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Daiei Gothic Volume Two: The Demon of Mount Oe/The Haunted Castle/The Ghost of Kasane Swamp - Limited Edition
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Radiance Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (7th October 2025). |
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The Film
 "Japan's classic ghost stories are brought to the screen by masters of the genre, Tokuzo Tanaka (The Snow Woman) and Kimiyoshi Yasuda (Yokai Monsters) […] newly restored in 4K, three more stories from the Daiei studio represent the Japanese ghost film at its most lavish and chilling." The Demon of Mount Oe: According to legend, the Four Heavenly Kings of the Genji – Sakata no Kintoki (Gamera vs. Viras' Kôjirô Hongô), Urabe no Suetake (The Loyal 47 Ronin's Narutoshi Hayashi), Usui no Sadamitsu (Zatoichi on the Road's Ryûzô Shimada), and Watanabe no Tsuna (Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo's Shintarô Katsu) – their general Minamoto no Yorimitsu (Ninja, a Band of Assassins's Raizô Ichikawa), and lone warrior Hirai no Yasumasa (Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters' Jun Negami) slew the titular demon god Shuten-dôji; the truth, however, is more complex. Mountain bandits lead by Hakamadare (High and Low's Jun Tazaki) have been terrorizing the outskirts of the capital, most recently slaughtering governor Ikeda and making off with his daughter Katsura (Atsuko Kindaichi). The Kampaku Michinaga Fujiwara (The Inugami Family's Eitarô Ozawa) mysteriously gifts the Yorimitsu with his concubine Nagisa (An Actor's Revenge's Fujiko Yamamoto) while also issuing an ultimatum: destroy the bandits and the "strange forces" terrorizing the capital – including a demon bull Sakata prevents from abducting Nagisa and a demon Ibaragi (The Insect Woman's Sachiko Hidari) disguised as a beautiful woman who tries to seduce Watanabe and leaves without one arm – or commit Seppuku. Nagisa reveals why the Kampaku was eager to give her up since she is cursed and followed by misfortune, making her also a beacon for encroaching demons. Fearing for her unrequited love of Yorimitsu, Watanabe's sister Komatsu (The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer's Tamao Nakamura) volunteers to scale Mount Oe and find the stronghold of the demon and its bandits since all of the men sent on that mission have never returned and the bandits do not kill women. Sakata escorts Kotsuma up the mountain where they are captured by one of Shuten-dôji's protecting sorcerers Kidomaru (Yakuza Law's Toshio Chiba) while Ibaragi and spider demon Tsuchigumo (The Tale of Oiwa's Ghost's Sônosuke Sawamura) menace the Genji with nightly visits. Sakata is able to escape while Komatsu discovers the true nature of Shuten-dôji (Gate of Hell's Kazuo Hasegawa) and his connection to the curses that bedevil Nagisa. Tokuzô Tanaka's The Demon of Mount Oe is based on the legend of Shuten-dôji – more specifically the novel by screenwriter Matsutarô Kawaguchi – and we have not had opportunity to find a translation of the source novel so we do not know if the novel or the screenplay of Kawaguchi's fellow Kenji Mizoguchi scripting colleague Fuji Yahiro (Sansho the Bailiff) is responsible for the condensing of the narrative that gives two of the Heavenly Kings and the "lone warrior" nothing to do in the narrative despite their grand introductions; however, the opening "teaser" turns out to be a stylized telling of the end of one of the older tellings of the legend and the film that follows is not the events leading up to it but an epic-scaled character study stressing the humanity of the titular "demon": a prideful man who is wronged and as a result sees the world as corrupt and endeavors not just to overthrow authority but overturn it and replace it only to find that he has kept company with amoral real demons causing chaos for its own sake and bandits who do not want revolution but simply to repeat the same power structure with themselves at the top and its corruption that much more blatant and unfettered. The film is less of a Japanese horror film than a hybrid of narratives about samurai and wandering rōnin tinged with the supernatural, with the usual court intrigues taking place at the bandit stronghold rather than the capital; indeed, the film is most compelling during these more intimate sequences than the more formal court of the Kampaku and the Genji fortress or even the climactic battle sequences. The Genji general and his Heavenly Kings are stalwart but ultimately more functional while the film's true character arc is that of the man Shuten-dôji once was and still is, and it is driven less by military tactics and bandit ruthlessness than by the actions and emotions of Nagisa, Kotsuma, and even demon Ibaragi (all of which seemed earlier on just melodramatic subplotting). The production design and cinematography are handsome while the effects are a combination of kaidan ghost movie tricks and Kaiju-style monster effects including the bull monster and a giant spider with a mouth that reminds one of those spark-shooting wind-up toys, but it seems as though director Tanaka had not yet refined his style as evidenced in this set's other Tanaka film...  