directed by Takao Okawara
Japan
105 minutes
3.5 stars out of 5
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I planned on watching this some time ago, but I had been watching so many similar movies around that time that I watched about five minutes and got bored and turned it off. Moods change, though, and I finally got around to sitting through the whole thing. It does not hurt at all that it's directed by Takao Okawara, who made some of my favorite Godzilla films, which are unfortunately also some of the most divisive (you can pry Godzilla 2000 from my cold dead hands, I think it's great). Orochi is definitely of its era, but there's a charm to it not despite but because of that.
This is kind of a loose remake of The Three Treasures, which is also a movie that's very dear to me, but I'm not entirely sure if it's specifically meant to be a remake of that movie or if it's more of a retelling of the same source mythology. I'm leaning towards the latter, and I'm not going to compare the two films overmuch here, because few similarities exist between them. The big, obvious difference is that Orochi uses CGI fairly heavily while such technology was not around in 1959, but you can't say that this renders one movie superior to the other, because I'm sure that if technology had been at this level in 1959, the original Three Treasures probably would have looked more like this too. I will say that it's very interesting seeing this specific kind of CGI used in a fantasy setting and it gives the movie a really unique feel because the visual effects used would look far more at home in a traditional sci-fi movie (or a Godzilla movie) than something that's meant to take place millennia ago. There's a lot of laser beams and glowing fog for a mythological tale. I would not change it, though - it's all part and parcel of the film, both as it was originally intended and as the object it has aged/is aging into.
So if one is unaware, this is based on the Shinto story of the birth of Japan (and the world in general). You don't need to be too familiar with this because everything that is relevant to the film is presented to the viewer through narration. Yamato Takeru is a good-hearted prince who is one half of a set of twins, the other half being sort of a typical evil foil to the protagonist's goodness, but there is a twist in that Yamato has a darker side as well. When under threat, he can manifest certain magical powers that lead to the unintended death of his mother and his twin. The death of his brother leads to his banishment from his father's kingdom for his own good, and this is the kickoff for most of the film. There's a whole lot of questing going on in this, and most of the time is spent roaming around from place to place as Yamato searches for the three objects that will, along with his inherent holy princeliness, give him the strength to defeat the titular evil dragon and also a couple other evil things (it's never just the one). He also, of course, falls in love along the way, but I'm genetically engineered to ignore romantic subplots, so I can't say much about that.
I kept feeling like there was a flatness to everybody's affect in Orochi that was keeping it a Good Movie when it could have been a Great Movie. With things like this that are meant to exist in a fantasy realm, so long ago that it blurs the line between history and myth, a certain formality and stiffness is appropriate to go with the archetypical characters and defined threads of fate that they follow. It can be hard to get really emotional and personal in this kind of story because everything is so widely known and already laid out. That all being said, I still felt like there was room for it to be a little more dramatic. Hiroshi Abe's character was breaking the mold of this a bit, and I wish he had had a bigger role because his performance was more along the lines of what I would have liked from everybody else. He's just a little bit hammy and it's appropriate for the setting. All the others seem afraid to dial up the ham factor even slightly.
But, while I can't say that characters are un-important, I'd argue that the big draw of this is that it's a special effects showcase first and foremost. Like I said, there is a lot of CGI, but the way it's used is really tasteful. The places where you can tell digital assistance played a part are mostly spots where physical effects would have looked clunky - at any point, even with today's higher standards - like when somebody shoots beams from their eyes, or is standing against a complicated backdrop, just stuff like that. When CGI is not used is when an unbelievably intricate, artful, visually stunning, impressively detailed suit or model could be used instead. This is what you expect from Toho. The really quite mind-blowing Orochi puppet, though it does look too large and heavy to move around a lot, is the centerpiece of the film. Less eye-grabbing but still deserving of notice was one particular wound application in a scene in which our hero spears somebody through the ribs - I'm using this as an example of the attention to detail that makes this movie worthwhile. We're all used to the whole sword-under-the-arm thing when someone gets stabbed on film, but in this moment we can see the spear go in and out the other side of the character's bare chest, and it looks really good. The prosthetic was seamless enough that I did not notice it, and this technique is actually used again when Yamato himself gets stabbed through the neck. That added level of seeing the blade physically pass all the way through is a step above and beyond, and it's the kind of thing I notice and appreciate as a fan of movies that tend to get bloody.
There's just something to this movie that I can't really describe with a single word. Somebody else said that this was Toho throwing every concept they had into a blender and I'll second that. I don't think it can be compared to others that came before it that are based on the same mythology because they're from such different eras. Maybe movies like this need some time to age to make them more fun to watch. I'd have trouble sitting through something like this produced using the glossiest modern-day CGI, but when I can almost see the wires and the rough edges around the green screen shots, my brain just inherently is more engaged.
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