Daimajin

Today we're going a bit outside the box with the first in the Daimajin series, appropriately titled Daimajin. Directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda for Daiei (the makers of Gamera movies), there were 3 Daimajin films released in the same year and no more. Apparently, the titular character was intended to be the first foe of Gamera but was reassigned to be the star if his own brief series. Daiei also produced the legendary Zatoichi series, which is relevant here as the director of Daimajin was a prolific director of Zatoichi films as well.

If You Haven't Seen it Before

- A village is shaken by what seems like an earthquake. Our characters say this is the majin and they begin a ritual to keep the majin asleep rather than allow it to wake from its slumber.

- At the same time, a fight for power begins. Samurai Kogenta escapes from the wicked Samanosuke's forces with the children of the former Lord of the area.

- The ritual to ward off the Daimajin monster is interrupted by this raid of new Lord Samanosuke. They force the villagers to stop their ritual, which the local priestess warns against and laments.

- Yes, it's all a bit confusing at first.

- The priestess gives Kogenta and the children a hiding place, assuring them they will not be found. Right outside their new living quarters is a massive stone statue resembling a fully armored soldier.

- The bad guys terrorize the villagers, forcing them to labor and beating them when they're too tired to continue. In the infirmary, another is killed after being blamed for the escape of Kogenta.

- To secure his power, Samanosuke first kills the priestess who warns him of the power of Daimajin, and then decides to smash the statue so it can never wake.

- While attempting to destroy Daimajin, blood begins to flow from its forehead. A powerful storm strikes and the earth itself swallows the forces of Samanosuke.

- With Kogenta and the son of the former Lord having been previously captured, the daughter (and a village boy) pray to Daimajin to save them from execution. With their execution happening very soon, Daimajin wakes up just in time

- Daimajin goes to the execution site of Kogenta and the young Lord and kills everyone he can get his hands on besides the two victims.

- After Samanosuke is killed by Daimajin, the remaining human characters try to stop the living statue from continuing its mission to kill every one of Samanosuke's followers.

- With tearing prompting from the former Lord's daughter, Daimajin voluntarily turns back into stone before shattering.

- END

Kaiju Notes

- Daimajin is an intimidating figure, but uninspiring as design. Clearly modeled after stone guardians and/or a statue, he does look like a moving, pissed off, stone statue. It's a dominant look, but doesn't really add anything to the design aspect of kaiju. While the armor is a strong choice to have on a kaiju, which are usually giant animals of some kind, the armor is not particularly unique or impressive. This could be a deliberate choice to make it clear that Daimajin, in common armor, defends the commoners of the village, but it still leaves a lot to be desired from a raw "aesthetic badassness" perspective.

- Daimajin gets very little screen time, waking up just 15 minutes before the movie ends. He makes an impression, however, as he apparently controls the weather and can travel as a ball of light. He also wastes almost no time, stepping through buildings rather than on them and only slowing down at all to kill any loyalist of Samanosuke he can find.

- Daimajin seems to enjoy stomping on people, in particular. While he'll punch a building to destroy it, he then finds the person stuck underneath the rubble and is always sure to stomp them to death.

- One choice of particular note is for Daimajin to make no sounds or facial expressions. He is a being of pure, focused vengeance. He kills everyone who deserves it with no care at all, a calculating and terribly efficient killing machine with no need or desire to roar, taunt, or express anything at all. The only time the movie focuses on his face at all, he is clearly simply looking around for his next target, no wry smile or wiggling eyebrows to get in the way of his rage.

The experience of the director of Daimajin in filming sword fights is relevant almost immediately in this film, as the opening is a large battle between opposing armies. The battle is fierce and effective in a manner that experience helps sell. With the story spending an inordinately long time on human characters facing human problems, it's good to have a director with experience filming such human conflicts, and it pays off in this instance. Even when it comes to Samanosuke's forces abusing the villagers or eventually killing the priestess, there's a certain deft touch to it all that helps bring the details into focus while we wait for the awakening of Daimajin.

The reason this movie is a bit "outside the box" as I said above is because Daimajin himself is the first humanoid kaiju we've come across, and one of the few humanoid kaiju (that isn't a robot) that I'm aware of at all. Most "giant monsters" are just that, giant monsters, but Daimajin is a wrathful spirit in the form of a large and angry man. It is also unique in that this is the first kaiju we have seen which specifically targets certain groups of humans, punishing Samanosuke's forces for their evil deeds. While he does fall into the kaiju trope of becoming a danger to everyone around him, his intent upon waking was to destroy Samanosuke, and he is tremendously successful at this. While Godzilla and Mothra have both been used as punishment against the wicked, neither of their intent was this necessarily. Mothra simply attacks whomever has her Shobijin and Godzilla has destroyed the evil mostly as result of coincidence and their own misdeeds.

This punishment of the wicked is Daimajin's real narrative hook. Despite the titular creature being released from his stony confines a mere 15 minutes before the end of the movie, the entire plot focuses on demonstrating why Samanosuke and his forces deserve to be stepped on and impaled with spikes from an indestructible pissed off green man. It is also one of the relatively few kaiju films in which the human story plays directly into the actions of the kaiju. Many kaiju movies have the human characters only tangentially related to the actions of the monsters, affected by but not really active participants in what happens, whereas Daimajin only awakens after the killing of his priestess and the attempted destruction of himself, and even then requires some extra goading with the tears of the former Lord's daughter Kozasa. But once he's awake, Daimajin is a simple natural progression of the story: the savior army in a different film, concentrated into one entity which doesn't speak, care, or show any mercy.

Anyone who reads this blog probably knows that I am a big fan of kaiju as metaphor, and Daimajin's spirit of vengeance approach is a prime example of why I like it. This approach typically allows the film to be more cohesive, merging the various human characters with the purpose of the kaiju in a manner that is difficult to replicate when the metaphorical basis of kaiju is dropped. While I don't dislike a movie that is pure spectacle (we've seen several and definitely will in the future), the strongest ones from both a quality and enjoyment perspective, for me, are the films which allow the kaiju to mean something. This quality of Daimajin makes me glad that I expanded my list of intended movies to watch for this blog so that I could get an even broader taste of the kaiju flicks that weren't Godzilla. More grounded than most films in its genre and playing more into the supernatural than most of the "force of nature" giant monsters we have seen so far, Daimajin is a worthwhile ride, especially in the context of the history of kaiju film.

Next: War of the Gargantuas!