The Great Yokai War
Saturday, December 2, 2006

I decided to track down, and watch, this film for two reasons. The first is director Takashi Miike. I’m not nearly as big of a fan of Miike as a lot of people are, who call him the modern day Wes Craven, among other things. I’ve only seen two of his films, Audition and Ichi the Killer, neither of which lived up to their hype in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I found both films to be enjoyable in their own ways, but classics they were not. Particularly annoying was Miike’s insistence in being slowly suspenseful, simply for the sake of being slowly suspenseful. Audition was almost boring until the final act.

The second reason I wanted to watch this film is Chiaki Kuriyama, one of my favorite young actresses (or actors in general, for that matter). You’ll probably hear me write here a lot about how I’m not an “actor guy”. By that I mean that I don’t really watch movies/television shows for the actors. I’m from the Hitchcockian school that says actors are merely tools to be used by outstanding directors, they are not to be artists themselves. Nevertheless, ever now and then I come across an actor that changes my mind on this philosophy just a bit. For the most part I watch films for the story, but in this case, Chiaki was my primary draw. I loved her in both Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Battle Royale. Of the three films I’ve now seen her in, The Great Yokai War is definitely my favorite performance.

Ok, with all of that now understood, let’s talk about the film. First, it would not be possible for me to recreate the story here. Like many Japanese movies, it’s simply too complicated and odd to entirely understand what is going on. But I will tell you that it has something to do with goblins, who are both good and bad. With that being said, the special effects, which are a big part of the film given the fantasy elements it presents, are both odd and strangely comforting. While the budget of the film was probably rather big, it didn’t seem to be Hollywood blockbuster level either. And that’s ok, because the special effects work.

Now remember, this is a children’s film, a departure from Miike’s usual brutal horror. Despite this, one complaint I would have is that the film can sometimes lapse into melodrama. There are scenes where the main character, a kid, becomes scared by seeing one of these hobgoblins for the first time (or something else), that just wear on and on. We get the point that he’s scared from the beginning, but it gets pounded into our heads anyways. It’s arguable that the reason for this has to do with it being a children’s film, and I guess I can accept that. What I really love about this film is that it seems to have that Final Fantasy style aesthetic to it. This sort of futuristic fantasy is common in video games, but rare in American cinema. It works here, despite not being a true post-apocalyptic story.

I haven’t read a lot of online reviews, but I’m willing to bet that The Neverending Story comparison is out there, and I would say that it’s fairly accurate. I definitely recommend the film.

Posted byMateo at 8:28 PM

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