Eureka Blu-ray Film Review

Kwaidan (1964) • Limited Edition Blu-ray [Eureka! Masters of Cinema]

A collection of four Japanese folk tales with supernatural themes.

Kwaidan is a film cinephiles instantly recognise from its distinctive imagery, even if they haven’t seen it themselves. I was in that category until recently, having first seen stills from it decades ago when my obsession with cinema was first manifesting. I borrowed film books from the library and friends, and snapped-up any I could afford from my local bookshop. Back then, I hadn’t developed a penchant for full-blooded horror, but I was certainly attracted to the cinema of mystery and imagination. I loved weird and stylish supernatural thrillers and, as far as I could tell from those books, Japan had produced some real classics.

David Annan’s book Cinema of Mystery and Fantasy came out in the mid-1980s when I was starting to study filmmaking at college, and that was probably where I first saw photos from Kwaidan. Although poorly reproduced and not accurately credited, their powerful simplicity lodged in my mind, especially the close-up of a man’s anguished…