Not only is it a visual feast, but a masterclass in filmic storytelling; a collection of psychologically rich and thematically challenging folk tales presented with simplicity, beauty, and unparalleled artistry.
As the post-World War II Allied occupation of Japan came to an end in 1952, the nation entered one of the greatest eras of filmmaking the world has ever seen, rivaling even German Expressionism, the French New Wave, Italian Neo-Realism, and the New Hollywood movements. In this era, old masters like Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujiro Ozu produced some of their finest works, Akira Kurosawa reached the heights of his artistic powers, and Gojira was born before sweeping the world as Godzilla.
Besides its famous kaiju, Japan also produced some of the most interesting, artistic, and atmospheric horror films ever made during this period, including Ugetsu (1953), Onibaba (1964), and Kuroneko (1968). Many of these fall into the category of kaidan or kwaidan, a term usually translated as “ghost story” but also containing broader implications that could be called folk horror.
Kwaidan is an anthology of four stories gleaned from the work of, interestingly enough, the Irish writer, translator, and folklorist Lafcadio Hearn. Hearn lived a brief but fascinating life that led him to live his final years in Japan, immersed in Japanese culture. He married Setsuko Koizumi in the 1890s and became a Japanese citizen in 1896, taking the name Koizumi Yakumo. Just as Hearn embraced Japan and its people, they embraced him in return as a teacher and respected scholar.
His writings did a great deal to introduce Japanese culture to the West. Among these works were collections of folklore, fairy tales, and ghost stories, the most famous being Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. Hearn collected these stories from a variety of sources. He names several “old Japanese volumes” in his introduction to Kwaidan and posits that some may be of Chinese origin. He relates that the story “Yuki-Onna,” titled “The Woman of the Snow” in the film, was told to him by a farmer as a legend from his village.
The four stories in the film were chosen by Masaki Kobayashi and adapted by screenwriter Yoko Mizuki from Hearn’s retellings. To evoke the feeling of imagination involved with hearing a good story, Kobayashi opted to film Kwaidan entirely on a stage. To house the large and intricate sets along with the enormous painted backdrops produced by production designer Shigemasa Toda and his crew, the film was shot in an airplane hangar (at the time being used to house Nissan car bodies) in Kyoto, as the stages at Toho Studios were too small. As a result, the film feels like a dream, mixing the imagery of the waking world and the subconscious into one surreal, stunning, and heightened reality.
Though each of the four stories has little in common with the others from a narrative standpoint, thematic threads do bind them together into one tapestry. Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan which emphasizes gratitude and sincerity in life and actions, is a constant undercurrent of the film. The word Shinto is translated as “the way of kami,” which refers in part to divine spirits that inhabit various living things, elements, and even forces of nature. Though complete translation is impossible, kami implies not only individual spirits, but a collective concept of divinity and the philosophy of life connected to it. Because kami are everywhere, they influence every aspect of life for practitioners of Shinto, including the ways they interact with others and the environment, how they go about their work, and how they approach ancestors and the dead.
Another thematic thread is a sense of the ancient encroaching upon modernity. It can be ghosts, ancient religions, forgotten codes of honor, and the natural world returning to slowly dismantle man’s more recent constructs. As in British folk horror, which was beginning to arise around this time, things from the past and the earth haunt the present and manmade things and threaten to overtake them. This can be seen from the first shots of the first story of Kwaidan as the wind blows open the gates of a mostly abandoned palace that has begun to be overgrown by grass and moss.
This story, “The Black Hair,” plays out like the kind of horror story that would be at home in an episode of The Twilight Zone, in the pages of E.C. Comics, or as an entry in a Creepshow film. A rash young man leaves his wife to find his fortune, marries a wealthy but cold woman, and soon finds that he longs for the life he left behind. He returns home only to find himself receiving his comeuppance at the flying locks of his former wife’s long black hair. This is not really a spoiler, as the joy of this story is more in the telling than in the plot points. This segment also has the clearest moral point: that contentment is to be prized more than blind ambition.
Like each entry, “The Black Hair” offers insight into human shortcomings but also human longings. The actions of the husband, played by Rentaro Mikuni, are not condoned by the film, but the audience is given cause to understand them, which invites reflection over judgment. The story is also ambiguous enough that it encourages questions. Was the husband’s death the result of the vengeful ghost of Michiyo Aratama’s “first wife” character, or is it his own guilty conscience? The film refuses to give a definitive answer, making it ultimately much more powerful. When it comes down to it, the husband in “The Black Hair” has defied kami and pays the price.
The second story, “The Woman of the Snow,” also seems to have the influence of Shinto, as one of the natural elements makes its presence known as Yuki-onna, one of several female spirits in Japanese folklore. A young woodcutter, Minokichi (played by one of Japan’s greatest actors, Tatsuya Nakadai in an early role), and his master find themselves lost in the woods when it begins to snow. They find shelter in a nearby boathouse and are visited by a mysterious Snow Maiden (Keiko Kishi) who takes the life of the old man, but spares Minokichi’s life. She swears that if he ever tells anyone about her, she will return and kill him too.
