Takashi Miike is known as a controversial filmmaker with his extremely violent movies, like Ichi the Killer. It’s not a movie I have seen myself as I don’t enjoy watching shocking things just to shock. So it was a conscious decision not to see it. The Great Yokai War is also made by him and is supposed to be a movie for kids. Did he manage to succeed?
The first thing I noticed about this movie is that it has some elements which are awfully close to horror. I don’t know if the average Japanese kid is used to it more, but I think most children would be very frightened after watching this.
The story is about Tadashi Ino, a boy who is chosen as the “Kirin rider” during a festival. The Kirin Rider should protect everything which is good. His grandfather tells about a spirit near the mountain who has a special sword especially for the Kirin Rider and has to be used to fight evil. Yasunori Kato is the personification of this evil, who is using a spirit that has been formed by all the trash that people threw away (it’s an idea which is used in more Japanese films, for example in Spirited Away).
Spirits are an important part of Japanese society and the amount of different ones which are shown in this movie is huge. There is a big variety with bizarre ones like a walking wall, a woman who can elongate her neck, a broom with one eye and a protruding tongue and many others. It’s very clear that the creators had a ball making them all, which results in a visually interesting film.
The story is of the typical good versus bad type. Luckily it’s a story that’s not hard to understand. There is this storyline about a journalist who is searching for a spirit he met when he was younger, which could have been cut as it just didn’t add much to the film. I also thought that Ryûnosuke Kamiki, who played Tadashi Ino, just didn’t have enough charisma to feel like a convincing warrior.
With the recent disaster in Japan the movie might get a bit of a different meaning as the boy dreams about Tokyo getting destroyed. Of course this is a subject which Japanese movies have touched upon before, but you will make the connection when watching it.
The Great Yokai war isn’t a movie which I’d recommend watching. Although it does give an interesting look into the Japanese spirit world and is quite nice visually, the end result was a movie which just felt a little bit too weird to keep me interested.
Score: 5