Daimajin (1966)

Nasty ronin turned respected retainer Samanosuke (Ryutaro Gomi) murders his liege lord Hanabusa (Ryuzo Shimada) to take control of his castle and lands. Thanks to the help of loyal samurai Kogenta (Jun Fujimaki), Hanabusa’s daughter Kozasa and son Tadafumi escape. The trio hide away in the mountains, close to a giant stone statue that is supposed to protect the lands surrounding it from “Majin”, an evil, buried thing the local peasant population fears and tries to keep away with rituals and spells.

Ten years go by. Samanosuke has established himself as a bit of a warlord power player and has enslaved the peasantry as a workforce to improve his castle in preparation for further conquest. Dissent is dealt with harshly even for the tastes of medieval Japan. Of course, Samanosuke has also abolished the folk rituals; and going by his character, probably also singing, dancing, and smiling.

When Tadafumi (Yoshihiko Aoyama), clearly having been taught good guy morals and swordplay by Kogenta, realizes how badly the people suffer under Samanosuke’s rule, he decides to do something about it, even though he has neither men nor allies apart from Kogenta and his non-combatant sister (Miwa Takada).

Samanosuke is still holding some of Lord Hanabusa’s surviving men prisoner – the guy clearly can’t resist an opportunity for prolonged torture – but an attempt to free them goes badly for our heroes.

Fortunately, Kozasa, pure and virginal, is exactly the kind of person whose prayers for help giant stone statues might listen to.

I’ve always liked Kimiyoshi’s Yasuda’s first Daimajin film, but I never realized what the film is actually doing until a recent re-watch. This isn’t really a kaiju movie that attempts to mix up genres with a morally very black and white jidaigeki/chanbara film, but rather a film that aims for a folkloric tone.

In that context, the extreme pure-heartedness of the protagonists and the even more extreme vileness of the antagonist make a lot more sense – these aren’t supposed to be characters but archetypes – as does the very idyllic idea of good and bad noble rule.

Stylistically, Yasuda does a lot to situate his tale in the proper, dark, folkloric place – the use of fog, artificial light and Dutch angles particularly in the mountains, where a hidden God of terrible wrath dwells, is striking (and yet I never really noticed it before, embarrassingly), lending proceedings in turns qualities of the fairy-tale and the Gothic – or properly, the world of the kaidan.

The film’s slow progression from suggestions of the fantastic surrounding the characters to the full-on rampage of Daimajin in the climax is realized perfectly – human evil growing so heavy, the supernatural world’s anger awakens.

These final scenes of carnage are pretty incredible – stylish, surprisingly brutal and realized with special effects that look as good as anything in a contemporary Toho movie. There’s a sense of actual dread surrounding Daimajin’s awakening, and a palpable sense of terror, awe, and inhuman anger oozing off it that’s incredible coming from a well-filmed guy in a suit and some clever editing.