Otsuyu: Kaidan botan-dôrô (1998) User Reviews (4)

I didn't mean to deceive you. I just couldn't tell you.

[nogodnomasters · 4/10 · 18 January 2018]

Shin is supposed to marry Suzu, but loves her sister Tsuyu. Now what any decent Japanese sisters do in this case is to off themselves and haunt the poor guy as ghost-demons.

That is pretty much it. I watched the film in English instead of Japanese as I have forgotten much of the Japanese I learned in one day with Rosetta Stone.

Special effects are not half bad considering. The opening with a blind man predicting gloom and doom gave me Tiresias flashbacks, and the day I spent studying ancient Greek literature. If you are not into old Japanese ghost stories, this one might bore you.

Comes with interactive DVD-Rom.

Parental Guide: rape, sex, brief nudity.

The Haunted Lantern

[rstef1 · 8/10 · 1 February 2008]

Beautiful and moving fantasy/horror movie from Japan that takes place many years in the past, but eventually moves forward to the present.

The film opens as a young woman runs through a forest at night to meet her boyfriend, a samurai. She encounters an old blind man who warns her that she must not proceed or terrible things will occur. Ignoring his advice, she goes to her boyfriend's village only to find that it has been attacked and he has been wounded. The two are trapped by vicious samurai. The girl tells her boyfriend that they will die together on earth but that their love will reunite them in heaven, and urges him to cut his throat as she cuts hers. The other samurai offer to let him live if he lets her die alone. She slices her throat (in a very graphically bloody scene) and, as she dies, she sees that he is unable or unwilling to follow through on the promise. Her body turns into a strange collection of globules at her death and swarms over her boyfriend's body.

Shin awakens from this nightmare and we realize that he is the boyfriend in the dream. However, he is living in a time many years ahead of the period in the dream. Shortly thereafter, he and his friend Tomozo encounter a beautiful young woman, Tsuyu (the girlfriend from the dream), heading in the direction of their village. After rescuing her from men who are harassing her, the three proceed to the village. It is clear that Tsuyu and Shin are attracted to one another, but history is doomed to repeat as Shin, thinking he is meeting Tsuyu as part of an arranged marriage, actually is meeting her younger sister Suzu. Turns out that Tsuyu is already promised to another man in marriage. Naturally, tragedy ensues as the two sisters realize that they both love Shin, but that Shin is only in love with Tsuyu. Unable to bear the situation, both sisters commit ritual Seppuku, though they eschew the usual disembowelment and slit their throats in another bloody scene.

All this takes place during the celebration of Bon which is the period during which the ghosts of dead loved ones are supposed to be able to return to the living for a week. The ghosts of the two sisters do indeed return with the help of a lantern, to try to get Shin to sacrifice his life and fulfill the ancient promise of eternal love made by the samurai at the beginning of the movie.

Though there are some scenes of violence, and, late in the film ghostly retribution, the movie is really about the timeless nature of love and how it can exist even after death. The actors all give terrific performances and there are some fun special effects, and mercifully very few unwanted comic moments, as you find in some films of this type from Japan. The story becomes quite heartbreaking as we see the ghost of Tsuyu trying to get Shin to honor his feelings and hers by accepting death, the only way their souls can be united. Don't go into the movie expecting typical j-horror and blood and guts and you will be pleasantly surprised. 7 1/2 stars.

Ghost story that needs more recognition!

[Gblakelii · 10/10 · 17 February 2008]

There is an over abundance of horror films, but only a handful will provide real solid chills. At the top of the list would be, The Exorcist(1973) and Deep Red(Italian, 1976). The Haunted Lantern, which predates the unjustly more famous Ringu by a year, is another.This excellent atmospheric ghost story would probably receive a PG-13 rating with its supply of blood and brief partial nudity. And despite a rape scene which has no nudity, overall it should not be considered a violent film. The DVD edition of this overlooked film includes the option of listening to it in it's original Japanese(preferred) or dubbed in English. While the cast and crew may not be well known to American audiences, this movie's composer, Kotaro Nakagawa(who's film score here is nothing short of phenomenal), however, does have an impressive list of anime to his credit. Some of his work includes, Zoids Genesis; Planet-ES; Geobreeders; S-Cry-Ed; and Twin Princess of Wonder Planet. So if you're a horror fan, and in particular like stylized movies in the same vain as those put out by the Hammer studios, The Haunted Lantern is highly recommended.

"But This I Know for Certain: You'll Come Back Again ..."

[henri sauvage · 8/10 · 2 November 2018]

If you're a fan of Kobayashi's masterpiece of the supernatural, "Kwaidan", then this film will seem very familiar in its look and pacing, even to portions of the score. Speaking of which, it may appear strange that "Solveig's Song", a piece by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, opens a movie set in Edo period Japan, and returns as a theme throughout the soundtrack, but read the lyrics. Then you'll understand.

"The Haunted Lantern" is based on a classic Japanese ghost story, "The Peony Lantern", which, like the tales in "Kwaidan", was also translated by Lafcadio Hearn. So there's another parallel to the Kobayashi film. However, there's a bit more gore here than "Kwaidan" and the effects are flashier. Although I can't rate this quite as highly as its predecessor, it's well worth watching, being by turns eerie and gruesome and heart-breakingly tragic.