The Haunted Castle: Kyoushu governor Lord Nabeshima (Youth of the Beast's Kôichi Uenoyama) covets Lady Sayo (Gambler's Life: Unstoppable Bloodbath's Mitsuyo Kamei), the sister of blind Lord Matashichirô (The Betrayal's Akihisa Toda) – whose family once ruled the area from Saga Castle before falling out of favor with the Emperor and now survive on a stipend from family retainer Nabeshima who supplanted Matashichirô – and wants to make her his concubine. Nabeshima sends chief attendant Hanzaemon Komori (Return of Daimajin's Kôjirô Hongô) to make the request which Matashichirô refuses, preferring to relinquish their stipend and leave the area with his sister. Lord Gyôbu (Bodyguard Kiba 2: Deadly Triangle Jump's Rokkô Toura), brother of current favored concubine Otoyo (Sleepy Eyes of Death: In the Spider's Lair's Naomi Kobayashi), believes that Matashichirô is plotting a power grab using his sister. Although he learns of Matashichirô's refusal, Gyôbu knows that Nabeshima can be stubborn and stirs the enmity between the two men when Matashichirô arrives to play Go one evening, provoking Nabeshima into striking the blind man down with his sword over a disagreement. Gyôbu finishes the job and disposes of the body, informing Sayo that her brother refused transport back from Saga Castle that evening and disappeared and then sending a proclamation exiling Sayo and her missing brother. When Matashichirô's faithful pet cat Tama retrieves its master's bloodied zukin, Sayo realizes the truth and commits suicide, encouraging Tama to drink her blood turning the animal into an avenging spirit. While Komori is busy securing the women's quarters which have been subjected to nightly attacks on the maids with bloodied paw prints the only evidence of an intruder, Gyôbu is trying to prevent Nabeshima from exposing himself as he is constantly bedeviled by Matashichirô's apparition. Komori learns from attendant Lady Sanae (Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare's Akane Kawasaki) of the odd behavior of Otoyo's ladies maid Lady Sawanoi (Zatoichi Challenged's Ikuko Môri) and suspects that she has become possessed by the spirit of the bakeneko (or ghost cat) but Otoyo has also developed a sudden taste for raw fish. Based on one of the much-adapted bakeneko legends, The Haunted Castle strikes a wonderful balance between its action pacing and gorgeously-stylized imagery with sets layered in depth, striking scope compositions – often composing sequences in long takes with off-kilter framing and choreographed panning/tracking shots between the terrified humans and the seeming sources of unknown sounds – and theatrical lighting effects that do as much as make-up to transform visages. There is a reasonable body count but gore is kept to a minimum and opticals are less effective than the body movements of the "feline" actresses at conveying the supernatural (you may recall Ikuko Môri as the long-necked demon of Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters but she also has a long tongue here). The drama and characterization are streamlined for the eighty-two minute running time – so many characters are introduced early on while Gyôbu is not addressed by name or his relationship to Otoyo until late in the film that the viewer must be attentive to puzzle out who are meant to be the principals and those who are actually incidental characters but performances are excellent within these limitations and the only real letdown is the denouement but presumably it is faithful to the source or at least one of its variations. Director Tokuzô Tanaka's directorial debut a decade before was an adaptation of another ghost cat legend Bake neko goyôda for Shintoho the same year that Nobuo Nakagawa made Black Cat Mansion. We have not seen either of those films but the ghost cat in female form looks at times a bit more like the one in Toei's A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse than those of the film's contemporaries Kuroneko and Bakeneko: A Vengeful Spirit so presumably the design is drawn from the same folkloric artwork. Starting out as an assistant director to Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi, Tanaka during his Daiei period was better-known for his samurai and yakuza gambler films but he also directed The Snow Woman – a feature adaptation of the same Lafcadio Hearn story featured in Kwaidan – available in Radiance's Daiei Gothic Volume One set and individually. Tanaka would continue as a director for another twenty years but The Haunted Castle was his final film for Daiei.  The Ghost of Kasane Swamp: Blind masseur and money lender Soetsu (Love & Crime's Kenjirô Ishiyama) is the richest man in town with many indebted to him including former shogun samurai Lord Fukami (Ugetsu's Saburô Date). When Soetsu comes to collect his payment and refuses to leave, Fukami tells him to get it from his wife Sawano (Giants and Toys' Mitsuko Tanaka). Humiliated by her husband's faithlessness with maid Okuma (Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance's Reiko Kasahara), Sawano offers her body as payment; but this turns out to be a setup for Fukami to catch them as adulterers and kill them. Taking Soetsu's money, he pays drunks Jinzo (Zatoichi at Large's Takumi Shinjo) and Senta (The Invisible Swordsman's Kazue Tamaki) to dump their bodies in the titular swamp. Sawano's and Soetsu's spirits return and frighten Fukami to death. Meanwhile, Jinzo and Senta ransack Soetsu's house looking for his hidden money and end up raping his daughter Oson (Curse, Death & Spirit's Matsuko Oka) and selling her into prostitution when they cannot find the