Retribution / (2006)

In Retribution, Kiyoshi Kurosawa returns to the roots of Japanese horror movies in which a man is haunted by the ghost of a woman but, as we have come to expect from this director, in a new and more disturbing fashion than the other similar films in the J-horror revival. As in Cure and Charisma, …

Pulse* / Kairo (2001)

There doesn't seem any easier way to begin than to say that Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse is quite possibly the greatest horror film ever made. In it, he has combined many of the themes of his earlier movies into an engrossing and terribly disturbing horror movie, while doing so without a drop of blood, a creaking …

Ringu (1998)

Over the course of the years I had not been particularly interested in the standard modern horror film, from Japan or elsewhere. Though I had happened upon numerous imitations, sequels, remakes, and off-shoots of Ringu, I had never seen the original version, so it was something of a surprise to discover that it was actually …

Crest of Betrayal / Chusingura gaiden: Yotsuya kaidan (1994)

Some re-tellings of the Chushingura story will be about someone not among the final 47 ronin but near them in some way, most notably Samurai Vendetta and Hana, and occasionally there will be a 48th member who somehow misses the final attack. In Crest of Betrayal this 48th ronin is Iemon Tamiya, the man in …

Empire of Passion / Ai no borei (1978)

When I first saw Empire of Passion almost forty years ago, like most people I was disappointed because it was not like In the Realm of the Senses. Now, a second look after my intense immersion in the traditions of Japanese film-making reveals this as Oshima’s most “Japanese” movie. Its mixture of unreality and absolute …

Black Cat / Kuroneko (1968)

An elegant ghost story that often matches Ugetsu in its night-time beauty, Kuroneko is one of the finest of Japanese cat/ghost revenge movies. A mother and daughter alone in the provinces are raped and killed by starving samurai on the run after a battle. They then come back as cats, with the daughter as the …

Ugetsu monogatari (1953)

So much has been written about Mizoguchi's Ugetsu monogatari that I skipped over it when I was concentrating on the movies of the early fifties. However, since I have recently posted about several ghost and horror movies, I thought it might be a good time to revisit the most elegant of Japanese (and the world's) …

Woman Vampire / Vampire Woman / Onna kyuketsuki (1959)

Most of the Japanese ghost and horror movies I have come across thus far have featured very Japanese conceptions of ghosts and monsters. Vampire Woman, however, is a Euro/American horror feature in almost all its details, combining almost all the standard strains of the horror movie. It is a compendium of Universal horror, so to …

Snow Woman / Kaidan Yukijoro (1968)

When compared to Snake Girl released the same year, Snow Woman* gives us a much more traditionally Japanese approach to the horror film. Its basic shape will seem quite familiar to many, for it is based on the same legend from which Lafcadio Hearn wrote the story used in the second episode of Kwaidan. Instead …

Woman of the Ghostly Lantern / Umon torimonocho maboroshi toro no onna (1961)

Apparently part of a series, Woman of the Ghostly Lantern allows us to look at Japanese popular entertainment movies of its time. It is a basic murder mystery told in a light-hearted manner.  The ronin Bizen has been murdered and two competing detectives try to solve the case. One is the pompous and ambitious Murakami, …