Blu-ray Films Review | Radiance

Daiei Gothic: Japanese Ghost Stories (1959–1968) • Limited Edition Blu-ray [Radiance] — hauntingly beautiful adaptations of Japan’s spookiest stories

A collection of three of Japan’s most famous ghost stories that have haunted people for centuries.

This beautiful box set from Radiance gathers meticulously restored 4K scans of the three most popular tales of the supernatural ever to be told, retold, and reinterpreted countless times in Japan. Think of them along the same lines as classics like Dracula and Frankenstein — how many times have variations of those famous works of Gothic literature been presented as faithful adaptations or reworked and reinvented into something barely recognisable, with their villains sometimes recast as romantic heroes?

A triumvirate of the bigger studios dominated Japan’s post-war cinema scene. Toho had started as one of the two major kabuki theatre companies operating in Tokyo during the 1930s before venturing into film production, predominantly in the samurai-centric jidaigeki…