The Ghost of Yotsuya (1959) is coming to individual Blu-ray by Radiance in June 2025 in the UK HERE and in the US HERE

The Bride from Hades (1968) is coming to individual Blu-ray by Radiance in June 2025 in the UK HERE and in the US HERE

The Snow Woman (1968) is coming to individual Blu-ray by Radiance in June 2025 in the UK HERE and in the US HERE

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Radiance Films Blu-ray (September 2024): Radiance Films have transferred three Japanese Ghost Story films to Blu-ray; 1959's The Ghost of Yotsuya (Tôkaidô Yotsuya kaidan) and, both from 1968, The Bride from Hades (Botan-dôrô aka Peony Lantern) and The Snow Woman (Kaidan yukijorô.) They are cited as being "New 4K restorations of The Bride from Hades and The Snow Woman and a High-Definition digital transfer of The Ghost of Yotsuya". The first two start with a title card stating "2024 4K Digitally Restored Version / Produced by: KADOKAWA Corporation / Artistic Supervisor : Masahiro Miyajima / Restoration Services by : Imagica Entertainment Media Services, Inc." These looks quite good with The Ghost of Yotsuya showing a greenish hue and being the heaviest 1080P of the three. They are all on dual-layeredd discs with max'ed out bitrates. There is decent detail and supportive contrast. Colors lean to earthiness and The Snow Woman is drenched in menacing shadows that are exported pleasingly. Overall, I'd say they are Radiance's usual strong, consistent, image quality standard. No issues at all.  

NOTE: We have added 154 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Radiance Film use linear PCM mono tracks (24-bit) in the original Japanese language. There are horror-related effects; wind, snow, fire, candles... but mostly the spookiness is in the eerie silence. The Ghost of Yotsuya has a score by Japanese film and television composer Chumei Watanabe (who worked on various tokusatsu - live action - shows and mecha anime aka 'giant robot' projects.) He worked in the science fiction, war, fantasy, or horror genres. There is an effectively creepy edge to the background music. The Bride from Hades' score is by Shigeru Ikeno (one of only three film composure credits) For The Snow Woman the score was by Akira Ifukube (Battle in Outer Space, Anatahan, The Mysterians, the original Godzilla - and other Godzilla features like King Kong Escapes - the bulk of Zatoichi series, plus Kurosawa's The Quiet Duel and many others.)  sounding clean with consistent dialogue in the lossless transfer. Radiance Film offer optional English subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

The Radiance Film Blu-rays offers plenty of extras. The master director and J-horror pioneer, filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure, Pulse) discusses Kenji Misumi's film The Ghost of Yotsuya and its lasting influence on Japanese genre cinema for 20-minutes. This was filmed exclusively for Radiance films in July 2024. Also included on the first disc is a 22-minute visual essay by Japanese film historian Kyoko Hirano who talks about the centuries-long evolution of The Ghost of Yotsuya and the qualities that set Misumi's 1959 film version. On The Bride from Hades disc we get an audio commentary by author and critic Jasper Sharp (Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema - Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts.) He talks about the film being more unnerving than outright scary as well as the film having strong period detail in terms of sets and costumes. He tells us about the Daiei Studios and its decline and bankruptcy. Jason reads a few lines of an English translation of the story - and comments on much more about the production. He references Michael Crandol's Ghost in the Well: The Hidden History of Horror Films in Japan Paperback. The commentary is excellent.  There is also an 18-minute video piece with Hiroshi Takahashi, the scriptwriter of Ring, who shares his admiration for Satsuo Yamamoto's film and discusses the lineage of Japanese ghost stories up to present-day J-horror. It was very educational. On the last Blu-ray, The Snow Woman, there is a new 1/4 hour interview with Masayuki Ochiai, the director of Hypnosis and Shutter who discusses the film, its origins, and its unusual status among Japanese ghost stories. There is also a 7-minute visual essay by Lafcadio Hearn biographer Paul Murray (A Fantastic Journey: The Life and Literature of Lafcadio Hearn) who provides an introduction to the author's life and work, and considers the formative influence of gothic on his writing. Each Blu-ray disc has a trailer for the respective film and a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista. The package has a newly designed box and booklet artwork by Time Tomorrow, six postcards featuring original archive imagery from the films and a limited edition 80-page perfect bound book featuring new writing by authors Tom Mes (Japanese Film and the Challenge of Video) and Zack Davisson, newly translated archival reviews and ghost stories by Lafcadio Hearn. This is limited to 4,000 copies and is presented in a rigid box with full-height Scanavo cases for each film and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings.

These Daiei Studio horror efforts naturally spark memories of Masaki Kobayashi's Japanese anthology horror Kwaidan from 1964. And why not? Tokuzō Tanaka's The Snow Woman was also based on a Yuki-on a short story as it appeared in the 1904 collection Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Lafcadio Hearn. Daiei produced many artistic cinema including Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, Kenji Mizoguchi's Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu and Sansho the Bailiff, and Teinosuke Kinugasa's Gate of Hell as well as several film series including Gamera, Zatoichi and Yokai Monsters. Daiei had its own professional baseball team in the 1950s, the Daiei Stars. Nobuo Nakagawa's The Ghost of Yotsuya was based on the kabuki play Yotsuya Kaidan and involves a female spirit unable to rest until extracting revenge. The Bride from Hades (aka "A Ghost Story of Peonies and Stone Lanterns", "Ghost Beauty", "My Bride Is a Ghost", "The Bride from Hell" etc.) deals with a widowed samurai and his consequences of having sex, and falling in love, with a ghost. You may recognize Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura (Ikiru) briefly in The Bride from Hades. I really enjoyed all three but was the most spooked by The Snow Woman where, in the midst of a snow storm, an evil witch infests herself into the lives of a master sculptor and his apprentice. There are erotic hints in each of this trifecta of 'ghost' films with lust, obsession, sex with the dead, and haunting dreams. The Radiance Films Blu-ray package will get votes in our year-end poll. It's such a 'keeper' with perfect timing being released right before Halloween. Strongly recommended.

Gary Tooze