Yôkai Daisensô (2005) Reviews

• Miike unleashes his imagination in less deviant lands

  simon_booth2005-11-13

  Billed as Takashi Miike's "first family film" - by people who haven't seen Zebraman, presumably. YOKAI DAISENSO takes things even further in the direction of family-friendliness, diluting the darkness and cynicism to create a grand fantasy fairy tale. A young boy is chosen by fate to save the world from monsters and horrors of which they remain largely unaware. The film is evidently bigger budget than anything else Miike has done, with lots of CGI to create fantasy world populated by odd creatures (the YOKAI). Perhaps the lack of extreme content is a consequence of more nervous investors, but I think it's probably just that he wanted to do something different. He's really never been a one-trick pony, but often gets accused of it - perhaps YOKAI is designed to silence those critics. Regardless, it's a great project for Miike to channel his boundless imagination and invention into. There's a very cartoonish feel to the production, evoking thoughts of Miyazaki in places. The Yokai are based on an old series of comics that were in turned based on Japanese folk tales, which certainly influenced Miyazaki as well (particularly SPIRITED AWAY). It must remembered that Miike has nothing like the budget of a Harry Potter film to work with, so the special effects aren't going to be seamless Hollywood style work - some blue-screening is especially obvious. Some of the special effects are great though, with some very well animated creatures (a mix of CG, stop-motion and puppetry). I think the little sock-puppet that follows the hero around for much of the film was *meant* to look really cheap, and is all the cuter for it :) The young lad who plays the hero of the film does a really good job - it's so hard to find a pre-teen who actually understands the concept of acting, but 9 year old Ryunosuke Kamiki is a genuine talent (I see he did voices in the last 2 Miyazaki films!). Chiaki Kuriyama is delicious as the villainess of the piece, though Mai Takahashi made an even greater impression as the pixie-eared River Princess - yum yum! Those looking for another violent, perverted gangster film aren't going to find what they're looking for in YOKAI, but if you're a fan of Miike because of his imagination and wit, there's plenty to satisfy here. And it has the added bonus that you can happily put it on whatever company you've got :)

• Very good tale of a kid turning hero to save his friends and family is a nice change of pace for action director Miike

  dbborroughs2006-03-10

  Where was this film when I was a kid? After his parents split up Tadashi moves with his mom to live his his grandfather. Tadashi's sister stays with their dad and they talk frequently on the phone. Grandfather is only "here" every third day. Moms never really home. The kids always are picking on the poor kid. During a village festival Tadashi is chosen the "kirin rider" or spiritual champion of the peace and justice. Little does he suspect that soon he will have to actually step into role of hero as the forces of darkness join up with the rage of things discarded in a plot to destroy mankind and the spiritual world. Okay that was the easy part. Now comes the hard part, trying to explain the film. This is a great kids film. No this is a great film,flawed, (very flawed?) but a great film none the less. It unfolds like all of those great books you loved as a kid and is just as dense at times as Tadashi struggles to find the strength to become a hero. Watching it I felt I was reading a great book, and thought how huge this would have been if it was a book. I loved that the film does not follow a normal path. Things often happen out of happenstance or through miscommunication, one character gets sucked into events simply because his foot falls asleep. There are twists and turns and moments that seem like non sequiters and are all the more charming for it (which is typical Miike) Certainly its a Takashi Miike film. That Japanese master of film is clearly in charge of a film that often touching, scary and funny all at the same time. No one except Miike seems to understand that you can have many emotions at the same time, or that you can suddenly have twists as things get dark one second and then funny the next. I admire the fact that Miike has made a film that is bleak and hopeful, that doesn't shy away from being scary, I mean really scary, especially for kids. This is the same dark territory that should be in the Harry Potter movies but rarely is. This a dark Grimms tale with humor. My first reaction upon seeing the opening image was that I couldn't believe anyone would begin a kids film with a picture of the end of the world, then I realized who was making the movie. Hats off to Miike for making a movie that knows kids can handle the frightening images. Its also operating on more than one level. The mechanical monsters that the bad guys make are forged from mankind's discarded junk. Its the rage of being thrown away that fuels the monsters.One of the Yokai (spirits) talks about the rage sneakers thrown away because they are dirty or too small feels when they are tossed. You also have one of the good guys refusing to join the bad guys because that would be the human thing to do. Its a wild concept, but like other things floating around its what lifts this movie to another level. (there are a good many riffs and references to other movies,TV shows and novels that make me wonder who this film is for since kids may not understand them, though many parents will) And of course there are the monsters. They run the gamut from cheesy to spectacular with stops everywhere in between. Frankly you have to forgive the unevenness of their creation simply because they are has to be hundreds if not thousands of monsters on screen. Its way cool and it works. One of the main characters is a Yokai which I think is best described as a hamster in a tunic and is often played by a stuffed animal, it looks dumb and yet you will be cheering the little bugger and loving every moment he rides on Tadashi's head. (Acceptance is also easier if you've ever seen the old woodcuts of the weird Japanese monsters) I mentioned flaws, and there are a few. The effects are uneven, some of the sudden turns are a bit odd (even if understandable) and a few other minor things which are fading now some two hours after watching the film.. None of them truly hurt the film over all, however most kind of keep you from being completely happy with the movie. I really loved this movie. I'm pretty sure that if I saw this as a kid it would have been my favorite film of all time. (where's the English dub?).See this movie. Its a great trip. (Besides its a good introduction to the films of Miike minus the blood and graphic sex)

