The Daimajin Trilogy (1966)

I got the DVD of the three movies awhile ago and its been sitting on my shelf. Since the films are relatively short (none is over 80 minutes) I beinged watched them this weekend. And while I can say they really aren't bad films-knowing what I know and seen-I can guess why this isn't one of the more recognizable daikaiju franchises. Some spoilers below and I'm probably going to jump around when talking about stuff.

These movies were done by Daiei Studios-the company behind the Gamera movies. Each movie came out in the same year, 1996, only months apart. And what didn't help is that the films -the first two especially- share so many plot points and same beats they really do feel like the same film and they just changed some of the basic names and used the same script. With that I could see audiences getting bored of the character quickly.

In both Daimajin and Return of Daimajin a cruel warlord (in feudal Japan) takes over a city state. Someone warns them about the curse of the Daimajin, which the vilians ignore and attempt to destroy the statue. A member of a high ranking house (whose gone into hiding ) is able to summon the spirit and awaken the statue. The living statue seeminly saves one of the main heroes from being crucified. And after effortlessly crushing the warlord's forces seems like he might start killing innocents-when the prayers of the righteous noble princess convinces him to stop and his statue crumbles away.

The third one Daimajin Strikes Againis the only one of the movies that feels significantly different from the first. In it, an evil warlord has captured the men of a city state so four young boys make the trip over the cursed majin mountain in order to save their fathers and brothers. For most of the movie it felt like an early attempt at one of those comming of age young boys on a quest type films. only somehwhat darker-due to the fact that one of the kids actually dies. I admit I kept thinking he was going to show up later, but nope. He died. But still in the end Daimajin is awakened and effortless crushes the bad guys.

So let's get into some stuff I did like about the films.

Being set in a feudal era- these are far more fantasy films then a lot of daikaiju movies. No atomic radiation or genetic mutation. The films also plenty of spiritual/religious and some horror iconography. Spirits/Ghosts in the woods. Old seerers yelling prophecy and curses. Shadowy figures and bleeding effigies. Daimajin himself is said to cause earthquakes, saves two characters from being crucified, is prayed too by others. His appearance at the end is like watching one of the 10 plagues in a humanoid form as Divine power takes its vengeance. The movies feel like fantasy horror rather than a typical giant monster movie.

Which leads me to Daimajin himself. For starters-he's one of the smaller "giant monsters". There's a little size discrepancy in some shots, but at his biggest he's still smaller than the original king Kong. Mostly Daimajin is shown to be about 15 feet tall. Then there's his design. A statue of a samurai with a jade stone face. The thing to notice is that the eyes have been cut away from the mask allowing the actors eyes to show through. While you may thing this would make him look like he was just simply wearing a mask (and yes there are a few times it does just look like that-because it is just a guy in a suit) it also strangly gives him an expressiveness that isn't in a lot of other monsters with more elaborate face movement.

Personality wise- the movies try to tell us that when Daimajin is awake-no one is really safe. Just that some people are more screwed then others. Some innocent people do get caught up in his wrath. Because he is a god, and will not be swayed so easily. Only when the righteous people show the proper respect for him will he stop his rampage.

Which leads me into another thing I didn't like about the films. The action climaxes again started feeling all the same. Daimaijn arrives and effortlessly kills every single one of the villains. Admittily I guess it does fit with the whole "a sinner is powerless against an angry god" motif and while the bad guys where unlikable enough that seeing them taken out by Daimajin at the end was acceptable-they were so under powered against the living statue that a lot of the tension that's normally in action movies is lost. Even if you know the bad guys are going to lose against a hero-a good climatic final fight should at least give you the momentary thought that the bad guys might win. That's not here in these movies as the villain and his entire army are stomped like a group of children doing their best to stop a tank. At one point these movies should have had at least one antagonist to give Daimajin a decent fight. A sorcerer or another demon/god. Just something.

Alright-I've been at this for a lot longer then I thought I had so I'll leave with at least some positivity.

The films look great. For the first two, the acting is pretty good. The third one-not so much but that might be due to the combination of child actors and dubbing/localization job done on the DVD. Plenty of good imagery, settings, and other bits that do make this trilogy feel unique among the giant monster flicks, even if they don't feel so unique among themselves.