The Ghost of Yotsuya (1959)

A ronin Samurai uses ruthless tactics to marry for money. When this doesn’t work out, he plots to kill his wife and upgrade to a richer bride. His dead first wife, however, has other plans.

The original title is “Tôkaidô Yotsuya kaidan” which I confused for Kwaidan (1964). Kaidan translates roughly to Ghost Story. Based on a kabuki play, the production retains a very stage-like feel. Some scenes were clearly filmed on location, while others did little to hide their stage origin.

There is no hint that our main character isn’t a terrible person. He hardly ever utters a line of dialog that doesn’t reveal his nature. His name is Iemon Tamiya, and because an uppercase I looks like a lowercase L, it seemed like people were calling him Lemon. He was kinda sour.

My main issue with The Ghost of Yotsuya is that the basic premise of the film is treated as a third act reveal. The story is well known in Japan, so there was no way to hide this spoiler, but for me it was a bit of a slog to watch to get to the predetermined conclusion. Visually interesting but otherwise unremarkable. AMRU 3.