• The first movie from Takashi Miike that I've watched

  Rectangular_businessman2012-04-04

  "The Great Yokai War" was my first approach with the filmography of the Japanese director Takashi Miike, who is known for doing shocking and violent movies such as "Ichi the Killer or "Visitor Q". However, the interesting thing about "The Great Yokai War" is that it is aimed to a completely different audience: This is a movie made for children, and as such, it didn't have scene of extreme violence or some kind of shocking content (Though I guess that it will be a little bit too "extreme" or "weird" in comparison with the kid's movies that are produced by Hollywood) This is a very interesting film, and even without violence or shocking content, it still manages to have the peculiar style from all the other movies directed by Takashi Miike: I would describe this film like some sort of combination of "The Chronicles of Narnia", "Time Bandits", the films from the Studio Ghibli, "Tideland" and "The Neverending Story" taking both the good and the bad things from all those works, resulting in something strange and unique, that is also incredibly funny to watch. The rich imagination that fills the story of this movie (Joined with lots of truly unpredictable plot twists, or at least unpredictable by the usual standards from more conventional kid's movies) compensates some of the flaws in the pacing and the uneven quality of the production values (The combination of puppets with CGI and stop motion sometimes it's effectives, in other occasions, not so much) I highly recommend this movie to the viewers that like unusual kid's movies such as "Time Bandits" from Terry Gilliam.

• The Great Yokai War

  I_John_Barrymore_I2007-07-17

  One of director Miike Takashi's very best. It's so good it's difficult to put into words. At nearly fifteen years older than the target audience it thrilled me from beginning to end. It recalls similar children's films from the 1980s in the sense that (unlike today) those films weren't afraid to scare - there's a lot of nasty detail here that I initially found jarring but soon realised it's nothing different to what I grew up on. The film is a compilation of '80s kid's films conventions. You name it, it's there: a young boy hero thrust from his own unhappy/dysfunctional world into another, inhabited by mythical and mystical goblins; a quest to save both worlds from an evil force; a beautiful heroine he has a crush on; a sadistic henchwoman (Go-Go Yubari from Kill Bill Vol. 1); a lead villain who draws his evil power from something everyone in the world can relate to. But all these genre conventions are given a fresh spin and added depth. One of the IMDb reviews begins "Where was this film when I was a kid?" and it's a sentiment I agree with wholeheartedly. Even while watching it I lamented the fact that I hadn't grown up on it; that it wasn't a part of my childhood like Labyrinth, Masters Of The Universe and, to a much lesser extent, The Neverending Story. Those films, and others like The Goonies are recalled but never copied - Miike relentlessly offering us a new take on things. Poor CGI is a staple of many of his films, sometimes due to budgetary limitations but just as frequently an artistic choice - a desire to present things in an outlandish way. Here the CGI is mostly average, solely due to budgetary limitations, but nevertheless he does a fantastic job of putting on a spectacle. The CG effects combine with traditional puppets, animatronics and truly extraordinary make-up to create a world filled with rich characters (and characterisation) that frequently borders on the visionary. This ranks as one of the greatest children's films ever made. Not for younger or more sensitive kids though. Just jaw-droppingly wonderful. See it for yourselves and if you think your kids can handle/appreciate it then show it to them. Let them grow up on The Great Yokai War as some small compensation for the fact you couldn't.

