Daimajin

I have to admit, I'm a bit of a sucker for the giant monster on a rampage flicks that came out of Japan in the late 60's/70's, and picked this up expecting more of that. After the opening scene, showing just how powerful Daimajin actually is (let's just say, he's more a force of nature than a giant monster), I was completely hooked. The entire series is fairly grim, and I loved the fact that Daimajin isn't necessarily a good or bad guy. He does what he does because he wants to, for whatever reason, be it that the villain offended him, or he felt sorry for one of the people who suffered over the course of the movie. They're not exactly art films, but they're not quite the kitsch of the later Godzilla movies, either. Highly recommended.

Surprisingly good Japanese monster movie. Evil warlord enslaves townspeople until one prays to the mysterious unfinished stone statue on a mountain. The statues comes to life and goes on a rampage. The special effects are much better then what you may be used to from Japanese monster movies of the sixties.

A good and just samurai lord is betrayed and murdered by one of his own men, who then claims the throne for himself. The samurai's two children, a boy and a girl, escape to the mountains and take refuge near a huge stone statue...a statue called Daimaijin, a huge man-god whom all fear. Ten years go by and the evil new lord has decimated the valley, enslaving all of its inhabitants and turning a deaf ear to the warnings of the wise woman; Daimaijin will not allow the evil overlord to go unpunished...and neither will the samurai's now adult son, who descends from the mountain, seeking vengeance.

Daimaijin is a simplistic fairy tale, beautifully executed. The noble samurai, the evil usurper, the determined son and the innocent girl whose voice and tears are the only thing the giant Daimaijin will respond to; all of the necessary elements are here. Though perhaps too violent for very young children, this film still reminded me of the films I loved as a child, i.e. Sinbad or Jason and the Argonauts. It's a simple tale of good versus evil with a triumphant, satisfying ending and lots of real estate trampled beneath Daimaijins stone feet. If you liked Godzilla, or the massive monsters created by Ray Harryhausen, you should see this one.

I picked up this movie because I like giant monster films and was expecting this to be your average monster smash up. Often with giant monster films the bits with humans in are nothing more than padding and have little or nothing to do with the plot. I'm thinking of Godzilla vs King Kong with the pointless magic string guys or the awful little poet kid in Godzilla vs The Smog Monster. This film is nothing like that, the story is interesting in its own right.

The real draw is of course the big guy and he's excellent too. His inevitable rampage is well put together with some nice special effects. I was really surprised by this film, it was a lot better than I expected and definitely worth seeing.

This is more of a samurai movie than a kaiju, but once the statue comes alive, then it really shines. That's not to say it's bad, because it's not, but if you're expecting giant statue smashing then temper that a bit because that's only the final 15 minutes or so.