Kwaidan is a 1964 Japanese portmanteau film directed by Masaki Kobayashi; the title means 'ghost story'. It is based on stories from Lafcadio Hearn's collections of Japanese folk tales. The film consists of four separate and unrelated stories. Kwaidan is the archaic transliteration of Kaidan, meaning "ghost story". It won the Special Jury Prize at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival, and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. "The Black Hair" was adapted from "The Reconciliation", which appeared in Hearn's collection Shadowings . A man living in Kyoto divorces his... wife, a weaver, for another woman, in order to attain greater social status. The marriage is unhappy, and his wife expels him from their home. He returns to his first wife, who readily accepts him, but later he discovers her to be no more than clothing, hair and a skull. "The Woman of the Snow" is adapted from Hearn's Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things . It depicts the folkloric character of Yuki-onna, a ghostly female figure who inhabits snowy regions.
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| Release date: | December 29, 1964 |
| Directed by: | Masaki Kobayashi |
| Runtime: | 183 Minutes |
| Producer: | Shigeru Wakatsuki |
| Music by: | Tōru Takemitsu |
| Cinematography: | Yoshio Miyajima |
| Screenplay by: | Yôko Mizuki |
| Adapted from: | Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things |
| Genre: | Fantasy |