A super interesting book about the depiction of ghosts in classic and modern Japanese cinema. Starting with classic cinema, 50s and 60s are considered the golden age for spectre and fantasy classic Japanese cinema, Malpartida explains how traditional legends and traditions influence classic films. He offers a useful classification of ghost movies
1. movies about cat spectres (kaibyo eiga, a popular theme). Cats can be possessed by the ghosts of the recently deceased after licking their blood.
2. The story of the Oiwa spirit- many movie adaptations based on a popular Kabuki act: Tokaido Yatsuya Kaidan from 1825) - a story about murder and revenge.
3. The Snow Woman (Yuki onna) - various adaptations of the story of a woman who appears in snowy nights.
In terms of modern cinema, Malpartida discusses the super famous Ring movies, the original and the Korean and Hollywood remakes, offering sharp criticisms of the remakes that fail to convey the original meanings. For example, Malpartida criticises the appearance of the Hollywood Samara as being a copy of the Exorcist girl (Reagan) rather than a version of Sadako. Then, the discussion moves to Shimizu's Ju-On series of movies, highlighting the director's skill to create so much in artistic terms with little resources. After that, the author discusses Kiyoshi Kurosawa's movies highlighting the director's interest in incommunication and solitude.
The book ends with an amazing section with illustrations of movie posters and movie scenes and a nice catalogue of about 70 ghost films, including titles, posters and synopses.
Final remarks: so many ghosts ghosts represent/ portray women victims of violence searching for justice themselves because institutional justice doesn't do its job. All throughout the book, Malpartida highlights the Japanese directors' ability to scare with their story building skills and by showing us how much we have in common with ghosts.
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