Kwaidan (film)

Kwaidan
Theatrical release poster
Japanese name
Kanji怪談
Transcriptions
Revised HepburnKaidan
Directed byMasaki Kobayashi
Screenplay byYoko Mizuki[1]
Based onStories and Studies of Strange Things
by Lafcadio Hearn
Produced byShigeru Wakatsuki[1]
Starring
CinematographyYoshio Miyajima[1]
Edited byHisashi Sagara[1]
Music byToru Takemitsu[1]
Production
company
Ninjin Club[1]
Distributed byToho
Release date
  • December 29, 1964 (1964-12-29) (Tokyo)
Running time
182 minutes[1]
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese
Budget¥320 million[2][3]
Box office¥225 million[4]

Kwaidan (Japanese: 怪談, Hepburn: Kaidan, lit.'Ghost Stories') is a 1964 Japanese anthology horror film directed by Masaki Kobayashi. It is based on stories from Lafcadio Hearn's collections of Japanese folk tales, mainly Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1904), for which it is named. The film consists of four separate and unrelated stories. Kwaidan is an archaic transliteration of the term kaidan, meaning "ghost story". Receiving critical acclaim, the film won the Special Jury Prize at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival,[5] and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.[6]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Galbraith IV 2008, p. 217.
  2. ^ Imamura 1987, p. 314.
  3. ^ Motoyama et al. 2012, p. 91.
  4. ^ Kinema Junpo 2012, p. 210.
  5. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Kwaidan". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-03-04.
  6. ^ "The 38th Academy Awards (1966) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-11-06.