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Old 11-19-2011, 01:21 AM
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roshiq roshiq is offline
Pirate of Bengal

 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Dhaka
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Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan aka The Ghost Story of Yotsuya (1959)

Based on Yotsuya Kaidan, the most famous Japanese folk tale or Kaidan of all time, this wonderfully creepy gem of Gothic J-Horror cinema was directed by Nobuo Nakagawa (the maker of 1960 masterpiece Jigoku aka The Sinners of Hell). Considering its time of release, it was surely quite unbelievably creepy & gory for the audience back at that time. Along with great Nakagawa's fantastic style of film making where we can see Bava like continuously changing colorful screens & brilliant use of lights & shadows, this film also comes with some awesomely creepy set pieces, i.e. freaking ghosts rising from the ground or peering down from the ceiling!

Like its more than hundred years old original story (which mainly written as a Kabuki play), the film is mostly filled with typical Asian melodrama where characters grows in the 1st half but 2nd half strikes with violence & ghostly encounters.

Overall, a must see for the fans of Gothic horror & J-Horror.

Although the story has been adapted to film many times in Japan but this is generally considered the finest screen adaptation of the story as well as Nakagawa is considered to have been Japan's first great horror film director. Besides having provided his critically acclaimed Jigoku and this best version of the Yotsuya ghost story, he also directed Kaiden hebi-onna (Ghost Story of a Snake Woman, 1961), Onna kyuketsuki (Lady Vampire, 1959), Kaidan Kasane-ga-fuchi (The Ghost of Kasane,1957) & Borei kaibyo yashiki (Black Cat Mansion, 1958)....Damn! These all movies have now become hard-to-find films in most of the parts of the world & also in the torrent sites. Acclaimed video-distribution companies like Criterion or Blue Underground very much need to release A complete Nakagawa Horror Collection asap, IMO.

>>: A-

Kyofu aka The Sylvian Experiments (2010)

A pretty slow and uninspired J-Horror, don't bother.

>>: C
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Last edited by roshiq; 11-19-2011 at 01:23 AM.
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