The Great Yokai War (2005) (DTS) (DVD) (Limited Edition) (Japan Version) DVD Region 2

The film revolves around the titular yokai and a young boy named Tadashi. The yokai are major figures of Japanese folklore, spirits that inhabit virtually everything. Some are friendly, some are not, but they are all around us. The villainous Kato, who was once human but has become a demon, is incensed at the way humans use and discard everyday items - in effect using and discarding the yokai who live within those items with no regard for the yokai's feelings - and is determined to bring retribution. With the help of the beautiful and menacing Agi - played by the fantastic Kuriyama Chiaki of Kill Bill and Battle Royale fame - Kato rounds up as many of the yokai as he can and forcibly joins them to discarded pieces of machinery, a process that transforms them into hideous killing machines that he plans to unleash on humanity.

Who can stop Kato's abuse of the yokai and prevent the destruction of humanity? That task falls to Tadashi. A young boy of ten or eleven, Tadashi has moved into rural Japan with his mother following his parents' divorce, with his sister and father staying behind in Tokyo. He is a quiet, sensitive boy, teased ruthlessly by his classmates and frequently mistaken for his dead uncle by his eccentric grandfather. When Tadashi is selected the Kirin Rider at the local village festival, he becomes, by default, humanity's chosen savior and must travel up the Goblin Mountain to the Great Goblin's cave and retrieve the magical sword that will help him to defend the land.

Miike's unstoppable energy and bizarre sense of humor are on full display here. The yokai themselves - classic characters such as the kappa and tanuki to the hysterically funny wall yokai, which is nothing more than a wall with arms and legs sticking out, and the yokai, which does nothing but wash and count his beans - are visual gold in Miike's capable hands. Necks extend wildly, a rice paper wall grows eyes in every panel, an umbrella hops around dangling its enormous tongue...you can never be certain what's around the next corner. He breaks out all the tricks in the book, from high gloss CG to low tech sock puppets and hits absolutely all stops in between. The film is loaded with his bizarre bursts of humor - Tadashi's grandfather is good for a handful of baffling non-sequitors - and he has a pair of absolutely brilliant villains in Kato and Agi.

Where the film stumbles somewhat is in its young lead. Not that the actor playing Tadashi is weak - he seems quite good, actually - but Miike gives him very little to do. The basic range goes like this: look surprised and yell, look scared and yell, look angry and yell. And sometimes cry because people are mean to you. That's a lot of yelling from the central character and it becomes a bit one-note after a while. As always, Miike is to be congratulated for sneaking a surprising amount of subtext into the film - Tadashi dealing with his family's break up and what it means to grow up are major threads - but he unfortunately undercuts himself by leaving Tadashi rather two dimensional for long stretches of film. A fun film and wildly entertaining for the most part, but it doesn't quite reach the stature of truly top flight Miike.

The recently released Hong Kong edition of the film is a stellar example of the rapidly rising quality standards in Hong Kong DVDs. This two-disc set is, by far, the highest quality release I have ever seen from Hong Kong's Universe Entertainment. Packaged in a very heavy gauge outer box - all the lettering is silver, and it just generally looks much better full size in real life. The discs themselves come in an equally heavy gauge mock wood grained gatefold. Disc one contains the feature itself treated to a gorgeous anamorphic transfer with the Japanese audio in 5.1 and DTS streams and a Cantonese dub in 5.1. The English subtitles are excellent, well translated and easy to read. The prize, however, is the second disc, which is absolutely loaded with features. There are two goofy, ulta lo-fi Yokai shorts clocking in at sixteen and fourteen minutes respectively; fifty minutes of cast interviews; a thirteen minute reel from an international yokai conference with Miike in attendance; a seventeen minute press conference; a twenty seven minute documentary tracking the young star through the production process; a forty one minute making of documentary and, finally, an extensive catalog of different yokai creatures with full details on their history and background. The best part? Everything, absolutely everything, comes with English options. The lack of a commentary track is unfortunate, but Miike being as busy as he is, seldom takes the time to record commentaries for any of his films. That being the case, the only thing you could possibly say is lacking is an English dub for those who want to share the film with their children. Beyond that this is an absolutely perfect release and comes with our highest recommendation.

