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The Bride from Hades
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Radiance Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (14th June 2025). |
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The Film
 When the second-born son of the Hagiwara samurai family dies shortly after becoming wed to Kiku (Sleepy Eyes of Death: Castle Menagerie's Atsumi Uda), the family attempt to pressure third son Shinzaburô (Yokai Monsters: Along with Ghosts' Kôjirô Hongô) to marry her lest her higher-ranked family take her back along with her dowry. While his family see him taking his brother's place in the family business interests is a move up from his "disgraceful" work teaching literature to children in the row houses, Shinzaburô is disgusted with the elitism of his family who look down on the people who work for them. On the first night of the three day Bon festival of the dead, Shinzaburô makes the chance acquaintance of the beautiful Otsoyu (Lady Snowblood's Miyoko Akaza) and her maid Oyone (Samurai Rebellion's Michiko Ôtsuka). Otsoyu tells Shinzaburô that she was sold into prostitution by the men who cheated her father but that due to being a samurai's daughter, she has thus far been able to keep her honor through the diversions of ikebana, conversation, and serving tea to her customers; however, a wealthy old lord has fallen for her and means to redeem her and she will no longer be able to resist his advances. Shinzaburô tells her that he would redeem her had he not been disowned. Oyone tells him that the sentiment is enough and convinces him to participate in a symbolic ceremony with Otsoyu who can be married to him for the length of the festival during which the Yoshiwara women are allowed to leave the pleasure quarters. Shinzaburô's servant Banzô (Yojimbo's Kô Nishimura) recognizes Oyone as he observes her leaving Shinzaburô's quarters before dawn and deduces that Otsoyu is a prostitute. He shares this gossip with Rokusuke (Ugetsu's Saburô Date) for the price of a drink only for the latter to joke that he must have seen a ghost because Oyone is dead. Initially frightened, Banzô attributes what he saw to the drink until he spies on Shinzaburô and sees him in the embrace of a skeleton, after which he goes to row house elder Hakuôdô (Ikiru's Takashi Shimura). They try to warn Shinzaburô but he assumes it is a ploy by his family until he attempts to find the dwelling place of Otsoyu and Oyone and discovers that they are buried at a nearby temple. Certain that further contact with the ghosts will mean death for Shinzaburô, the residents of the row house conspire to protect him but he is unable to resist Otsoyu and the ghosts are more cunning than expected. That each of the films in the "Daiei Gothic" set has an analogue in Toho's Kwaidan – demonstrates that that more internationally-targeted production deliberately chose not just Hearn's most popular stories but ones that demonstrated a sampling of Japanese yokai and yu-rei. While The Ghost of Yotsuya and "The Black Hair" has a wronged wife turned into a yu-rei, and the ubiquitous yuki-onna is the subject of both The Snow Woman and "Woman of the Snow", The Bride from Hades bares superficial similarities to "Hoichi the Earless" with people trying in vain to keep a victim from life-draining repeated contact with ghosts. In the case of this film based on the legend "The Peony Lantern" (and its literary adaptations), however, the contact is romantic and all-consuming as Shinzaburô sees in Otsoyu a victim of the samurai class like himself (more so than his sister-in-law Kiki whose willingness to honor tradition disgusts him even though she would have to live out the rest of her life as a nun if her family did not want to take her back). Shinzaburô is rendered a rather passive character throughout the film, attempting to resist Otsoyu not for his own sake but for the children for whom he provides promise of moving beyond their origins through education – even Oyone says that he should admire Otsoyu for killing herself in protest of an unjust world – and is subject to the machinations of both the ghosts along with Banzô and his scheming wife Omine (Vengeance is Mine's Mayumi Ogawa), the latter ultimately almost getting away with their betrayal but ultimately paying the price for being just a little too greedy. The Bride from Hades and its origins pre-kabuki theater and pre-Lafadio Hearn – the film's version of the legend is based on the novel by Enchô San'yûtei (Kaidan) which also served as the basis for The Haunted Lantern and the version in the direct-to-video anthology Junji Inagawa's Horror of Legend, but Hearn also wrote a version titled "A Passional Karma" published in his collection "Ghostly Japan" – is a Buddhist morality tale with some social commentary. The Bride from Hades was the only horror film directed by Satsuo Yamamoto who famously departed the Shinobi no mono series when Daiei wanted more sequels following what the director felt was the conclusion of the story at the end of the second film. The Eastmancolor Daieiscope photography is once again the work of The Snow Woman's Chikashi Makiura and utilizes a combination of kabuki stage effects and theatrical lighting to "animate" the film's ghosts; however, Makiura is also masterful at illuminating matte painting-augmented sets in a manner that makes them readable but also convincingly nocturnal as in the sequence of the lakeside floating lantern procession. 
Video
According to IMDb, The Bride from Hades played in America via Daiei – who like Toho had theaters aimed at Japanese populations but their films were shown with English subtitles as well – but it has not been available in any official form outside of Japan until Radiance's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray - previously available in the three-disc Daiei Gothic - Japanese Ghost Stories set (also available in the U.K.) - which comes from a brand new Kadokawa 4K restoration. Once again, the elements are spotless, and this film out of all three boasts the clearest and crispest close-ups of its living characters while the ghosts are given an eerie glow that emphasizes the whiteness of their skin when looking normal and the green-gray and sometimes blue-black palor of their ghostly forms. The color scheme is once again earthy as appropriate to the period with the ghosts bringing in spikes of color through their clothing and the effects lighting, and it appears that most of the film's effects were achieved on the set with wires rather than opticals where the materials would be expected to look coarser (even the credits appear to be calligraphy on white, textured backgrounds rather than opticals printed on the backgrounds). 
Audio
Classic Japanese studio films have always boasted some of the best mono tracks in terms of creativity and fidelity – with the Westrex noiseless recording making some of the silences truly unnerving – and the LPCM 2.0 mono track is immaculate with clear post-dubbed dialogue, effects, and scoring (there are no notes about the audio side of Kadokawa's restoration so we have no idea how much work was required or the state of the audio materials). Optional English subtitles are free of spelling errors. 
Extras
The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by author Jasper Sharp who discusses the various adaptations of the story and its origins in Chinese folklore, and points out the technical and artistic quality of this film as one of the last Daiei horror films in the context of their equal artistic output in other genres at the time even though the writing was on the wall (the studio went bankrupt in 1971 which is how publisher Kadokawa ended up with the library). He also discusses the film's approach to the supernatural in contrast to the contemporary genre output of Toei and Shochiku while also noting that Daiei also made genre work aimed at children as well as more mainstream and popular works like the ghost cat films. Sharp also provides some social context including the ghosts women's position as Yoshiwara prostitutes, religious practices, as well as the film's and source story's erotic element (more explicity explored but not necessarily exploited in the softcore Roman Porno adaptation Hellish Love) and the strain of Buddhist erotic morality tales dealing with the "fear of erotic allure" and danger of "obsessive love." The disc also include an appreciation by filmmaker Hiroshi Takahashi (17:39) who discusses the film's Chinese folkore origins and its adaptation during the Edo period as a rakugo play and then later as a kabuki version, pointing out that the scenes of the ghosts floating and flying were likely achieved with the sort of wirework seen in kabuki plays rather than the Hong Kong wuxia-type effects, and instead of comparing the film to "Hoichi the Earless" he looks a little farther west but still in Asia to the Russian fantasy film The Viy from the previous year. The disc also includes the Japanese theatrical trailer (2:24). 
Overall
The Bride from Hades offers both traditional Japanese ghost story scares and a look at the society of the period that enables the tragic outcome.
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