• Miike Does Miyazaki

  raiftel2005-11-12

  Also known as the Big Spook War. The Great Yokai War is Miike's attempt at a family film and damn fine job he does as well. The problem is that I can't imagine many parents wanting to subject their children to this movie. The best kids movies are the ones that are scary or have mildly disturbing imagery, Neverending Story and Return to Oz spring to mind, but in the case of the Great Yokai War Miike probably takes things a little too far. In fact at the screening I was at the person introducing the movie reiterated to the two families there that it was probably not very suitable. The film kicks off with the young hero of the piece introducing himself and explaining about his current family problems. This brief moment of mundanity is sharply broken as a cow gives birth to a calf with the face of a human whom screams that something horrendous is coming before falling dead like the abomination it is (it is quite possible that the sheer hideousness of the creature is some bizarre Quato homage). Following an incredible introduction for main baddie Kato, and his henchwoman Agi (a surprisingly attractive Chiaki Kuriyami), by way of an apocalyptic army raising. The story reverts to normal for a while, but it doesn't take long before any and all logic goes down the drain and the young boy teams up with a group of Miyazaki rejects to take out the evil sorcerer. The plot of the movie is fairly basic and surprisingly hackneyed at times, the entire chosen one just seems completely out of place in a movie which so regularly breaks clichés, but is aided by a simple awe inspiring vision of a magical world. This really is a Miyazaki movie made into a live action movie, albeit a much seedier and more vicious than usual Miyazaki movie. The film is simply a joy to look at the designs of the Yokai is colourful, and largely practical, while the evil robotic monstrosities while not displaying the best CGI in the world have a practicality and menace to them which gives them far more of a palpable threat than you would imagine. The cast is uniformly excellent, they just make their characters seem perfectly natural which is commendable when you consider that most of them are in full body makeup or latex suits. Even Agi lumbered with a ridiculous beehive comes across as sultry and deadly thanks to surprisingly excellent acting from Kuriyami. While the film does have many elements which put it firmly into family movie territory; cute creatures, junior heroes, a thoroughly evil villain, a sense of mischief and adventure, and a telling lack of violence. There are elements which make you question whether Miike should have directed such a movie. The robot army is a genuinely terrifying menace everyday items warped into monstrous beasts that look like T-101 sans skin and with added chainsaws. These beasts rip characters to pieces; suck creatures into their blood stained mouths, and abduct children from their homes by swiping them right from under their parent's nose before indulging in a little patricide. The creation of the creature is equally arduous for young minds. The Yokai, essentially the heroes, are feed into a giant furnace full of a liquidised form of hate which corrodes the Yokai's flesh and forces their angry souls to possess lumps of metal. If kids thought smouldering Anakin was bad wait til they see a man sized hedgehog burning to death in a vat of molten hatred for a minute before being turned into an abomination of a motorcycle. There is also limb severing, in one case a severed hand twitches in front of the camera dripping with blood, a fair amount of sexual energy (Agi wears one dress designed specifically for fan service and seems to only have sleeping with Kato as motivation, while the Princess of the Rivers wears next to nothing and gets her thighs groped by the young hero in several scenes), and general humour which will go right over the heads of those that this technicolour wonder was seemingly designed for. Spoilers An Example of this being that the Yokai only become interested in the final battle when they think it is a big party. The subsequent battle more of a festival than anything, complete with beer, crowd surfing and moshing. Also a scene where Agi beats the tar out of a cute furry creature seems designed to appeal to the masses jaded by pokemon overkill. End Spoilers At the end of the day The Great Yokai War is easily on of Miike's stronger recent films. While it lacks some of the perverse charm of say Gozu or Ichi it is just continually pushing the audience down a road of general insanity. In fact this is easily Miike's most deranged movie in that he embraces the sheer magic of the subject so wholeheartedly. Well worth a watch just for the occasional flash of Gogo arse.