charlesblakemore

Look, I know that filmmakers routinely remake classics for the modern idiom, but usually they at least credit the original makers somewhere. This amateurish production steals the story and, very nearly, the actual title of a 1945 Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger vehicle for Wendy Hiller, "I Know Where I'm Going!" without the slightest nod to those vastly superior filmmakers. That shows amazing chutzpah, but precious little else in this works inspires admiration. Such a shameless act of theft might passed unnoticed (as the film itself deservedly did), but as a former student of Powell, I cannot ignore it. Do not waste your time on this pale, wan shadow of a lovely movie. Donate your 90 minutes of life to Powell's delightful romance instead. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037800/

"Little" film? By what measure? In its original version (seen in the Criterion edition on DVD) "Kwaidan" clocks in at over three hours. At the time of its release, "Kwaidan" was one of the most expensive Japanese films ever made. It was released in a vast 2.35:1 widescreen format. In what manner is the film "little?" And how is it under-appreciated? It won the Jury Prize at Cannes and was nominated for an Oscar. Among students of the cinema it is rightly acknowledged as a classic, and as one of the most visually gorgeous films ever set to celluloid. That it may not be known widely among non-students forty years after its release does not make it under-appreciated. The same could be said of "Juliet of the Spirits" or "The Four Hundred Blows" but no-one could call those films "under-appreciated." "Kwaidan" is a lovely, chilling, subtle piece of exquisite film-making, an adaptation of the works of Irish-American writer Lafcadio Hearn. A literary darling in Japan, Hearn wrote ghost stories for a ghost-ridden land, a gaijin who fell in love with this most inhospitable country. In his case, that love has been reciprocated and the author lionized, so Kobayashi's zen translation of the four tales contained herein is literal, loving and worshipful. Any devotee of ghost stories or classic Japanese cinema would do well to see "Kwaidan", and afterwards to take in its breathtaking older sister, Kenji Mizoguchi's "Ugetsu Monogatari." Surely no-one could call that film under-appreciated.