Radiance Films
Blu-ray Release: October 29, 2024
Video: 2.35:1/1080p/Color
Audio: Japanese LPCM 1.0 Mono
Subtitles: English
Run Time: 83:29
Director: Kenji Misumi
Note: This disc is currently only available as part of Radiance’s Daiei Gothic Blu-ray collection, which also includes The Snow Woman (1968) and The Bride from Hades (1968).
Japanese ghost stories – or kaidan (sometimes translated as kwaidan) – are rooted in an ancient pantheon of conventions, stock characters, and narrative tropes. These established, often unaltered stories date back way before motion picture cameras to the Heian period (794–1185) and records of public exhibitions date back to the Noh and Kyogen theater of the 1300s, Bunraku puppetry, and the kabuki theater of the 1600s. Japanese horror filmmaking dates back to the silent era, though many early features have been lost to time. During the Second Sino-Japanese War and WWII, the authoritative government labeled genre movies frivolous, nearly halting the production of kaidan pictures. After the war, occupying US forces discouraged period dramas, known as jidaigeki, assuming that they would cultivate national pride and encourage dissent. Since the majority of the established ghost stories took place in an older historical era, horror continued to be largely ignored.
Kaidan films finally had their renaissance during the 1950s, as US political authority waned and the region’s motion picture output was redefined by a mix of Edo era ideals and western cultural influences. This surge in horror produced several highly acclaimed films that were popular even outside of Japan, including Masaki Kobayashi’s Academy Award-nominated Kwaidan (1964) and Kaneto Shindo’s Onibaba (1964) and Kuroneko (1968). While Toho stole much of the glory during the ‘60s, Daiei Studios got in on the boom early with strong showings from Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu (Japanese: Ugetsu Monogatari, 1953) and Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950), which features a ghost among the many witnesses of a central crime.
The Ghost of Yotsuya (1959)
Following an elaborate scheme that leaves her disfigured and dead, doting wife Oiwa's (Yasuko Nakada) spirit haunts the conspirators and contacts her widowed husband, Iemon (Kazuo Hasegawa), who enacts his own revenge.
Based on the folktale of the Oiwa spirit and two separate historically-documented murder cases, Tsuruya Nanboku IV’s kabuki play Ghost Story of Yotsuya in Tokaido (Japanese: Tôkaidô Yotsuya Kaidan, 1825) is one of the – if not the – most commonly told Japanese ghost stories. It inspired literature, art, other plays, and at least 30 films (and counting), including multiple silent adaptations, Daisuke Itô’s The Phantom of Yotsuya (Japanese: Shinban Yotsuya kaidan; aka: Yotsuya Ghost Story, New Version, 1928), Keisuke Kinoshita’s The Yotsuya Ghost Story (Japanese: Tôkaidô Yotsuya Kaidan, two parts, both released in 1949), Shirô Toyoda’s Illusion of Blood (Japanese: Yotsuya Kaidan, 1965), and Kinji Fukasaku’s Crest of Betrayal (Japanese: Chûshingura Gaiden – Yotsuya Kaidan, 1994).
Thanks to its high quality, pre-splatter-era violence, its director’s cult reputation, and a Criterion DVD release, Nobuo Nakagawa’s The Ghost of Yotsuya (Japanese: Tôkaidô Yotsuya Kaidan) is the most famous version of the tale. However, it wasn’t the only adaptation released in 1959. Kenji Misumi’s The Ghost of Yotsuya (Japanese: Yotsuya Kaidan) hit theaters a couple of weeks prior and approaches the story as a jidaigeki melodrama, trading shocks for slow-building, opulent Gothic chills and stomach-churning nihilism for tragic circumstances. In comparison, Misumi’s work is less frightening and less groundbreaking in the context of the greater Japanese horror canon, but it works just fine in its intended context and features plenty of nightmare imagery all its own.
Like most horror folktales, kaidan are often morality plays – a tradition that continued well into the J-horror craze of the ‘90s/’00s. Ghost of Yotsuya is a variation of a genre favorite, where a samurai sacrifices his honor and family in order to skip the line on the social ladder. Something similar happens in Ugetsu and the The Black Hair segment of Kwaidan. It is a particularly brutal version of the trope, because the antagonist doesn’t merely abandon his wife – he orchestrates an excuse to murder her in cold blood, resulting also in the death of their infant child. The Nakagawa film emphasizes the cruelty of the betrayal with all the hyperbole of an EC comic book, while Misumi deviates from Nanboku’s source, rearranging events to portray Iemon as a tragic figure, who is the victim of machinations and misunderstandings. In turn, Kazuo Hasegawa plays Iemon as a naïve man whose desperation develops over the course of the story, whereas Shigeru Amachi played him like a leering psychopath in the Nakagawa picture.
Misumi was a Daiei journeyman responsible for kickstarting several of the studio’s longest lasting franchises. He directed the first Zatoichi film, The Tale of Zatoichi (Japanese: Zatōichi Monogatari, 1962), as well as five of the sequels, was in charge of entries one, two, three, and five in the Lone Wolf and Cub (Japanese: Kozure Ōkami) series (meaning that he also shares a Shogun Assassin [1980] director’s credit with Robert Houston), helmed all three Satan’s Sword (Japanese: Daibosatsu Tōge) movies, and made the first film in the Hanzo the Razor trilogy (Japanese: Kamisori Hanzō, 1972).
Bibliography:
Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema by Jasper Sharp (Scarecrow Press, 2011)
Introduction to Japanese Horror Film by Colette Balmain (Edinburgh University Press, 2008)
Video
The other 1959 Ghost of Yotsuya has been available on DVD from Criterion for some time (it could really use an HD upgrade, though), but this Blu-ray collection appears to be this version’s North American/UK debut. The other two discs in the set have been remastered in 4K (see below), while this 1080p, 2.35:1 was supplied directly to Radiance by Daiei. Because it hit theaters slightly before Nakagawa’s film (according to IMDb.com), this Ghost of Yotsuya is likely the first color adaptation of the story. The transfer has nice, solid shapes, consistent colors, and looks clean, overall. There are some minor issues with fuzziness and the grain has some real heft to it, probably due to the age and resolution of the scan, but my only real problem is how difficult it is to see what’s happening during the darkest sequences. I don’t know if a 4K rescan could fix this or if the spooky scenes are designed to look so murky.
Audio
The uncompressed LPCM mono sound is mostly dialogue and music-driven with only minor incidental effects. Performance quality is clean with very little distortion or hiss. Composer Seiichi Suzuki’s wistful score tends to be mixed pretty low on the track, but comes to the fore when needed, setting an eerie tone, and features only minor muffling at the lowest volume levels. I think this is just a case of the sound floor being set a touch too low.
Extras
2024 interview with filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa (19:33, HD) – The director of Pulse (Japanese: Kairo, 2001) and other modern horror classics discusses various versions of The Ghost of Yotsuya and why he actually prefers the Misumi film.
The Endless Curse of Oiwa (22:08, HD) – A visual essay that goes much deeper into the history and various adaptations of Ghost of Yotsuya by Kyoko Hirano, the author of Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo: Japanese Cinema Under the American Occupation, 1945-1952 (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992).
Japanese trailer
The images on this page are taken from the BDs and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by clicking the images. Note that there will be some JPG compression.
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