La bestia y la espada mágica

A late werewolf film written, directed and starring the irrepressible Paul Naschy. Apparently he had to go to Japan to finance this rather lavish production and that must be why much of the cast is Japanese and much of the filming done on location in that country. Co-stars the eminent Japanese actor Shigeru Amachi who among many films starred in the much earlier Black Line (Kurosen Chitai). Indeed this is one of his last films, dying a couple of years later. So neither he nor Naschy were very young when they did these pretty impressive action sequences. This is a bit slow starting but improves as we move to Kyoto and in the end this turns out to be a very colourful and energetic movie with some great moments and some nudity. A lot of sword fights but a really impressive one with chief villainess who wears a rather fetching red diaphanous costume. There is also a most impressive fight with a tiger. I don't whether this was a stunt man but its certainly a real animal someone in Naschy's costume is fighting (or pretending to). All in all not the director's finest hour but certainly something a bit different.

Spanish cult figure Paul Naschy reappears as Count Waldemar Daninsky in this desperately poor sortie in Naschy's werewolf series.

For some bizarre reason (actually not so bizarre when you realise it was part Japanese funded), the Spanish legend is transferred to the Land of the Rising Sun. The result pleases no-one, and it is never quite clear what it is trying to achieve except a change of scene.

Daninsky rejects the sushi in favour of attacking a large number of the shocked locals. Inevitable and predictable scenes ensue.

The gore level and head count is less than usual. There is very little nudity in the Spanish cut I saw, being restricted to a couple of topless flashes during fight scenes.

All in all a mongrel take on the previously successful Naschy franchise. For completists only.

Perhaps being one of the more unsung examples of Spanish Horror master Paul Naschy's bravura filmmaking genius, the masterfully genre-bending cult classic takes Waldemar Daninsky's tragic Lycanthrope to the far-flung exotic locales of feudal Japan since the maniacal ministrations of the inquisition force him and his nubile entourage to seek the aid of Japanese healer Kian (Sigheru Amachi) but it is not long before Waldemar's gruesome Lunar-inspired rampages draws the unwelcome attentions of a master Samurai Swordsman, night-swarming Ninja Assassins, and then being lured to the diabolical castle domain of powerful sorceress Satomi (Junko Asahina) whose zealous claim of being able to cure him of his ancient malediction might disguise an altogether malevolent agenda!

Writer/director/actor Paul Naschy is on especially inspired form with his exciting, phantasmagorical masterpiece 'The Beast & The Magic Sword' one of his more audacious and delightfully unconventional Daninsky chapters that gorily fuses doomy European Gothic with beautifully ornate, stylishly atmospheric Japanese mythology, many of the striking sequences where the bellicose werewolf must do battle with these uncommonly eerie-looking spectres are tremendously evocative, the bold use of colour redolent of maestro Mario Bava's masterpiece 'Black Sabbath', thereby giving Naschy's exceptionally vivid fantasy an otherworldly, exquisitely ethereal sense of having just visited a diabolically dark magical realm of illimitable madness!

His family cursed by a witch, Waldemar Daninsky (Paul Naschy) seeks the help of a Jewish doctor to cure him of his annoying habit of turning into a werewolf. The doctor is attacked by some local Christians in hoods and, before he dies, he tells Waldemar to head to Japan to seek out another doctor who can surely help him. So the Daninsky family head to the land of the rising sun to battle his curse of the full moon.

This is a pretty fascinating take on the werewolf myths Naschy had been building for over a decade in his native Spain. Apparently the Waldemar flicks were big in Japan and a company offered to co-produce this movie if he set it in Japan. The end result is really unlike any werewolf movie. Where else can you see a werewolf and ninjas (besides your nightmares)? Naschy directs and always has his eye on exploitation. For example, the werewolf bursts into a home and, when grabbing the women, always rips off their tops. There is also a crazy battle between the wolf man and a tiger (a real tiger is used) and a surreal sequence complete with snow falling where Japanese lead Shigeru Amachi fights off several otherworldly foes in order to gain the mythical sword that can kill the werewolf. The film is a tad overlong (1 hour and 45 minutes) but definitely worth seeing for a werewolf tale off the beaten path.

Beast and the Magic Sword, The (1983)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Paul Naschy had to travel to Japan to get financing for this film as well as Human Beast but where that film was downright horrid, this one here at least gives the star his tenth stint as werewolf Waldemar Daninsky. The movie starts off in medieval Spain where an ancestor of Waldemar's kills an evil warrior but a witch then puts a curse on him. Flashforward seven generations and Waldemar is cursed by being a werewolf but he travels to Japan to try and find a man that can cure him. This was my eleventh film seeing Naschy play a werewolf and I'm pretty glad that I held off on this one for so long because it's certainly a very strange movie that tries to mix the Spanish horror film with Japanese culture. The film clocks in at 106-minutes, the longest in the series, and this is certainly a negative thing but for the most part the film works very well. Seeing a werewolf battle various samurai soldiers was a nice twist from what we had seen in previous films and this brings the movie a fresh sense of purpose. The werewolf make up is another negative as it is pretty weak and in certain scenes it appears that Naschy just has his face painted black with minimum hair around it. I had put down previous films in the series for not having enough scenes with the werewolf and that's somewhat true here but the difference is that when the werewolf does attack, they are very good scenes. Instead of just attacking one or two people, here he attacks large groups of people including an early scene where he breaks into a brothel and goes to town. Naschy's screenplay is also pretty good as is his direction. The print I watched was in Spanish with (bad) English subtitles but the print was very dark so a better transfer might do the film even more justice. I doubt newbies will want to start with this film but when you start going through the series this one here will come off very refreshing even though it's strange. AKA: Bestia y la espanda magica, La and Werewolf and the Magic Sword, The.