Rent The Ghost of Yotsuya (1959)
3.5 of 5 from 47 ratings
1h 16min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Samurai lemon (Kazuo Hasegawa) has grown distant from his wife Oiwa (Yasuko Nakada) since she miscarried. Oume (Yôko Uraji), the pretty young daughter of a wealthy family, falls madly in love with lemon after he saves her from a group of drunk swordsmen. Oiwa learns about the blossoming affair and grows despondent. Without his knowledge, lemon's associates conspire to clear the way for him to marry Oume by poisoning his wife. But Oiwa returns from the grave as a horribly disfigured ghost to haunt lemon and her tormentors. Director Kenji Misumi (Lone Wolf and Cub) and writer Fuji Yahiro (Sansho the Bailiff, Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji) turn the quintessential Japanese ghost story into a profoundly resonant doomed romance, with chilling ghost scenes that would leave a deep mark on the creators of J-horror. - Actors:
- Kazuo Hasegawa, Yasuko Nakada, Yôko Uraji, Mieko Kondô, Jôji Tsurumi, Narutoshi Hayashi, Hideo Takamatsu, Chieko Murata, Kôichi Aihara, Shinobu Araki, San'emon Arashi, Okuzan Asao, Ryonosuke Azuma, Saburô Date, Takaji Fukui, Setsuko Hama, Yûshi Hamada, Yukio Horikita, Tadashi Iwata, Kiyoshi Kasuga
- Directors:
- Kenji Misumi
- Producers:
- Nobuo Miura
- Writers:
- Fuji Yahiro
- Aka:
- Yotsuya kaidan / Yotsuya Ghost Story
- Genres:
- Classics, Horror, Romance
- Countries:
- Japan
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 28/10/2024
- Run Time:
- 83 minutes
- Languages:
- Japanese LPCM Mono
- Subtitles:
- English
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 2.39:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Appreciation by filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa (2024, 20 mins)
- The Endless Curse of Oiwa - A visual essay by Japanese film expert Kyoko Hirano (2024, 22 mins)
- Trailer
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Reviews (1) of The Ghost of Yotsuya
Hair Today, Ghost Tomorrow - The Ghost of Yotsuya review by griggs
A ghost story with a nasty little afterlife, Ghost Story of Yotsuya follows Iemon, a ronin whose ambition ate his conscience some time ago. Shigeru Amachi plays him with the cold, faintly bored smile of a man pricing up his own wife. Once Iemon has Oiwa poisoned to clear the way for a richer match, things get hair-raising. The scene where she combs her hair and it comes away in clumps still made me wince.
Nobuo Nakagawa paints the whole thing in lurid reds and swampy greens, like a nightmare printed on silk. When a door with two corpses nailed to it bobs up in the river, you realise Iemon's sins have a habit of resurfacing.
The story and performances do their job. My one gripe is that Katsuko Wakasugi's Oiwa barely gets going before the poison kicks in, and I wanted more of her first.
Anna Biller is giving the tale a medieval makeover with The Face of Horror, and I can't wait to see it. After The Love Witch, I'm expecting plenty of blood-red silk.
Still haunting me a little. That's a recommendation.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.