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“The Snow Woman” * (1968, Radiance Films) A master woodworker and his apprentice fall afoul of the Snow Woman (Shiho Fujimura), a beautiful but vengeful creature who kills those she encounters on snow-swept nights. She dispatches the older man but spares the apprentice, noting his innocence; he later meets and falls for a woman (also Fujimura) whose mysterious and alluring presence makes her a target of a brutal bailiff. Gorgeous and (appropriately) haunting Japanese ghost story, based on a story by author Lafcadio Hearn that was previously adapted for 1964’s “Kwaidan.” Director Tokuzo Tanaka creates eerie landscapes for the Snow Woman’s appearances, but also emphasizes the tragic side of the story; the central thesis, it seems, is that while vengeance is a quality shared by the human and spirit worlds, love and compassion are reserved solely for the former. Radiance’s all-region Blu-ray – part of its”Daiei Gothic” set, which contains three supernatural films from the venerable studio – preserves Tanaka’s otherworldly compositions and adds a featurette on Hearn and an observant discussion of the film with director Masayuki Ochiai (“Parasite Eve”).