money. Soetsu's other estranged daughter Oshiga (Mandara's Maya Kitajima) upon learning of her father's murder takes his hidden money and uses it to purchase the debt of her madame Oseki and forcibly take over her brothel. Fukami's disinherited son Shingoro (The Fort of Death's Ritsu Ishiyama) returns home to discover his father has gambled away his money and that the house will be repossessed. He bullies the truth out of Okuma and takes Soetsu's money off of her. When disgruntled Oseki asks Jinzo and Senta to ruin Oshiga's brothel, they approach Shingoro for help but Oshiga manages to seduce him with her body and her horded money. Oshiga and Singoro seem set for life but a series of human and ghostly machinations lead to violent and bloody retribution for all involved. A loose adaptation of San'yutei Encho's oral performance "Slzinkei kasane gafuchi" first printed in 1888 and previously adapted by Nobuo Nakagawa in 1957 for Shintoho, Ghost of Kasane Swamp is actually a remake of director Kimiyoshi Yasuda's own 1960 version for Daiei and it is the lesser of the three films in the set. Despite some gel-lit push-ins on the ghostly visages that recall the "Wurdalak" segment of Mario Bava's Black Sabbath and a few psychedelic touches, the film is just an episodic series of unlikable people doing awful things to each other with most of them experiencing supernatural retribution, most of the time with no suspenseful buildup, just the immediate return of their victims as ghosts. There are many characters for such a short running time and their reappearances later lack any dramatic resonance. The story's aspect of the generational consequences of the inciting crime are also scuttled since the one truly innocent victim does not get to avenge herself alive or dead and Shingoro is already a terrible person who only briefly glimpses the masseur's apparition and actually suffers the consequences of his own crimes – and not nearly enough compared to the female victims and schemers – so the various relationships of characters to the masseur and Lord Fukami seem incidental and the massseur's ghost is involved in so little of it that while his apparition seems to appear to disturb unwilling and mentally-detached Osono's clients, the viewer cannot be sure if he is "haunting" Oshiga for taking his money or failing to avenge him since she soon forgets about talking to his apparition just before she learns of his murder. We have not seen the Yasuda's earlier telling but while Nobuo Nakgawa was a genre stylist and Tokuzô Tanaka was able to apply his horror-oriented style to different genres, Yasuda seems like more of a jobbing director capable of nice visuals and filming special effects but not making the best of material as evidenced by Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters which looked so wild in stills and reference book descriptions but was a bit of a letdown compared to his several Zatoichi series entries. 
Video
The Demon of Mount Oe had an English-subtitled theatrical release in the United States in Daiei's theaters for Japanese-American audiences but it has been hard to see since in legitimate form with the Japanese DVD not being English-friendly and quite pricey. Radiance Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray comes from a brand new 4K restoration of the film by rights owners Kadokawa and it is actually the least-impressive in the set. Although there is a certain softness in long shots owing to the older anamorphic lenses, the detail of costumes, make-up, facial features, hair, and monster designs improves in closer shots. It is hard to tell if the image is lightly faded or if the reds of wardrobe and décor were dialed down in contrast to the demonic form of Shuten-dôji as saturated color gels are vibrant elsewhere but even those instances avoid reds. There is some image instability every once in a while that may be an issue with sprockets or hand-repaired frames (we have not seen the Japanese DVD so we do not know if it uses the same source materials).  The Haunted Castle was also given an English-subtitled theatrical release in the United States. We do not know if the film had a Japanese DVD release but Radiance Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray comes from a new 4K restoration and is the best-looking film in the set as much due to the condition of the materials as the film's deliberate use of color in costumes and gel lighting against the more neutral colors of the sets, more locked-down camerawork, mostly studio shooting, and the controlled lighting. The deep blacks only become diluted during the film's rare instances of optical work used to convey the cat's supernatural abilities.  The Ghost of Kasane Swamp also had an English-subtitled U.S. theatrical release an unsubtitled Japanese DVD release. Radiance Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen transfer from a new 4K restoration looks every bit as spotless as The Haunted Castle. The latter is just a better-looking production. The more intimate scope of the story and scale of the entirely studio settings is well-rendered in its fine detail of rustic squalor with only the titular swamp which looking particularly artificial. The weaknesses of some shots are organic to the original photography with some shaky handheld camera coverage weakening the impact of the visuals like the opening overhead pan over the slaughtered bodies of a money lender and his mistress. 
