The Great Goblin War (Yokai Daisenso) (ScreenDaily Review)

[dleedlee]

The Great Goblin War (Yokai Daisenso)
Mark Schilling in Tokyo 31 August 2005


Dir: Takashi Miike. Jap. 2005. 124mins.
Announcing the production of the $30m The Great Goblin War last September, Kadokawa Group chairman Tsuguhiko Kadokawa said the film would "rival Harry Potter and Lord Of The Rings in its worldwide appeal”.

To make its chairman’s words a reality, Kadokawa hired Takashi Miike, a director best known for his full-frontal plunges into depravity, madness and general weirdness such as Audition and Ichi The Killer. It’s as if Disney hired David Lynch to make a live-action version of Snow White, in which Grumpy inhales a suspicious gaseous substance through a plastic mask.

Miike, however, has been making mainstream films for some time now, including family-friendly superhero spoof Zebraman. The result is a blenderisation and Japanisation of the Harry Potter and Lord Of The Rings films in which its central protagonist learns the usual lessons about courage and friendship.

Yet despite falling far short of the hyperbole, The Great Goblin War is a natural for overseas fantasy film fans, especially ones with a taste for the genre’s Asian variations - a large and growing cohort. In Japan it has been a solid hit with children, teens and young adults, grossing $14.6m in the first three weeks since its Aug 6 release. The film plays out of competition at Venice before heading for Toronto.

Takashi (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a modern-day city kid living in the countryside with his divorced mother (Kaho Minami) and semi-senile grandfather (Bunta Sugawara). Timid and lonely, Takashi is miserable until a festival dancer in a Chinese dragon costume chooses him to be a Kirin Rider - a traditional fighter for peace and justice.

This, his friends tell him, is not a pretend title, but the real deal. His mission: climb a nearby mountain and claim a magical sword from its resident Great Goblin. As night falls, he boards a mysterious bus up the mountain and finds, at his feet a strange cat-like creature - the first and most harmless of the many goblins he will meet.

Meanwhile, evil is abroad, unleashed by the wizard Kato (Estushi Toyokawa). Using discarded machinery and the power of a vengeful spirit called Yomotsumono, he turns once harmless goblins into mechanical minions who wreak havoc on the human world.

He is assisted by a female goblin (Chiaki Kurimyama) with a beehive hairdo and a mean whip hand. Takashi opposes this pair with his yokai allies including one who resembles a Ninja Turtle (Sadao Abe) and one who looks like a long-haired samurai dipped in red dye (Masaomi Kondo).

Miike tells it all with an energy and invention bordering on the manic, as well as characteristic touches of black humour, but he can’t disguise its derivative nature.

The Japanese goblins or yokai - come in a wide range of shapes, sizes and features - are more on the cuddly than scary side. The principal ones are also both eccentrically individual and impeccably traditional, as though they’d stepped out of an old woodblock print - or a comic by film advisor Shigeru Mizuki, whose classic series Gegege No Kitaro made yokai popular with a mass readership.

Western fans of Hayao Miyazaki's hit animation Spirited Away will notice similarities in character designs - though Miike's are more grotesque, Miyazaki's more freeform.

He and his effects people create a funny/creepy phantasmagoric world that is distinctively Miike, though the animatronics and CG are a tad retro by Hollywood standards (think Gremlins and the crowd scenes in Gladiator).

Also, his attempts to build tension and suspense are less than inspired. Attitude, not talent, is the problem: Miike can’t help winking at his material - and deflating his story in the process.

Keeping the movie from becoming a campy cartoon is star Ryunosuke Kamiki. A 12-year-old prodigy, he possesses a natural vivacity and thoroughly professional acting chops, keeping the film on track, even when his director has an impish urge to derail it.

The ending, following a titanic CG battle, leaves an obvious opening for a sequel.

Production companies
Kadokawa Pictures
Japan Film Fund
Nippon Television Network

International sales
Kadokawa Pictures

Japanese distribution
Shochiku

Executive producer
Kazuo Kuroi

Producers
Shigeru Mizuki
Hiroshi Aramata
Natsuhiko Kyogoku
Miyuki Miyabe

Screenplay
Takashi Miike
Mitsuhiko Sawamura
Yoshihiko Itakura

Cinematography
Hideo Yamamoto

Production design
Nao Sasaki

Editor
Yasushi Shimamura

Music
Koji Endo

Main cast
Ryunosuke Kamiki
Etsushi Toyokawa
Chiaki Kuriyama
Sadao Abe
Bunta Sugawara

[Bearserk]

Will probably have to see this one when I get the chance
Shall be interesting to see how Takashi Miike have managed the leap from the usual films I have seen from him, Audition, Deadly Outlaw - Rekka, Ichi the Killer,.......
Which reminds me, I really need to see One Missed Call soon.

For those that wish some additional information, or a look at the trailer, Here is the link to the homepage, all menu's in japanese unfortunately.
I had some trouble with the codec so I downloaded a poor quality trailer of it from Here instead.

[hoppingghost]

Looks very interesting I have been following news and posting news on my site about this film for some time, I hope the finished product is great.