KWAIDAN (1965 Film)

Kwaidan ( Kaidan , lit. 'Ghost Stories') is a 1964 Japanese anthology horror film directed by Masaki Kobayashi . It is based on stories from Lafcadio Hearn 's collections of Japanese folk tales , mainly Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1904), for which it is named. The film consists of four separate and unrelated stories . Kwaidan is an archaic transliteration of the term kaidan , meaning "ghost story". Receiving critical acclaim, the film won the Special Jury Prize at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival , and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film .