Wrath of Daimajin

No pun intended - of course this is not a horror movie nor has it anything to do with Chucky. I reckon it would have more in common with Hulk (someone I mentioned in my review of the first movie of the trilogy) than a horror movie or its main character.

That being said, the movies do not have really much in common apart from the god and the (revenge) plot, if that is what you want to call it. Crazier things have been seen - and the kids on a mission stuff oddly works. Still the movie is - or rather feels too long. Even though it technically isn't - but it is the pacing. Also most of the action is compressed in the last half hour, which might make the rest quite the drag to watch. Different times and all that - although as someone has pointed out, it had to do with cinema viewers keeping the last things they saw in mind. So it makes sense to put all the goodies at the end. Would have been nice to have more in between though.

Anyway, the snow and everything that seems to seperate this from the other movies kind of works.

Back at Sheffield's Showroom Cinema for another edition of their "Kai-July" Japanese Monster movie festival, I'd never heard of the "Daimajin" films ahead of the announcement as part of this series. Whilst I appreciated the change from "big animal" films, I did think this could have done with a little more action ahead of the third act.

Four children, Tsurukichi (Hideki Ninomiya), Daisaku (Shinji Hori), Kinta (Masahide Ilzuka) and Sugitatsu (Muneyuki Nagatomo) head across a sacred mountain, with the aim of rescuing their fathers and uncles who have been enslaved by a nearby warlord. Their journey is fraught with natural hazards, but they are also tracked by a general, looking for escaped men. The children know that the mountain belongs to Daimajin, a demon god currently in the form of a giant statue and are respectful in their encounter - when the situation becomes dire, they turn to the god for salvation.

In many ways, this is very similar to the traditional aspects of the Kaiju films form the 1960's that I've come to expect. An actor in a suit interacting with scale models of the sets, some crude, though reasonably effective blending of that footage with reaction shots and background paintings. The Daimajin doesn't have Godzilla or Gamera's powers, so there are no visual effects in that sense though. He favours kicking and stomping. It seems harsh to criticism them for this, given the time the film was made, but his size is also fairly inconsistent, which wasn't an issue with any of the previous Kaiju films I've seen.

Where it differs is in pacing. A Godzilla film will have him appear a few times across the run time whereas the plot of this film sees the Daimajin dormant until the last twenty minutes or so. Thusly we spend a long time with these kids and, whilst I enjoyed their performances, it made the film reasonably hard going until those last moments. The sequences with the Eagle, the gods earthly agent for the rest of the film, were a mixed bag, sometimes fun, sometimes like watching a stuffed eagle fall into a pile of asbestos.

I didn't hate it. But I won't be rushing to see it again either.

Wrath of Daimajin (1966) is a Japanese samurai monster movie I recently watched on a random streaming service. The storyline follows a group of kids whose family is being used as slaves to work the sulfur mines. They set out on an adventure to find sacred religious grounds where it's rumored a monster resides that if freed can save their families.

This movie is directed by Kazuo Mori (Zatoichi at Large) and stars Junichiro Yamashita (Gamera: The Giant Monster), Tôru Abe (Tokyo Story), Tanie Kitabayashi (Rikyu) and Yûzô Hayakawa (Gamera vs Barugon).

The majority of this film is about the children on an adventure and trying to survive harsh conditions in the wilderness. It's 1 hour and 5 minutes into the movie before you see Daimajin. There are some cool bird attack scenes that are well done and the arrival of Daimajin was cool. His intro music was very much like Godzilla's. The town models were very cool as was the use of snow. Daimajin arriving and attacking the city was pretty fun as were some of the elements they created within the town (like the zip lines).

Overall this is a very average addition to the genre that was a huge step down from the first Daimajin film. I would score this a 5/10 and recommend skipping it.

Daiei Studios' Wrath of Daimajin is the second and final sequel to the movie featuring the giant stone god. In this plot, a Lord Arakawa kidnaps the men of villages in a mountainous region to use as labor to produce gunpowder. As a result, a group of young boys journeys through the mountains, including through the valley of Daimajin, to rescue their fathers.

The plot, I thought, was not as suspenseful and solid as the original movie, as it concentrated too much on the boys' adventures in the mountains, alternating between that and the fathers' mistreatment at the labor camp. But there is the satisfying fun of seeing Daimjain awaken to wreak havoc on those nasty doers.

The acting was pretty good, cinematography was brilliant, and special effects were neat. And once again, you are treated with another great Akira Ifukube score; however, some of the music soundtrack is reused or reworked from past film scores.

Overall, it's not too bad of a sci-flick, but is the weakest of the Daimajin Trilogy.

Grade C-

This is the third and the final installment of Daimajin trilogy. The three stories are not connected in their plots.

Daimajin is a 50ft tall stone talisman with a spirit of deity residing within. It turns mobile when the innocent people are oppressed to battle evil.

Four kids embark on a journey to rescue their father who is enslaved by an evil warlord in a place called Hell's Valley. On their way they pass the mountain where Daimajin resides. Daimajin sends a hawk to accompany the kids and to protect them, but when things goes badly for the kids, Daimajin turns his fierce face to the evil warlord.

The four kids are unusually resourceful, and gets around where even adults would find it a challenging situation, surviving in mountainous wilderness, and in a snow storm.

Daimajin awakes this time in a snow storm, and rest is a bad day for the evil warlord and his soldiers.

The production isn't as good as the previous Daimajin movie as the movie relies heavily on the acting ability of the four very young actors. They put in a surprisingly good performance, but they're no Jody Foster in "Taxi Driver". The caliber of other actors aren't as high as well. Special effects are just as good, and it's one of the best '60s suitmation movie. It's better in my opinion than the Gamera series done by the same studio around the same time. Not a masterpiece in any way, but a movie that still holds its own after nearly half a century.

Recent TV mini-series "Daimajin Kanon" is a direct homage to this series with Daimajin being done in CG instead of suitmation.