A word of warning before we get started. This review I did years ago for the old Japan Hero site. It never saw the light of day, so I figured let me dust it off and tweak it a bit. So this one is a little older (a retro Retro Review?) and the style may be a little different than what I’m doing now. So enjoy this blast from the past.
When the general public thinks of a kaiju movie they tend to think of Godzilla, Gamera or even King Kong. Big creatures about twenty or so stories tall. Very rarely do they think of something a little smaller, say roughly twenty or thirty feet tall. Daimajin is ones those movies. I feel it has one of those cult like followings that only a long time fan of the genre would know about. Hit the jump to read more.
http://youtu.be/mCqLNK2Q608
A quiet night is interrupted by a noises in the darkness. The villigers start wondering the the majin, their God sealed long ago is trying to get loose. They go to a sacred sight to pray that it doesn’t get loose and perform a reenactment of the majin’s original ramapge and defeat. Lord Hanabasa see them go and comfort his two children, Tadafumi and Kozasa, and ask his guard Kogenta to take them to bed. Later he asks his Chamberlain Samanosuke Odate to go to gathering in his stead to calm the populace. However he and his men decide now would be the right time to take over the place like that planned. Those still loyal to Hanabasa battle the uprisers. Hanabasa is killed while Kogenta goes to the children and with help get them out of the castle. Several of Odate’s men go to the ceremony and interrupt it. The one in charge says gathering such as this is illegal without Lord Odate permission. The Priestess argues this saying the ceremony is needed to keep the majin sealed. The man ignores her and send the villager scattering. Kogenta takes the children to see the Priestess, who is also his aunt. After Odate’s right hand man Gunjuro performs a brisk inspection looking for the kids The priestess takes them to the one place they know the children will be safe. She takes them to the top of Majin mountain. There is a cavern there that was said their God used to inhabit and no one will think to look there. Outside the cavern is the statue the Majin is said to have been sealed in.
Ten years past and Tadafumi and Kozasa seem to have grown up happily under Kogenta’s guardianship. meanwhile the villagers are forced to build a new fortress for Lord Odate. The guards are blind to the villagers discomfort and sickness, even when a young boy named Take comes to tell his father his mother is very sick. Odate is enjoy the life of a lord while his advisers worry that those still loyal to the Hanabasa family are still in their territory, especially if the children are still alive. He is not worried saying soon he will erase any thing to do with the old lord. Two of those still loyal to the old lord hide from the guards in a sick hut. They escape with the help of one of the villagers. the guards come in see thow they escape. They are ready to punish the man before one of the sick takes responsibility. The Priestess comes to the cave to update the others on the villagers plight. Tadafumi wants to take down Odate no matter the cost. Kogenta convinces him to let him go first to see if he can find those still loyal to Hanabasa.
Dressed as a peasant Kogenta is able to to fool one set of guards but is recognized by Gunjuro. After a chase Kogenta is captured and tortured about the children. Odate correctly interprets his silence as them still being alive. Take goes to the priestess to ask permission to travel to the mountain. He worries about what the guards will do with his father and informs her that they captures a man named Kogenta, saying they plan on executing him. Tadfumi overhears this and goers off. Take goes to the mountain behind the priestess back and mistakes Kozasa for their God. Tadafumi sneaks into the work camp and sees a man hinging upside down. He awaits until nightfall to free the man but soon realizes it’s not Kogenta and that he fell into a trap. Odate say he will execute him and Kogenta.
The Priestess goes to beg for there life. After he tests her faith and they exchange a few angry words Odate strikes her down. Before she dies she basically says his ways will be his undoing. Odate sends Gunjuro to Majin mountain to destroy the statue as it seems to be a source of hope for the people. While there he discovers Kozasa and informs her of her brother and Kogenta’s fate. His men uses hammers on the statue until one gets the idea to use a chisel. As it is driven in the statue starts to bleed. the skies darken and as trom quickly appears. kozasa is knock unconscous as the ground opens up and swallows Gunjuro and his men. She awakens with everything appearing normal, the only sign that it did happen being the chisel still embedded in the satute’s head. She begs the statue to come alive to rescue her brother and Kogenta.
Odate prepares to crucify and pierce the two. Kozsa says she will give up her life if it will help them. Take tries to stop her from jumping off the mountain. The statue frees itself and the Majin is set loose. A small army still loyal to Hanbasa comes to rescue Tadafumi and Kogenta but most are quickly takern out by Odate’s archers and riflemen. Kozasa and Take yell at the villagers that the majin in loose before it shows up in a ball of blue light. It quickly goes threw the first wave of men, tosses the cross Tadafumi is attached to to the ground and goes to the castle. There any traps Odate quickly sets for it fail and he runs for his life. The Majin finally gets his hands on Odate and takes him. he goes to an post and uses the chisel to impale Odate to the post. Then he turns his wraith to the villagers. Tadafumi tries to reason with the Majin but is tossed aside. Kozasa once again offers her life if it would appease his wraith. The Majin turned back to stone the blue light is seen again and the statue crumbles into dust.
