Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Antonius Block The classic tale of 'The Ghost of Yotsuya' is entertaining enough, and zips along in its 76 minute run time, but it didn't deliver any knockout blows. The story is fairly black and white, with a ronin and his sidekick committing murder to get the women they want, but the depth of the blackness in their hearts is surprising, and makes it effective. Personally, I didn't find their supernatural comeuppance all that frightening, and felt that director Nobuo Nakagawa relied too much on the shock value of visuals, instead of creating real tension. The visuals are decent, but they're also dated, and we rarely fail to see what's coming. The performances were also generally over-done, though I understand my perspective is from another culture. Anyway, fans of the genre will probably enjoy this one.

Dustin Dye THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS, NECESSARY AS THE STORY WOULD HAVE ALREADY BEEN FAMILIAR TO Japanese AUDIENCES AT THE TIMEThe Japanese have some of the world's most inventive and exotic ghost stories. Without a shared cultural basis for these stories, they appear especially disquieting to Western audiences. This largely adds to the appeal of "The Ghost of Yotsuya.""The Ghost of Yotsuya" is based on a popular Japanese folk tale, with a basis on an actual murder. The folk tale has been the subject of numerous woodblock prints and ukiyo-e paintings, and was most famously adapted in the kabuki play by Tsuruya Nanboku IV.The story would have been well-known to Japanese audiences at the time. Knowing the story in advance, the audience would have been watching for subtle twists in the plot and mentally comparing it to other stagings.In a nutshell, the story is about Iemon, a ronin samurai whose wife, Oiwa, is weak and ailing after giving birth to their child. Iemon falls in love with the granddaughter of his wealthy neighbor. The neighbor gives Iemon some medicine that will purportedly heal his wife, but instead leaves her disfigured and eventually kills her. Iemon also kills Oiwa's sympathetic masseur, Kohei, who is a possible witness. He then nails their bodies to opposite sides of a shutter and throws their bodies in a lake.Iemon proceeds to marry his neighbor's granddaughter, but his guilty conscience haunts him. At their wedding, he sees Oiwa and decapitates her. But after inspecting her body, he discovers to his horror that he has killed his bride. He then confronts his new grandfather-in-law, but finds Kohei instead. He then decapitates his in-law, thinking he's Kohei. Iemon goes on a killing spree as he sees Oiwa's disfigured face on everybody.Iemon can't escape Oiwa's vengeance, and retreats to life as a hermit on Mt. Hebiyama (Snake Mountain). Even here he is not safe. When he goes fishing, he pulls out the shutter with the two bodies nailed to it. In the iconic finale, the ropes and vines around Iemon turn into snakes (symbolizing the world of death and revenge), and Oiwa's face confronts him on a lantern. Iemon's brother-in-law finally avenges Oiwa and Kohei at the end.It is a moralistic story. In a culture where women had virtually no legal repercussions against abusive husbands, "The Ghost of Yotsuya" warns about the supernatural consequences for cruelty against women.This 1959 film directed by Nobuo Nakagawa is considered the definitive screen adaptation of the story. "The Ghost of Yotsuya" is more or less faithful to the legend, although the filmmakers have added some flares of their own. There are minor changes to names and details. Iemon and Oiwa's relationship is also given a bloody back-story, and it takes almost an hour for the movie to get to the heart of the legend. Nakagawa uses vivid colors reminiscent of a woodblock print, which effectively lend a distinct look to the film.I had a few problems with this film. One was the acting. Japanese acting, even today, tends to be very affected. The style was developed for the kabuki theater, and looks unnatural on screen. I realize this is a cultural difference. It looks like horrible overacting to an American viewer, but if the Japanese think it's good, then it's good. The execution of the story also left something to be desired. Nakagawa seemed to rely more on shocking, gory imagery rather than create a sufficiently creepy atmosphere necessary for a ghost story."The Ghost of Yotsuya" should please die-hard fans of Japanese horror films, and could be seen as a forerunner to "Ringu" (remade in the U.S. as "The Ring") and "Ju-on" (remade as "The Grudge"), both of which take cues from the legend of Oiwa.

Michael_Elliott Ghost Story of Yotsuya (1959) *** (out of 4) Japanese horror film has a samurai (Shigeru Amachi) killing his wife (Kazuko Wakasugi) so that he can marry into a rich family. Soon after the second wedding the ghost of the dead wife seeks her vengeance. I haven't seen many of these Japanese ghost films but I've read this one has been made over eight times so it's apparently pretty popular. Since I haven't seen any of the others I can't compare them but I was still pretty impressed with this one. The movie runs a short 75-minutes but the first 55-minutes are devoted to the backstory of the samurai and his wife. Her murder doesn't happen until very late in the film and then it switches gears to the actual haunting, which takes place very fast. Some might say the film spends way too much time with the dramatic stuff but I think this is the reason the film works so well. Instead of just killing the wife at the start we get to know each character and we get to understand why the husband decides to kill her. We also see how the greed gets other people involved and how their lives are destroyed as well. When the hauntings do begin to happen they come at us very quickly and this here gives them a rather unsettling atmosphere, which works very well. It seems this film was influenced by the look and feel of the Hammer films out at the time since they were very popular in Japan. The violence of those Hammer films made their way into this as we get a pretty ghoulish murder of the wife where she's poisoned and pretty much has part of her face melt off. The performance by Amachi is extremely good as we certainly believe his breakdown once he begins to get haunted. It's Wakasugi who steals the show however as the tortured wife who will eventually seek revenge.

Watuma And who can fault Iwa's fury? Her husband Iemon murders her father to marry her, deceives her into parting from her sister, fathers her child, pays another man to seduce her, then administers a disfiguring poison so he can marry another woman. Yet Iemon is not wholly wicked - he suffers pangs of conscience, and most of his crimes are the result of his servant's goading. Whilst our sympathy goes to Iwa, our empathy extends to Iemon. The film is endowed with the dimensions of a classical tragedy, as the director undoubtedly intended. In fact, the picture's opening scenes are unabashedly stage-bound, before it shifts subtly into an engrossing cinematic experience. Although the story has been adapted to film many times in Japan, this is generally considered the definitive version.Besides its dramatic power, this version of Ghost Story of Yotsuya is visually sumptuous and thrillingly scored, the scope compositions are masterly, and the female phantom's appearance is truly nightmarish.This is easily the most accomplished, frightening and satisfying of Nakagawa's period ghost stories.