74-76, 132-134 Daiei Gothic - Japanese Ghost Stories

[Finch]

A collection of three of Japan's most famous ghost stories that have haunted people for centuries. Kenji Misumi (Lone Wolf and Cub) directs The Ghost of Yotsuya, in which a woman returns from the grave as a horribly disfigured phantom to torment her husband and his new bride. In The Snow Woman, directed by Tokuzo Tanaka (Zatoichi), a woodcutter must keep his oath to a vengeful female spirit or pay the ultimate price. The Bride from Hades by Satsuo Yamamoto (Shinobi) sees a handsome samurai so enchanted by a courtesan's beauty that he fails to realise she is a ghost. These three film versions from the Daiei studio form a pinnacle of atmospheric Japanese horror. Their elegant visuals and ominous shadows rival the best of Terence Fisher or Mario Bava, while their iconic female ghosts would greatly influence Asian genre cinema, from Hong Kong fantasy spectacles such as A Chinese Ghost Story to J-horror.

LIMITED EDITION BOX SET SPECIAL FEATURES

New 4K restorations of The Bride from Hades and The Snow Woman
High-Definition digital transfer of The Ghost of Yotsuya
Uncompressed mono PCM audio for each film
Optional English subtitles for all films
Newly designed box and booklet artwork by Time Tomorrow
Six postcards featuring original archive imagery from the films
Limited edition 80-page perfect bound book featuring new writing by authors Tom Mes and Zack Davisson, newly translated archival reviews and ghost stories by Lafcadio Hearn

Limited Edition of 4,000 copies presented in a rigid box with full-height Scanavo cases for each film and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

THE GHOST OF YOTSUYA

New interview with filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa
A visual essay on the history and adaptations of the classic Ghost of Yotsuya story by author Kyoko Hirano
Trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista

THE BRIDE FROM HADES

Audio commentary by author Jasper Sharp
New interview with filmmaker Hiroshi Takahashi
Trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista

THE SNOW WOMAN

New interview with filmmaker Masayuki Ochiai
A visual essay on writer Lafcadio Hearn
Trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista

trailer

[colinr0380]

That's a real who's-who of late 90s J-horror directors brought in to provide interviews for each of those films! And I am very curious about how the feature length version of The Snow Woman will compare with the one in Kobayashi's anthology ghost film Kwaidan.

[The Curious Sofa]

The Snow Woman is the only one of these I've seen. It very much feels like an expansion of the segment in Kwaidan but forsakes the surreal sets and heightened visual flair for a more naturalistic approach. It's still quite effective.

[dadaistnun]

Beaver

[Finch]

A really solid set from Radiance. Ghost of Yotsuya plays more like a relationship drama for much of its running time but that makes the horror when it finally arrives more powerful. The Snow Woman was my personal favorite of the three. The story resonated more with me than in Kwaidan, perhaps because even though the booklet says it was shot in the studio too, it looks less artificial and stage-bound. The ending could have been a bit less melodramatic for my tastes but the film overall feels like the one I'm most likely to return to often out of the three. Bride from Hades has the darkest ending, preceded by a solid jump scare and a nice supporting turn from Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura as a fortune teller. This is the only second Radiance set after Bounty Hunter where I genuinely liked all three films (I didn't like the Italian film on World Noir 1 and sold on the entire Noir 2 set) and so I'll be nominating Daiei Gothic for the Best Non-CC releases 2024 thread. Hoping for more!

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Daiei Gothic Vol 2 - Japanese Ghost Stories

Japan’s classic ghost stories are brought to the screen by masters of the genre, Tokuzo Tanaka (The Snow Woman) and Kimiyoshi Yasuda (Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare).

In The Demon of Mount Oe, a group of mighty warriors is sent to eliminate a demon who steals women from the imperial capital of Kyoto. On the way, they face a satanic bull, a giant spider and a diabolical witch, but the closer they come to their goal, the more they realise that the demon they’ve been ordered to kill is far more human than they were led to believe.

In The Haunted Castle, a blind monk is killed in a cowardly manner by a samurai lord. When the monk’s sister is ordered to become the lord’s concubine, she commits suicide and transfers her grudge to their black cat, who assumes the human form of one of the lord’s ladies-in-waiting and begins to wreak havoc around the castle court. The lord’s Machiavellian right-hand man (Rokko Toura, Kuroneko) and a young swordsman (Kojiro Hongo, The Bride from Hades) combine forces to solve the mystery and stop the supernatural menace.

In The Ghost of Kasane Swamp a samurai’s wife tries to repay her husband’s debt with her body but is caught in bed with the money lender and they are both murdered by her husband who dumps their bodies in a nearby swamp. Shingoro and Oshiga, the money lender and samurai’s children, find a curse has been passed to them as they each try to recover the money.

Newly restored in 4K, three more stories from the Daiei studio represent the Japanese ghost film at its most lavish and chilling.

LIMITED EDITION BOX SET SPECIAL FEATURES

New 4K restorations of each film by Radiance Films
Uncompressed mono PCM audio for each film
Optional English subtitles for all films
Newly designed box and booklet artwork by Time Tomorrow
Limited edition 80-page perfect bound book featuring new writing by Amber T, Jasper Sharp, and Tom Mes, plus archival writing by Daniel O’Neill and original ghost stories The Goblin of Oeyama and The Vampire Cat
Limited Edition of 4,000 copies presented in a rigid box with full-height Scanavo cases for each film and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

THE DEMON OF MOUNT OE

New interview with period film historian Taichi Kasuga (2025)
Blade of the Demon Slayer: a visual essay by Tom Mes (2025)
Trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista

THE HAUNTED CASTLE

New interview with J-horror filmmaker Mari Asato (2025)
A visual essay by ghost story scholar Zack Davisson (2025)
Trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista

THE GHOST OF KASANE SWAMP

New interview with J-horror filmmaker Norio Tsuruta (2025)
Select-scene audio commentary by horror film scholar Lindsay Nelson (2025)
Trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista

Released in the UK/US: October 13th/14th.

[What A Disgrace]

Nobuo Nakagawa on Blu-ray at last.

EDIT: Wrong version! This is the Kimiyoshi Yasuda version of Kasane Swamp.

[Finch]

I found the combo of ghost story and period epic in Demon of Mount Oe unwieldy and there are so many characters that I found it hard to get invested in even the major players. The film often looks gorgeous in Radiance's new 4K restoration (it must have been a pretty battered print because it still shows minor damage and scratches, especially during the opening credits) and uses theatrical lighting to good effect that Bava would have appreciated. The cast is stacked (Raizo Ichikawa, Zatoichi actor Shintaro Katsu and Kazuo Hasegawa from An Actor's Revenge among them plus a handful of Japanese character actors I recognised but always fail to remember their names) but at two hours I found the film too long and mentally checked out about two-thirds through. The weakest of the four films I've seen across both Daiei Gothic sets so far. Hoping the other two from Vol 2 are much more to my liking.