Radiance Films: The Tale of Oiwa's Ghost (1961) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of Radiance Films

Yotsuya Kaidan or Ghost Story of Yotsuya, aka the story of Oiwa and Tamiya Iemon, is inarguably the most globally famous Japanese ghost story ever written and subsequently staged.  Penned in 1825 by Tsuruya Nanboku IV as kabuki theater and later shortened to its present form, it is considered a progenitor of the J-horror subgenre with uncanny creepiness involving disfigured vengeful spirits with their faces carefully hidden by their long black hair.  Adapted to film over thirty times including as early as 1912 with perhaps eighteen more iterations (including Kenji Misumi’s 1959 film from Radiance’s own Daiei Gothic box), it was inevitable that rival company Toei Films would get into the Ghost Story of Yotsuya picture battle too.

 

 
Enter assistant Rashomon director Tai Katô who is becoming a favorite over at Radiance Films with their respective releases of Tokijiro Lone Yakuza and Eighteen Years in Prison.  Already a master of the crime thriller having made his debut in 1951, what became known as The Tale of Oiwa’s Ghost marked Katô’s first foray into the supernatural horror Kwaidan film and as such it is among the absolute creepiest takes on the Yotsuya Kaidan.  Filmed in moody black-and-white scope 2.35:1 by Osamu Furuya with an especially spooky score by Nanba Takahashi, this particular iteration of Yotsuya Kaidan is written and directed by Tai Katô and represents a unique fusion of the Japanese crime thriller with that of the Kwaidan.

 
Impoverished drunken yet murderous samurai Tamiya Iemon (Tomisaburo Wakayama from the Lone Wolf and Cub series) leads a life of sauntering through his village randomly picking off characters for some extra rice when he isn’t beating up on his wife Oiwa (Yoshiko Fujishiro) who still comforts their infant child even after he draws blood from her forehead.  But when a chance meeting of the eyes of another younger prettier and wealthy woman presents an opportunity to advance his social status, he conspires to have her poisoned which burns and disfigures her face with one of her eyeballs popped and dangling out of its socket.  After dumping her body in a nearby swamp, the pathway to a new marriage seems clear.  However, not long after, the vengeful spirit of Oiwa returns to unleash a torrent of hallucinatory bloodshed and murder.

 
A spooky progenitor to much of the uncanny hair-raising horror imagery of J-horror and answer to Daiei’s color film The Ghost of Yotsuya, Tai Katô’s neurotic chiller predates the extramarital affair cutis anserina of Kaneto Shindō’s Onibaba by a few years.  Featuring standout performances by Tomisaburo Wakayama who is always a formidable presence onscreen whether he’s cast in villainy or heroism and Yoshiko Fujishiro as the battered wife turned angry Onryō, The Tale of Oiwa’s Ghost is positively terrifying.  Achieving confrontational horror through the use of lighting rather than colors, the face of Oiwa before and after the disfigurement worn by abuse and betrayal is initially tender towards her child but soon is contorted and threatening.  At times the camera pushes in close upon her face and as she begins playing with the mind of her murderous husband Tamiya, we see him primarily attack her only to see the bloody actual aftermath of his defensive sword wielding. 

 
A pitch-perfect Japanese ghost story film ornately designed and performed, while one of many iterations of the same text it nevertheless still finds a way to get under the viewer’s skin with unparalleled creepiness and confrontational terror.  Making its worldwide Blu-ray premiere through Radiance Films in a new high-definition digital transfer, the disc with its beautiful OBI spine, reversible sleeve art and collectible booklet is splendid.  Featuring an interview with Mari Asato from the Ju-On: Black Ghost on the history of J-horror as well as a new visual essay on the notion of the Onryō by Lindsay Nelson, the disc release is limited to 3,000 copies and for the boutique label represents their third Tai Katô offering on home video.  An underrated, underexplored director whose work is only now reaching the west, The Tale of Oiwa’s Ghost stands out for featuring his trademark visuals, brutal ruthless characters and one of the crime filmmaker’s few supernatural horror stories.

--Andrew Kotwicki