**** It’s Not Really a Serpent but it’s still Magical

 Most kaiju movies tend to take place in modern times or in the future, but every once in a while they draw on the myth and legend of the past as the backdrop for a movie involving giant monsters. This little gem is one of the first to do that, combining samurai films with magical trickery and leading up to your usual model-trashing rubber-suited brawl.

The story starts out by your usual evil usurpers taking over the kingdom by, what else, storming the castle with ninjas and explosions. Turns out that the prince of the kingdom gets away, and spends the next ten years training under an old hermit in the forest to become some kind of samurai/ninja/magician/superhero. Turns out that his master once trained another student in the ways of magic, who just so happened to betray him and become the second-in-command of the new warlord, and likewise happens to be the father of the lead female character, who ended up falling in love with the main character, who after his master gets killed by the former student goes to the castle to seek justice and restore order to the kingdom. As that little run-on sentence says, the movie is quite complex for what is in truth a simple revenge plot. Along his quest, the main character also slaughters dozens of ninjas, is helped by noble villagers willing to sacrifice themselves to the cause, ends up having the main female character nearly betray him against her will, and finally barges through the castle walls riding a giant toad. The usual kaiju battle commences when the other bad guy turns into a giant dragon, the good guy puts himself in the toad, and a giant spider gets thrown into the mix as well. After bashing the dragon other around and pretty much destroying the city he wanted to save, a convenient explosion turns them back to human form and he ends up defeating the bad guy, like all good guys do. However, instead of taking the thrown back he simply says the equivalent of "well that was fun" and flies away on his giant bird, leaving the peasants to rebuilt their kingdom themselves. Nice guy.

They actually manage to throw in quite a lot of plot to this somewhat short movie and still have time for multiple sword-fighting scenes and other fun stuff. The plot itself is eerily similar to Star Wars, and one starts to wonder if George Lucas happened to watch this before writing his movies. I guess it’s a testament to the somewhat epic nature of the whole thing, with an over-powered warrior taking on evil political figures and the occasional "I am your father" moments. Now combine this plot with a ton of special effects and you got yourself a good movie, although most of those effects look a little cheesy by today’s standards. Still, the final battle with the giant creatures is well done, and with four monsters running around there is plenty for us kaiju fans to go after. About the only complaint relative to the abilities of the filmmakers is the rather annoying use of some rather familiar sound effects. The dragon/serpent sounds just like Godzilla and the giant toad sounds just like Rodan, which of course feels very out of place and really robs you of taking the movie seriously (which is hard enough anyways).

Minor quibbles aside, really this is a surprisingly good movie. It’s got plenty of action, lots of twists and turns in the plot to keep you from being bored, and a dose of kaiju fun as well. Truthfully, one has to watch the movie to fully appreciate it, so it’s recommended choice for those interested in seeing a representative sample of what the Japanese came up with back in the sixties. Plus the movie happens to be sold as a double feature with "Return of the Giant Monsters" (Gamera vs. Gaos), what I consider to be the best of the old Gamera flicks, so this is quite the good deal.

An overall good plot that keeps you entertained

At the time, the special effect were probably pretty good

The fighting scenes, both human and kaiju, were done rather well

Action, epic journeys, magical attacks, and giant fighting monsters, what more could you ask for?

The special effects are admittedly cheesy

There is a little kid in the movie that serves no function other then to spurt out random lines

Somehow I doubt the townsfolk would be grateful to you for flattening their town, no wonder why you ran

Since when does spider webbing explode upon contact with flame?

Credits