Audio
All three films have uncompressed Japanese LPCM 1.0 24-bit mono tracks that have presumably undergone some cleaning as there is no distracting levels of hiss during the suspenseful silences. All three are post-dubbed so the dialogue is always clear. The Demon of Mount Oe has the most conventional scoring and more opportunities for busy sound design with its monster scenes and the climactic large-scale battle while the The Haunted Castle and The Ghost of Kasane Swamp are much more traditional in terms of sound design for kaidan films utilizing silence, distant ghostly sounds, and more sparse scoring sometimes in concert with theatrical lighting changes. All three have optional English subtitles. 
Extras
The Demon of Mount Oe is accompanied by "Taichi Kasuga on The Demon of Mount Oe" (18:54) who reveals that the film's odd hybridization of historical drama, kaidan, and yokai monster film is the result of it being tailored for "Golden Week" holiday period of high-grossing film exhibition in which studios like Daiei went from smaller vehicles for single stars to all-star efforts that gave each of them a chance to shine in roles that demonstrated their particular appeal even at the expense of the story; hence, why three of the prominently-introduced characters in the opening have little to do in the actual story and the climax of the film in which the screenwriter was building up to a big showdown between Ichikawa and Hasegawa without compromising their images with the fans. "Bride of the Demon-Slayer" (4:04) is a short visual essay by Japanese film expert Tom Mes who discusses the variations on the legend and provides background on the real historical figures as well as the real sword reputed to have slain the demon which passed through many hands over the centuries before becoming a national treasure. The theatrical trailer (2:56) is also included.  Extras for The Haunted Castle start with "Mari Asato on The Haunted Castle" (17:08) in which the filmmaker discusses the three major bakeneko legends and their adaptations, the history of "ghost cat actresses", Tanaka's filmography, and the style exhibited here. "The Strange Case of Ikuko Mori" (5:45) is a visual essay by Japanese film expert Tom Mes who discusses the actress' tragic story. Raped by a yakuza and forced into prostitution, she got away and became an actress signed to Daiei typecast as hostesses and mistresses, her horror roles, and her prison sentence after stabbing her lover (Daiei no longer existing upon her release with only rumors about what became of her). The theatrical trailer (2:10) is also included.  Extras for The Ghost of Kasane Swamp start with a select-scene audio commentary by horror film scholar Lindsay Nelson (24:24) who discusses the various versions of the legend and the film versions – noting the coincidence of director Yasuda directing two adaptations along with entries in the Zatoichi series which also involved a blind masseur character – the influence of the Ghost of Yotsuya legend with its disfigured woman turned vengeful ghost, and the influence of these elements on the modern J-Horror long-haired wraiths. "Norio Tsuruta on The Ghost of Kasane Swamp" (17:35) in which the "Father of J-Horror" behind the Scary True Stories whose father had been an executive behind Daiei's theatrical circuit discusses Daiei's difficulties behind the scenes in the context of the differences between Yasuda's 1960 and 1970 adapatations. "Legacy of Ghosts" (12:16) is a visual essay by ghost story scholar Zack Davisson who also discusses in more detail the differences between versions of the legend and film adaptations as well as the possible existence in real-life of people in one of the versions. The disc also includes the film's theatrical trailer (2:22). 
Packaging
The limited edition of 4,000 copies – going by the first volume, the standard edition will be three individual releases rather than three discs in a single keep case – presented in a rigid box with full-height Scanavo cases for each film and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings, including an 80-page perfect bound book. Amber T discusses the ways in which The Demon of Mount Oe differs from your traditional kaidan and the changes made by the writers to the nature of Shuten-dôji. Jasper Sharp discusses "vampire cat" legends and the variations on the Nabeshima story. Tom Mes discusses the variations on the legend of Kasane Swamp and the two adaptations by Yasuda. Two of the legends are reprinted as translations by F. Hadland Davis from his 1914 "Myths and Legends of Japan" book. In place of a reprinting of the kasane swamp story, we have the piece "Reading Encho Sanyutei's Shinkei Kasane Ga Fuchi (The True View at the Kasane Marsh)" discussing his telling of the legend and how it was tailored to suit the Meiji era audience including the ambiguity about hauntings and nervous disorders. 
Overall
Like the first volume, Radiance Films' Daiei Gothic Volume Two chooses adaptations of three major Japanese kaidan or yokai stories, but the creative liberties and relative budgets of each are just as instructive about the waning state of the studio from the beginning and end of a single decade. 
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