[6] "The Black Hair" (黒髪, Kurokami) is adapted from "The Reconciliation" and "The Corpse Rider", which appeared in Hearn's collection Shadowings (1900).
An impoverished swordsman in Kyoto divorces his wife, a weaver, and leaves her for a woman of a wealthy family to attain greater social status.
The second wife is furious when she realizes that the swordsman not only married her to obtain her family's wealth, but also still longs for his old life in Kyoto with his ex-wife.
"The Woman of the Snow" (雪女, Yukionna) is an adaptation from Hearn's Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1903).
When the yuki-onna turns to Minokichi, she sympathetically remarks that he is a handsome boy and spares him because of his youth, warning him to never mention what happened or she will kill him.
One day while cutting wood, Minokichi meets Yuki, a beautiful young woman travelling at sunset.
His specialty is singing the chant of The Tale of the Heike about the Battle of Dan-no-ura fought between the Taira and Minamoto clans during the last phase of the Genpei War.
One night, Hoichi leaves in a storm and his friends follow him and discover he has been going to a graveyard and reciting the Tale of Heike to the court of the dead Emperor.
Concerned for Hoichi's safety, a priest and his acolyte write the text of the Heart Sutra on his entire body including his face to make him invisible to the ghosts and instruct him to meditate.
The samurai, wanting to bring back as much of Hoichi as possible, rips his ears off to show his lord his commands have been obeyed.
"In a Cup of Tea" (茶碗の中, Chawan no Naka) is adapted from Hearn's Kottō: Being Japanese Curios, with Sundry Cobwebs (1902).
Anticipating a visit from his publisher, a writer relates an old tale of an attendant of Lord Nakagawa Sadono named Sekinai.
Later, while Sekinai is guarding his Lord, the man whose face appeared in the tea reappears, calling himself Heinai Shikibu.
They both flee the scene in terror when they discover the author trapped inside a large jar of water.
While he was a student, producer Shigeru Wakatsuki, founder, and CEO of Ninjin Club, converted the idea of a film adaptation of Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things.
[7] In 1964, Toho began a three-film deal with director Masaki Kobayashi that concluded with the production of Kwaidan.
[8] Kobayashi worked with composer Takemitsu Toru for six months to produce the film's score.
[11] Kwaidan was reedited to 125 minutes in the United States for its theatrical release which eliminated the segment "The Woman of the Snow" after the film's Los Angeles premiere.
"[14] Bosley Crowther, in a 1965 New York Times review, stated that director Kobayashi "merits excited acclaim for his distinctly oriental cinematic artistry.
"[16] In his review of Harakiri, Roger Ebert described Kwaidan as "an assembly of ghost stories that is among the most beautiful films I've seen".
Its consensus reads: "Exquisitely designed and fastidiously ornate, Masaki Kobayashi's ambitious anthology operates less as a frightening example of horror and more as a meditative tribute to Japanese folklore.