★★★★★ A horror movie in episodes (each one related to one of the seasons of the year) that is, as well as original, beautiful. Kobayashi is mostly known for his great dramatic fresco The Human Condition (also in Qubit, which incorporated an incredible amount of great Japanese cinema) and this thematically unrealistic film could be considered “something else.” However, once again we see the graphic representation of human vices and virtues and, as in more “realistic” films by the director, the weight placed on the characters even if the care for the environment and the technical is absolute. Making the fantastic credible in order to better understand the human is the most important goal of whoever enters the Dangerous Kingdom to transmit one of his stories to us. Kobayashi achieves it without neglecting that key element in terror: irony.
