Ghost Story: Cruel Phantom

Nominated for Golden Berlin Bear.

The boozy mercenary of the title, based on the actual historical figure of Naoyuki Ban (1567-1615), attempts to rid a haunted castle of spooks.

A samurai kills a blind man who tells him to repay his debts. Because of the samurai's actions his entire family is to bear a terrible curse.

A kabuki actress is murdered. Her pet cat laps its mistress's blood and becomes a demon possessed by the vengeful murder victim.

A woman abandoned by the man she loved all her life becomes a ghost and takes revenge for her offense!

A store manager named Kinbei becomes enraged when the owners of the store decide to hand it down to an adopted son instead of him. He hatches a plot to murder them all, but as it turns out he has done this sort of thing before. As bodies pile up in the nearby Kagami Pond, a ghostly vengeance is about to be unleashed.

The treasures of the Aoyamas were buried at the bottom of the sea when a large earthquake occurred years before. Yumi Aoyama is the only person who knows the location, but her family dies one after another through curious incidents, as if the family were under a curse. Yumi is surprised by the ghost of a dead sister who looks the same as the grim figure who jumped into the old well alter stabbing herself with a sword. Fearful that a similar fate awaits her, Yumi seeks the help of her friend Kyoko. Later the ghost appears before Kyoko and her fiancé, Detective Nonomiya. In a haunted cave, Kyoko and Yumi are in deadly peril from those who seek treasures of the Aoyamas.

Ghost of the Pearl Divers

Follows the murder of a money-lending masseur by an impoverished samurai. The slain masseur's daughter will also fall victim to his curse, so that she can become empowered as an agent of her father's vengeance.

Princess Kiyo accidentally injures a local priest, Anchin, while on a hunt. She apologizes, but feels irritated by Anchin’s indifference to her in spite of her beauty. One night, while Anchin is recuperating in a hot spring, he is approached by Kiyo. She tells him that she is in love with him.

During a fever, Tateo, the male protagonist believes he is dying and has the hallucination that his beautiful wife, Reiko (Tamaki Katori), the daughter of a wealthy family, is having an affair w/ another man. He then tells her an ancient Chinese story: the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi wanted to test the faithfulness of his wife, so he faked his own death; the wife was grief-stricken and went into mourning. While funeral arrangements were in progress, a handsome young man came to call on Zhuangzi. Zhuangzi's wife soon fell into love w/ the young man and decided to marry hi. However, the young man fell ill; his servant said that the only medicine to cure him is human brain. Zhuangzi's wife eventually decided to break his husband's coffin and take his brain. However the young man turns out be Zhuangzi in disguise.

Ghost comedy film.

Features a haunted well with yet another blind masseur's vengeful ghost.

One day, a funeral was held at one of the tenements in Asakusa. It was the only son of a wealthy merchant named Matasaburo, who had run away from home with a woman he was in love with and had been living here. But this funeral was actually a kyogen (a farce) orchestrated by a gardener named Yunosuke, who had planted it without telling his wife, Okinu, in order to bilk his parents out of their money. Matasaburo believed Yunosuke, who said he would dig him up right away, and was buried in the ground. ......

Horror film directed by Satoru Kobayashi. Kin'ya Ogawa served as Kobayashi's assistant on this film.

Nishina Saburouta is powerful but corrupted priest. One night, an old samurai who couldn't bear him any more, attempts to kill him, but without success. Saburouta is rescued by his niece, Keisuke at the last moment. Keisuke is a a good-for-nothing. Since that event, he always turns to his uncle when he needs money. Recently Keisuke feels his uncle isn't as generous as he used to be, he suspects that Saburouta has found out the illicit relation between Keisuke and his uncle's young mistress, Ohasu.

Horror film directed by Koji Shima.

About 1786 the doings of a demented lord results in many masterless samurai, including Iyemon (Kei Sato) who is used to luxury and cannot adjust to the hand-to-mouth conditions & piecework of umbrella making. Having hired ruffians to make him look like a superior swordsman, he arranges for himself the opportunity of a profitable marriage. He hires the half-blind masseur Takuetsu (Sawamura Sounosuke) to seduce or rape his wife (Kyoko Mikage), so that she can be divorced or killed for adultery. But the masseur takes pity & informs Oiwa of her husband's horrid plot. Assisted by the merchant's daughter he intends to marry, Iyemon disfigures his wife attempting to poison her so he can marry higher. There's a lovingly gruesome sequence as she combs blad patches into her hair, kneeling deformed at her mirror, weeping with bitterness. She eventually cuts her own throat, swearing revenge.

One murky night, Soetsu, a blind acupuncturist and money lender, calls on Shinzaemon Fukami, a Hatamoto samurai, to collect some money. But Fukami is too busy having an affair with a maid and curtly tells Soetsu to ask Sawano, his wife, for the money. As they have no money, Sawano interprets her husband's words as telling her to give herself to Soetsu in lieu of payment. However, Fukami catches them in the act and kills them both. Snatching up Soetsu's money bag with 30 ryo in it, he then asks two ruffians, to sink the bodies in a marsh. From what follows, it seems as if the spirits of Soetsu and Sawano are still hovering on earth in anguish and anger. For soon afterwards, Fukami is found dead by his own hand and Osono, Soetsu's younger daughter, suddenly disappears from home.

Horror filmed directed by Kinya Ogawa.