This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
"No one would visit here at this hour of night. Maybe I only imagined I heard a sound."
Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan (1964) is a beautiful epic horror anthology, adapting four ghost stories from traditional Japanese Folklore. As a Magpie who loves for all things Japanese, this was 3hrs of pure blissful cinema on full display.
I'll go through my thoughts on each story:
The Black Hair
This one is the weakest segment for me compared to the…
"'Glasgow is a magnificent city,' said McAlpin. 'Why do we hardly ever notice that?'
'Because nobody ever imagines living here,' said Thaw. '...think of Florence, Paris, London, New York. Nobody visiting them for the first time is a stranger because he’s already visited them in paintings, novels, history books and films. But if a city hasn’t been used by an artist not even the inhabitants live there imaginatively.
'What is Glasgow for most of us? A house, the place we…
12 Days of Chinese Cinema 2025 🐍🎆🧧
Day 4 - King Hu (胡金銓) (1932-1997)
4/12
In Memoriam: Cheng Pei-pei (鄭佩佩)
(1946-2024)
"A dot and a stroke long.
A stroke to south of Nanyang.
A slant and two crosses.
The moon and the sun."
(廟)
Been wanting to honor Cheng Pei-pei who passed away last year in July, known for her roles in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), the 2020 Live-action remake of Mulan and countless martial art movies by Shaw…
12 Days of Chinese Cinema 2025 🐍🎆🧧
Day 3 - Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) (1947-)
3/12
"Big screen, in colour."
One of Hou Hsiao-hsien's early features as director, The Boys from Fengkuei (1983) is a nostalgic time capsule of 1980s Taiwanese youth (similar to his 1987 film Daughter of the Nile). Set in the Penghu islands, the film follows a gang of teenage boys as they get into all sorts of trouble, scrapes and mishaps (much like the young boys of…
