Kwaidan

Based on Lafcadio Hearn's anthology of Japanese tales of the supernatural, Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1904), the film is structured in four parts. "The Black Hair" follows a warrior who leaves his first wife for a second marriage to gain greater status, only to find the promise of a "better life" is an empty one indeed. "The Woman of the Snow" is a tale of supernatural vengeance in which a woodcutter falls in love with a Yuki-onna, or "snow woman" -- a spirit who wanders the woods -- with unexpected results. "Hoichi the Earless" deals with a blind musician who discovers that he has been unwittingly singing for a family of ghosts, resulting in dire consequences. The last section (which the spectator is invited to complete in their own mind) is "In a Cup of Tea," the philosophically deepest and most challenging of the tales, in which a writer is continually disturbed by the unexpected sight of a face in -- as the title suggests -- his cup of tea.