The Magic Serpent (1966)

directed by Tetsuya Yamauchi

Japan

94 minutes

3.5 stars out of 5

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I'm not sure I have enough to say about this for a long review, but I'm going to give it a small one because it's worth that, at least. This is a little rougher around the edges than I typically expect from Toei, but then I suppose it would still be some years before they would produce Kamen Rider and become known more for their tokusatsu than their historical dramas. This is both of those things, but leans more heavily towards the historical drama side. A quick look at the director's filmography shows he literally only made movies about ninjas - hey, find your niche, I guess.

It can't be denied that even if the whole thing is not the best movie ever (I seem to be somewhat in the minority for rating this a little lower), there are individual moments that show it is well-made and fun nonetheless. The film starts out with one of these moments: The good and fair lord is usurped by someone he thought was his right-hand man, and when the lord's former friend comes to deliver the news that a rebel group is making headway in taking over his domain, the lord asks who the leader of this group could be. The traitor, and now leader, replies "ME!" and delivers a literal gut-stabbing to go with the back-stabbing. There's just certain lines like that, and certain specific moments, that make this more exciting than it would otherwise have been. Without constantly focusing on goofy one-liners, there's still a classic storybook aspect to this that I loved. It never gets too zealous with the drama, which is an achievement considering this is a movie where anybody can do anything because of magic.

The whole film exists in a fantasy register where some people have just ridiculous crazy magic powers and it's explained away as "eh, they're ninjas". I mean, we're talking people making it look like their head came off and is flying around and taunting guys, people turning into giant dragons and frogs, people flying on thunderbolts, et cetera. This isn't just ninja stuff as in amazing martial arts skills and impressive fight scenes - this is fully in the realm of the imaginary, where magic is physically possible and utilized as a combat skill alongside traditional fighting. Our main character undergoes the typical hero ordeal of having his parents killed at a young age and then being raised off on top of a mountain somewhere by a wise old man who teaches him unsurpassable magic skills (okay, maybe that only seems "typical" because I watch weird movies), and it's the equally typical death of this teacher that sets him off on a quest for justice not only for himself but also for his murdered parents. Stuff is messy and impossible, achieved visually with primitive green-screen techniques that of course don't hold up, but that's part of the charm with movies like this. I wouldn't smoothen out the edges of the flying decapitated head if you paid me. That's how this movie was made and that's how it needs to be appreciated.

As I said, there's much less cool dragon stuff here than there is historical drama and also a lot of family issues (determining who is whose father, getting revenge, and so forth), which is either good or bad depending on what kind of movie you want to watch. The film teases us a bit by starting right off with the dragon, who is actually responsible for the main character's parents' death, and then not showing it again until probably about fifteen minutes from the end. But it is a very good dragon. I had The Three Treasures on the brain when watching this (as I often do) and I was expecting a dragon operated more by puppetry than people, but no, there's a guy in there. It's done with suitmation - and some wires to assist the big floppy head, of course, but you can definitely tell it's a person in the suit. I was almost more impressed by the giant frog who fights the dragon, because I felt like there was some real frog-ness achieved there; you can do whatever you want with a dragon because they don't exist, but everyone knows how a frog acts and moves, and even though this was a giant, enchanted frog, the suit actor inside of it managed to move in such a way that it really did look like a living frog. I'm always noticing when suit actors put on a performance that is clearly reminiscent of a real animal. It's tough to communicate legible body language inside so many pounds of foam rubber.

I'd easily and heartily recommend this to anybody who's into the history of tokusatsu. I'm surprised that it seems to have been forgotten by many, but from a cursory glance, those who have seen it have left glowing reviews. I was falling asleep during this, which probably influenced my opinion of it, and I'm rating it a little lower than most because I have less patience for the wishy-washy romantic subplot type of thing, but all in all, yeah, it's pretty great. We can't argue with a movie where not just the hero and not just the villain but also the hero's love interest all turn into giant animals and fight each other.