By Todd Brown - Twitchfilm.net

Things get even more intense when Tadashi attends a local festival. As is customary, a person is chosen at random to be a Kirin Rider, a legendary figure who is entrusted with the sacred task of scaling a mountain and claiming a magical blade from the mythical Great Goblin. To his great shock, Tadashi is picked to be the Kirin Rider, and it isn't long before he starts believing that the "quest story" he was told isn't just a fairytale. After talking things over with his grandfather, Tadashi ventures out to the mountain alone, and soon finds himself befriending a small, furry creature called Sunekosuri, one of the first of many (and I mean MANY) Yokai (goblins) he'll encounter during this grand adventure.

Unbeknownst to Tadashi, an evil wizard named Kato (Toyokawa Etsushi) is wreaking vengeance on both the real and spirit world by abducting harmless little yokai and throwing them into his huge mechanical engine of doom. Once inside this device, these generally pleasant creatures are transformed into unrelenting killing machines, all of whom mindlessly serve their new master in his quest to not only kidnap children from their homes, but annihilate the entire planet. Why? Well, he's mad at the world for its wasteful ways. Apparently, whenever humans throw away anything for any reasons, there's a sense of resentment attached to that item. Kato has harnessed that hatred, channeling it for his own use. And in his mission for total world domination, Kato is assisted by Aki (Kuriyama Chiaki) a sexy, but strange white-haired yokai whose blind love for Kato has made her turn against her goblin brethren. If you thought Kuriyama's turn as Go Go Yubari in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 was villainous, wait until you see Aki - she's one tough customer, whip and all.

With Sunekosuri captured by the enemy and the Earth threatened with total destruction, Tadashi chooses to help the yokai. Thankfully, he doesn't have to fight alone, as he's joined by the upbeat Kirin Herald Shojo (Kondo Masaomi), the incorrigible Kappa ("Water Sprite") Kawataro (Abe Sadao), and the beautiful river princess Kawa-hime (Takahashi Mai). But will this small band of heroes be enough to save the world? Will Tadashi conquer his fears and vanquish the evil Kato? And even more importantly, will Tadashi remember to call his mom to let her know he'll be coming home late?

Although The Great Yokai War may not stack up as one of the better fantasy films from a story-telling perspective, it is a consistently entertaining film. The movie works in large part due to Kamiki Ryunosuke's acting, as his performance helps sell the reality of the film. Although the picture itself may wink at the audience on occasion, Kamiki does not, reacting to the outlandish situations much as one would expect a real kid would. The Yokai creatures themselves are perhaps the most fascinating aspects of the film, some looking like Japanese cousins to the denizens Jim Henson's Creature Shop, while others look to be the product of the latest in CGI technology. Although the production values on The Great Yokai War range from cutting edge to that of an old school Godzilla film, the monsters never fail to interest. There are literally hundreds of them, each with their own title and function. In fact, there are so many of them you need your own scorecard to keep up, a luxury actually provided in the extras of the DVD release. If anything, the Yokai prove to be a nice break from centaurs, unicorns, and other now commonplace mythological figures in Western culture. Although not new to the Japanese, this particular big-screen depiction of the Yokai feels fresh and exciting, possessing more creatures pound for pound than the famous cantina scene in Star Wars, if not the entire double trilogy.

The film possesses a keen sense of humor, often poking fun at the genre itself. Kawataro's cries of discrimination when Tadashi favors the pretty Kawa-hime and the furry Sunekosuri is a hoot, as is his self-aware moment of pointing out genre conventions whenever the heroes are exploring a cave, only to find himself succumbing to the various traps he's tries to warn Tadashi about in the first place. Although the film is funny, it's also a surprisingly poignant fable about one boy's coming of age, his loss of innocence, and his ultimate entrance into adulthood. Of course, he does this by battling an evil wizard and his homicidal steampunk monsters, but it's a coming-of-age tale all the same. While a bit of a mess story-wise, The Great Yokai War is a thoroughly engaging, wildly inventive fantasy film that definitely merits a look from fans of the genre. The film's final scene hints at a sequel, so if there's a Great Yokai War II, consider this reviewer drafted.

Review by Calvin McMillin