That hell hath no fury like a woman scorned is certainly true in Kaidan, the first Japanese film by modern J-horror pioneer Hideo Nakata after he left for Hollywood five years ago. Nakata hit the big-time with the contemporary classic Ring that eventually took him to America. After the critical flop that was The Ring Two, Nakata literally returns to his roots by going back to an old-school Japanese horror story that may rely on predictable scares (where did that pale hand come from?) but still manages to jolt even the most seasoned horror fan.

In an amusing twist, Hitomi Kuroki, who starred in Nakata’s 2002 Dark Water (also since subject to a remake by Hollywood) as the victim of a haunted apartment, plays the vengeful ghost this time around. Before death, she is the well-respected singing teacher Toyoshiga, who enters an illicit affair with young but poor tobacco seller Shinkichi. (Kuroki, however, still looks so ravishing that the age difference is only expressed in the dialogue!) Little do they know that their fates were sealed when Shinkichi’s samurai father killed Toyoshiga’s debt collector father before killing himself.

Shinkichi’s feelings for Toyoshiga eventually change, and he even plans to run off with one of her students. However, Toyoshiga clings to her love for him even as she dies of a mysterious illness. Unfortunately for Shinkichi, her final note for him isn’t an expression of love, but a vow to kill any woman he marries after her death. That’s when the real fun begins.

Kaidan features certain noir elements, especially in Shinkichi’s fate after the curse. What sets the film apart from many of its contemporaries is screenwriter Satoko Okudera’s choice to spend the bulk of the film’s running time developing Shinkichi and Toyoshiga’s love story. While delving into the origins of the ghost is often the driving force of typical J-horror plots, the origin becomes the plot here. We find out this time that while Shinkichi is partly a victim through plain bad luck, he also partly brings the ghost onto himself. However, that doesn’t diminish the effectiveness of the film’s horror elements. In fact, knowing that Toyoshiga’s ghost targets Shinkichi as a scorned lover makes her even more fearsome than an ancient ghoul scaring an innocent teenager.

While the story is an old-fashioned ghost yarn, Nakata employs some modern techniques that show how far horror films have come since the days of Kenji Mizoguchi. Now there are loud, abrupt music cues and even computer-generated blood splatters all over the screen. Nevertheless, Nakata also knows how to build an effective atmosphere using traditional film techniques such as editing and make-up. With a cookie-cutter story that isn’t fully engaging and characters that aren’t very likable, Kaidan is no breakthrough for anyone involved. However, it is certainly a worthy addition to contemporary J-horror, unlike many of the youth-targeted imitations in recent years. Leave it to one of the pioneers to show the youngsters how it ought to be done.

Kevin Ma