Essential viewing - The Great Yokai War!

I know it's been touched on before, but I am watching this now and just thought I'd reiterate -- you gotta see this movie if you dig Japanese monsters/spirits! It's very cute and actually pretty well done, by the standards of a lot of the Japanese cinema I've been exposed to. Lotta neat creatures, ranging from kappa to animate umbrellas. heheh, yeah.

 

yes it is awesome. characters in it are based on Mizuki Shigeru's drawings/stories. he's the creator of gegege no kitaro, and he's even in the Great Yokai war as Lord of the Yokai near the end. ooooh, I want to watch it now. at work.

 

I love Takashi Miike, and this is such a classic! I love the look of the whole film. Plus the actual GeGeGe Kitaro museum is even included in the beginning.

 

watch the old ones from the 60s. i love them so much more!

 

Yeah, they rock- great mix of the cutesy and the hauntingly creepy.

I've been wanting to see the Miike version for a while...think I'll add it to the queue and bump it to the top right now...

 

here's an old review I wrote:

http://www.monstersatplay.com/review/dvd/xyz/yokai.php

 

i love miike but i thought this blew chunks.

 

sometimes his movies do.

this wasn't nearly as bad as One Missed Call or Izo though

 

Thank you, I didn't enjoy Izo either.

 

I was like a bratty kid at Izo shuffling around in my seat and stretching constantly and moving around.

Finally i gave in and just fell asleep at the movies. I don't think I've ever done that before.

 

Matt Alt and Hiroko Yoda are in a couple of crowd shots playing yokai in the movie. They talk about it here:

http://altjapan.typepad.com/my_weblog/2 ... agogo.html

 

I agree with you two. I liked the Miike movie, but the originals have a totally unique aesthetic that blew me away.

 

i loved izo. one missed call is easily the worst miike joint i've seen.

 

I read an interview where he flat out said he just did One Missed Call for the dough. I've heard directors don't make much there so I think you have to do shit like that to do stuff like Gozu or Ichi the Killer.

 

yeah, i wouldn't be surprised. ichi will always be my favourite, just because it was my first miike film (as with many others) and its still pretty messed up after repeated viewings (but tame compared to other japanese stuff obviously). the bird people from china is probably my second favourite.

 

Has anyone seen trailers for this huge Cellphone commercial/tv show he is doing?

It looks hilarious, transforming cellphone men fighting possessed machines, blah blah blah. Hell here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lMHMOUEY9w