Daimajin was released in 1966 by Daiei Co. LTD. It was written by Tetsou Yoshida, who also wrote the two sequels. I would like to point out that both of those sequels were released in the same year as this one. I understand Daiei wanting to branch out and do another film series like their Gamera series, but that one heck of a turn around. Now I’ve search online and the best reason I found was this movie was really popular and they hurried to make another one. The movie itself is also a pretty good period piece. You could mistake this for a samurai movie if you were flipping through the channels. The costumes and settings seem authentic for the time period. The motivation for the, and excuse the terms, good guys and bad guys are on par with other period movies I have seen. It might be one of the reason why the movie is so popular.
The human characters are interesting enough, they better be since we don’t see Daimajin until the end of the movie. Kogenta is you typical loyal and honorable samurai. While it’s was never stated, seeing how close he was to the children I always got the feeling he was their personal bodyguard. Surprisingly enough we learn a little more background on Samanosuke Odate than anybody else in the movie. He was a drifter that Lord Hanabasa had taken in and eventually promoted to Chamberlain. We also learn he’s not a man of faith and does not believe the Gods control the fate of men. The priestess is what you would expect in this type of movie. Although I found it interesting that the blackened the actress teeth to show the the Priestess had no teeth. Pretty creative when you think about it. Another cool thing they did was when Odate was striking her down. They highlighted the Preistess, Odate and his adviser while the room was darkened, a very cool effect for the scene.
The kids in the movie were not annoying for a change. Ok Take got on my nerves after a couple of viewings but that’s beside the point. But he does serve some purpose as it is hinted that he was their eyes and ears in the village after he finds out their secret. His trip up the mountain is an intersting scene as he “sees” spirits and a skeletal hands that turns out to be a branch. It really highlights the myths that grown around the mountain. The adult version of Tadafumi and Kozasa characters still contains hints of the younger version. Tadafumi is still idealistic and headstrong as he was as a child. Kozasa is still innocent in spirit for the most part. I’m sure the events when they were younger changed them a bit. And I’m also sure growing up under Kogenta and the Priestess influenced them as well. There were some nice touches that keep up some thing that happen earlier in the movie. Such as during the fight with Odate’s men in the beginning a guard arm is injured and he doesn’t use it for the rest of the time we see him. And Kogenta still has his wounds from the torture session until the end of the movie.
Daimajin himself is an interesting creation, a devil/demon in samurai armor. You can tell from the eye holes it’s a guy wearing a mask but it’s still a good look. The scene were the Majin is relased is cool as well with the tress falling away and the mountain side crumbling away. It really adds to the feel of the movie. As I said before he travels from the mountain in a ball of blue light. To me it looked like he was seeing which ones he was suppose to save and which one he was suppose to punish. There are two mask, and I’m almost ceratin that there are two types of costumes, made for the movie. One is a almost featureless “stone” mask and another highlights the green face of the Majin. They hide the transformation between the two by waving his arm in front of his face. In the other movies it would be changed to both arms. This is also done when he changes back. Because of Daimajin’s size the miniature work is awesome. a few times I couldn’t tell if it was a real size shot or the miniature set. When there is a shot of Daimajin interacting with a human you can see it’s an appropriate size puppet. But they film it from the right angle or far away so it doesn’t spoil the effect that much. But there one thing I really like, if you really close in certain scenes you can see they also went the other way and built a full size Daimajin for the movie. Movment looks limited to the arms and head but the effects guys at the time should be praised for going that extra mile.
This movie also sets up what would become his trademark with dealing with the evil Lord in the other movies. Kill them in the same way they were planning to kill the heroes. Odate was going to crucify them and have them pierced. The post Daimajin impaled him on looked a lot like a cross. Don’t mess with a deity that believes in poetic justice, if you learn anything from this movie learn that people. This is also the only movie of the three were Daimajin continues his rampage after the evil lord is killed. From the little I was able to find out Daimajin loosely translates into “Devil God”, he lived up to that name in this one.
Overall Daimajin is an excellent movie, and you should track it down if you have never seen it before or haven’t seen it in awhile. It takes awhile for Daimajin to show up but the human story prior to that keeps things interesting. But if you are mainly a fan of monster destroying thing you’re going to be a little disappointing. A solid 4 out of 5.