Minokichi survives the night, soon meets and marries a beautiful young woman named Yuki, and they start a family. Years later, as he weaves shoes for Yuki and their children, Minokichi suddenly remembers the woman of the snow and tells his wife about her. Yuki then reveals herself to be the Snow Maiden and reminds him of her warning. But because she loves him so deeply, she spares his life and runs off into the snow, disappearing into a great eye in the sky. As Minokichi looks upon the scene astonished, the sandals he has woven for Yuki disappear.
“The Woman of the Snow” is perhaps the most famous story in Kwaidan, though it was surprisingly cut from its initial screening at the Cannes Film Festival in 1965. According to assistant director Kiyoshi Ogasawara, the festival had a strict two-hour runtime limit for all films presented in competition at the time. In its full form, Kwaidan is 183 minutes long, so Kobayashi submitted a truncated 161-minute cut, thinking he could negotiate with the jury. Still, it was refused. So finally, he submitted a version that fit the required time frame by removing the entire “Woman of the Snow” segment.
After Cannes, the segment was restored to the film, and the 161-minute version became the generally accepted and marketed cut worldwide. For decades, it was believed that the remaining 22 minutes were lost. Finally, in the late 1990s, the full negative was located and restored in the early 2000s. The restoration process has continued with a new 4K restoration premiering at the New York Film Festival in 2026, followed by a limited theatrical rollout.
The centerpiece, and by far the longest story in the film, is the ambitious and mesmerizing “Hoichi the Earless” about a blind musician who entertains the spirits of warriors lost in an ancient battle on his biwa, a stringed, lute-like instrument. Of course, Hoichi (Katsuo Nakamura) does not realize he is performing for ghosts in a graveyard. Hoichi’s recounting of the spirits’ loss from so many centuries before somehow soothes them. As they remember, they are able to mourn, which brings them peace. Perhaps their peace comes in the knowledge that they are not forgotten because Hoichi not only knows but understands and deeply feels their story.
The head priest of the temple where Hoichi lives, played by one of Japan’s most legendary actors, Takashi Shimura, realizes the situation and calls for a protective sutra to be written onto Hoichi’s body to render him invisible to the spirits. Unfortunately, the young priest entrusted with the task fails to write on his ears, and the ghostly warrior, who guides Hoichi to the graveyard each night, rips them from his head. Hoichi, however, continues to play, and word of his skill spreads throughout the country.
The entire film, but this story in particular, is about storytelling itself. The need, even compulsion, for a creator to create. Even though such acts of creativity can bring great pain, they are worth it to the creator, at least in part, because these works of art can bring joy and healing to others. Despite his personal pain and weariness, in the end, Hoichi says, “As long as I live, I will continue to play the biwa. I will play with all my soul to mourn for those thousands of spirits who burn with bitter hatred,” as hundreds come to hear his song. “Hoichi the Earless” is a testament to the importance of art in all its forms: visual art, writing, dance, music, and indeed cinema, not just because of the finished product, but also because of all the work, friction, frustration, fear, sweat, and even blood that goes into making something out of nothing.
The final story, “In a Cup of Tea,” concerns a lord who sees a reflection in a cup of tea that is not his own. He tries pouring it out and filling it again, breaking the first cup and filling a second, but the ghostly reflection remains. He chooses to drink anyway and is soon haunted by the ghost of the lord he “swallowed.” This entry has no ending, and the resolution of the story is left up to the viewer, which is frustrating to many who have invested more than three hours in Kwaidan by the time this story concludes.
As I sit with the film, I have come to believe that non-resolution is the point. Kwaidan is above all a film about storytelling and all its glories and pitfalls. Stories reflect life, but life is seldom wrapped up in neat little bows or even tufts of flying black hair. But stories do hold a mirror (or perhaps a reflection in a cup of tea) up to reality and help us to examine ourselves. Though the stories of the film are ancient and, for many reading this, from a far-off land, that matters very little because stories have the power to connect humans across time and space. We all have ambitions, desires, longings, loves, needs, and compulsions. We want to matter, make a difference, create, live happy and contented lives, and leave a legacy behind.
Kwaidan depicts all this and somehow is all this at the same time. It is a work of astonishing beauty and craftsmanship, and all that went into creating it is infused into its very celluloid by people who believed that good stories are worth telling well. Every ounce of the filmmakers’ love, ambition, creativity, skill, and yes, frustration, pain, and struggle—all the stuff of life itself—was poured into the making of Kwaidan and inhabits each frame. Because of this, it is a celebration of that “stuff of life” and the very human need, from the fireside to the written word to the movie house, to tell great stories.
And that makes Kwaidan a powerful and lasting legacy.
