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Robert Walrod's avatar

Enjoyed Kwaidan much more than you did, apparently --certainly a film that is much more about visual and aural style creating a certain atmosphere than it is about plot. I just enjoy living in that eerie, hyperreal world for three hours.

For me, those beautifully un-memetic sets, those costumes, the color temperature and midcentury filmstock, the lighting and Toru Takemitsu's score combine to have that visceral, pre-verbal effect that you describe farther down in this post. With a handful of exceptions it just doesn't look like any other film.: a horror movie with bright pinks and salmon-orange sunsets.

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Celine Nguyen's avatar

I think my problem with Kwaidan is that I am always anticipating the next plot development when I watch a film—and if I feel I KNOW what is going to happen (and then it does happen), the film seems a bit rote! totally agree that there is a kind of eerie visual quality to it that is really very special, though

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