Radiance Films
Blu-ray Release: October 29, 2024
Video: 2.35:1/1080p/Color
Audio: Japanese LPCM 1.0 Mono
Subtitles: English
Run Time: 79:32
Director: Tokuzo Tanaka
Note: This disc is currently only available as part of Radiance’s Daiei Gothic Blu-ray collection, which also includes The Ghost of Yotsuya (1959) 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 Snow Woman (1968)
A woodcutter and sculpture named Yosaku (Akira Ishihama) survives an encounter with a forest spirit known as The Snow Woman (Shiho Fujimura) by swearing an oath to keep their confrontation and his friend’s frosty death a secret. Soon after, Yosaku falls in love with a beautiful, mysterious woman named Yuki (also Shiho Fujimura).
The second film in Radiance Film’s Daiei Gothic collection is Tokuzo Tanaka’s The Snow Woman, which combines two popular kaidan tropes – the dangerous elemental spirit and the vengeful wronged woman – into a tragic Gothic romance. The Snow Woman or Yuki-onna’s legend has been told for generations with one of the earliest versions credited to 13th century poet and artist Iio Sōgi. The most famous version is found in Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, a popular compilation by the Grecian-Irish-American scholar, writer, and translator Lafcadio Hearn, first published in 1904.
Barring any lost silent era versions, Yuki-onna made her film debut thee years prior in an episode of Kobayashi’s anthology Kwaidan, appropriately entitled The Snow Woman, itself based on Hearn’s book. She’s particularly popular in other Japanese media, including trading card and role playing games, manga, and anime. Hearn’s version of the story works better as a short subject, but screenwriter Fuji Yahiro does a fine job reinforcing the narrative with subplots and outside antagonists, like the holy woman threatening to reveal Yuki’s true identity and the cruel lord, who callously kills Yosaku’s mother and lusts after his wife. This adaptation also presents Yuki as a fully rounded character, not just a spiteful spirit. She is thriving and suffering among the humans and, more importantly, her relationship with Yosaku develops out of deep mutual affection. This, of course, magnifies the tragedy of the story’s denouement.
The Snow Woman is an attractive film, even when compared to the outstanding artistry of Kobayashi’s version. Tanaka utilizes a dizzying blend of roaming, handheld shots with perfectly-tuned, static camera mise en scène to set a chilly and dreamy tone that is a refreshing contrast to the raw, oppressive black & white look of Kaneto Shindo’s Kuroenko, which had been released by Toho a couple of months prior to The Snow Woman, in 1968. Tanaka was another Daiei stock director, known more for action and adventure tales, including later entries in the Shinobi no Mono, Sleepy Eyes of Death, and Zatoichi series. He did make at least one other horror film for the studio, The Demon of Mount Oe (Japanese: Ōeyama Shuten Dōji, 1960), which I intend to seek out, based on the strength of The Snow Woman.
In Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: Horror, Fantasy Science Fiction Films (Vital Books, 1997), authors Thomas & Yuko Mihara Weisser claim that Tanaka’s film is a combination of original footage and footage taken from Kwaidan, and designed to make the Snow Woman short a feature length picture. Either the Weissers made the wrong assumption without seeing the film or there’s some truth to the claim and, at some point, there was an abandoned attempt to lengthen Kobayashi’s short.
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
It seems that this is Snow Woman’s first official North American home video availability, though I was able to find bootleg, fan-subbed versions of the Japanese LaserDisc, a 2014 DVD, and an HDTV broadcast in the seedy corners of the internet. This 1080p, 2.35:1 transfer has been sourced from new 4K restoration (I assume of the negative) and will be an upgrade over whatever was previously available. Chikashi Makiura’s delicate, yet dynamic cinematography appears clean without being overly scrubbed. The image includes plenty of texture and a fine sheen of grain. The cool color palette is consistent and, perhaps most importantly, the deepest, darkest sequences are beautifully moody, but not so dark that highlights and important details are impossible to discern, as tends to happen with lesser Daiei transfers.
Audio
The Snow Woman is presented in its original Japanese and uncompressed LPCM mono sound. Dialogue is clean with only a touch of hiss at high volumes and neatly integrated incidental effects work. The, ahem, chilling musical soundtrack, which mixes symphonic dirges and haunting kabuki-like cues, was composed by Mr. Godzilla Theme himself, Akira Ifukube, and is a real standout on the track.
Extras
Interview with Masayuki Ochiai (15:49, HD) – The director of Parasite Eve (Japanese: Parasaito Ivu, 1997) and the 2008 English language remake of Shutter discusses origins of the Snow Woman and other yokai creatures, Hearn’s version of the story, and the making of Tanaka’s film.
The Haunted Mind of Lafcadio Hearn (6:47, HD) – A short exploration of Hearn’s life and work from biographer Paul Murray and narrator Tom Mes.
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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