Yokai and Other Monsters: From Asian Folklore to Cinema | Out of Competition | Online
Japan, 2005, 124’, Japanese
Directed by: Miike Takashi
Screenplay: Miike Takashi, Sawamura Mitsuhiko, Itakura Takehiko
Cinematography (color): Yamamoto Hideo
Editing: Shimamura Yasushi
Music: Endo Koji
Producers: Kadokawa Tsuguhiko, Inoue Fumio
Cast: Kamiki Ryunosuke, Miyasako Hiroyuki, Takahashi Mai
Date of First Release in Territory: August 6th, 2005
Miike Takashi’s 2005 The Great Yokai War is a loose remake of the 1968 Kuroda Toshiyuki film Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare, but it also references Mizuki Shigeru’s seminal GeGeGe no Kitaro yokai comic, with Mizuki himself serving as an advisor, and Aramata Hiroshi’s Teito Monogatari, a ten-volume dark fantasy novel published from 1985 to 1987. A central character in the novel is Kato Yasunori, an oni (demon) incarnated as a former lieutenant of the Imperial Japanese Army who is determined to destroy Tokyo.
In The Great Yokai War, he becomes Lord Kato (Toyokawa Etsushi), a black-clad demon who holds a grudge against humanity. With the assistance of a gorgeous-but-deadly female yokai, Agi (Kiriyama Chiaki), he has yokai and discarded metal objects such as motorcycles tossed into a fiery furnace, where a gigantic yokai called Yomotsumono transforms them into mechanized monsters. “Release your rage and bring mankind into darkness,” Kato intones.
Meanwhile, Ino Tadashi (Kamiki Ryunosuke), a city boy who is something of a wimp, has come to live with his divorced mom (Minami Kaho) and kindly senile grandfather (Sugawara Bunta) in a seaside village. Though bullied by the local boys, Tadashi finds himself selected in the summer festival as the Kirin Rider, a hero who is charged with preserving world peace by wielding the mighty Goblin Sword against forces of evil
First, though, he has to win possession of the sword by climbing up a sinister-looking mountain and venturing into a dank, dark cave. There he encounters yokai who scare him out of his wits, but end up becoming his escorts as he continues his quest for the sword. One yokai, a cute, little furry creature called Sunekosuri even becomes a kind of pet.
But soon after Tadashi finds and unsheathes the sword under the eye of its keeper, a towering long-nosed yokai called the Great Goblin, he is set upon by the minions of Kato. His ultimate opponent, however, will be Kato himself, as Yomotsumono and the mechanized yokai set out to wreak havoc on humanity.
The film’s SFX creations may look dated today, but Miike staged the many action scenes with his signature energy, imagination, and black humor, while tossing in reference after reference to Hollywood sci-fi films. Tadashi’s pet recalls the title creatures of Gremlins, while a giant rolling stone he flees from in the cave is an obvious steal from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Also, Kato’s mechanical yokai resemble the killer robots of Terminator and, when Yomotsumono hovers over Tokyo it looks like a lumpier version of the mothership in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, though one character mistakes it for Gamera.
Along with these non-Japanese references, the film is awash in yokai lore. Some yokai characters, such as Abe Sadao’s excitable kappa Kawataro and Takahashi Mai’s protective water yokai Kawahime, acquire personalities as they accompany Tadashi on his adventures, but the number and variety of the ones who are only faces in the crowd becomes overwhelming.
In the climactic battle between Tadashi and his allies and Kato and his metal minions hundreds of yokai fill the screen – and the vibe becomes bizarrely festive. Drawn from Japanese folklore and the fertile imaginations of Mizuki, Aramata and Miike, they help make The Great Yokai War’s group portrait of yokai more entertaining than disturbing.
Unless you’re a small, skinny kid facing the towering and menacing Kato, the film’s final boss, in your imagination, with nothing but a super-powered sword and a bit of recently acquired moxie.
Miike Takashi
Miike Takashi (b. 1960) made his directorial debut in 1991 with the straight-to-video actioner Eye Catch Junction. In the 1990s he churned out a profusion of yakuza action films, often with a signature mix of extreme violence and black comedy. His 1999 shocker Audition brought him to the attention of the West. After that he alternated big-budget commercial projects with smaller indie projects such as Gozu. FEFF27 presents two Miike films inspired by the 1968 classic Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare: The Great Yokai War (2005) and The Great Yokai War: Guardians (2021).
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
1999 – Audition
2001 – Ichi the Killer
2003 – One Missed Call
2003 – Gozu
2005 – The Great Yokai War
2011 – Harakiri: Death of a Samurai
2021 – Mole Song Final
2021 – The Great Yokai War:
Guardians