New Ghost Story Heretic Lust: Oiwa's Vengeful Ghost

Nominated for Golden Berlin Bear.

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.

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

Classic kaidan ghost story from the Edo period

Classic kaidan ghost story set in the Edo period

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.

A former retainer to a noble family kills his wife's father when he tries to expose his past crimes. When he begins an affair with the daughter of another clan's retainer, her father tries to poison him but the substance instead claims an innocent victim...

Version of Botan Dōrō.

Horror film directed by Toshikazu Kôno.

The actor Koheiji is terribly in love with the wife of his best friend, the playwright Takuro; to get her, he would even kill Takuro.

A man’s wife dies in a swamp. Her ghost returns to haunt him.

A work with the motif of a legend that remains in the mountain villages of Shinshu and Hida. A white snake helped by a young man transfers to a girl's body, longing for him and burning in an endless passion.

A popular dance master in Edo meets a yakuza man, and the maddened master is killed in the end of their tremendous love affair. The master becomes a vengeful spirit that haunts the man. A thrilling ghost story.

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.