KAIDAN (Maple, 2007) D: Hideo Nakata, w/ Kikunosuke Onoe, Hitomi Kuroki. Rating: NNN DVD package: n/a Rating: NNN
This is not the horror movie you’d expect from Hideo Nakata, director of Ringu, the graphic and modern shockfest that touched off a worldwide vogue for Japanese horror. This time he’s tackled a traditional Japanese ghost story where the emphasis is on human frailty and relentless doom.
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In feudal Japan, a dying acupuncturist vows vengeance on his samurai murderer. Twenty-five years later, the samurai’s son, now a humble tobacco seller, meets the acupuncturist’s daughter. Their romance runs into problems. She vows on her deathbed that he’ll have no other wife. He flees. It doesn’t help.
Most horror movies lavish their best visuals on the supernatural scenes. Nakata reverses that. In the human world, he fills his frame with blocks of warm, contrasting colour, background decoration and unusual compositions. But the supernatural realm is depicted with ordinary compositions in the cold, monochrome blue we’ve seen a thousand times. The contrast highlights the drab emptiness of the otherworld and those who walk there. Very effective.
By the way, despite the identical title, which means “ghost story,” this is not a remake of Masaki Kobayashi’s 1964 chiller.
Sadly, there are no extras. A brief doc on the director or Japanese ghost story traditions would be welcome.
EXTRAS Widescreen. Japanese audio. English, Spanish subtitles.
