The film opens with a mysterious man wandering through a field, who is almost immediately set upon by bandits. Good to see that they are not wasting time jumping to cliches! Anyhow, you pretty much know how this is going to go, don't you? They attack and he kills them. The one thing that's different is that our hero has unexplained fangs. Massive over-bite or plot point- you decide! A bit later that night, he crosses a small bridge and is besieged by...some Power Rangers Villains? No, these are actually Yokai, which are mythical Japanese spirits who take on the form of Earthly objects. Of course, if you watch the dubbing, this is explained a bit differently. In fact, most reviews that I have seen list them as 'demons,' which explains which version of the film they watched (I watched it subtitled, in case you didn't get that).
He knocks the odd turtle-mutants away, but another one says that he will not return from the town ahead. Mind you, he doesn't actually say this to our hero, but, rather to us.
Is there no Fourth Wall in Japan?
Is there no Fourth Wall in Japan?
The town is home to the Yokai, who, as the opening narration explains, have not had a good relationship with humans. Our hero can relate, as a woman from his past shows up to kill him. His relationship soured when they tracked him back to his own town of Yokai and killed them. When others show up, she vanishes and never reappears. Sequel bait, perhaps? The village has made a deal with some humans to get a new town and establish some harmony between the two groups. Of course, the humans are bastards and only used the Yokai to kill some rich criminals. They get their hands on some semi-anachronistic machine guns and start mowing everyone down. No, not these random characters that I have almost no attachment to! The lead bad guys are dressed up like the Xilians from Godzilla: Final Wars, which is an odd choice given the 19th Century setting. Most of the people die- including the leader- but Kibachi slowly fights his way to the lead guys. He gets their before they kill the lone human- aka the cute girl- and turns into a werewolf. I hope that was worth waiting an hour and twenty minutes for. Lots of wire-work, blood and gore effects later, the day is saved...for the living & Kibachi walks off into the sunset. The End.
This movie is very odd, but feels merely passable. You can get away with using cliched conventions if you mix it up a bit. Case in point: Sukiyaki Western Django. This movie, however, uses all of the cliches, but only has some weird monster suits and a werewolf that feels like it was pulled out of The Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf. The fight scenes are good and the gore is there in some of the big scenes. Ultimately though, the movie falls flat. The pacing is not all that good in the middle and almost seems to be overcompensating at the end. It's like 'we're sorry for the middle- here are some exploding heads.' A movie like this lives or dies by its characters and the connections you form with them. As Rambo taught us, nobody cares when CG blurs die in a hail of gunfire. I did not form a connection with these characters and their bloody deaths were just effects to me, no matter what pathos they tried to attach. Who knows, maybe the sequel will be better.
Up next, I work my way through another Quintology. This time, I cover a series that started off well and ended with a dud...ikoff. Stay tuned...
I fell asleep, all I remembered was the dude playing Japanese poker or dominos or something. Id be willing to give it a second shot on the mere fact that it had a werewolf samurai, and my buddy owns both films so I am going to have to grab them from him and follow up
ReplyDeleteYeah, you really have to wait this movie out before the good stuff starts. As to the second one, I can't attest to that...yet. I would imagine that it takes less time to build-up (since it's a sequel), but I don't know yet. Stay tuned for that information.
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