chandachat My husband and I found this movie expecting a cute children's fantasy and found ourselves totally blown away. The plot is simple and pretty standard, outcast kid becomes chosen one to lead the yokai in an epic fight against the powers of evil. You can read everyone else's breakdown of the plot. My biggest plug for this movie was the yokai themselves, the special effects wizards who put this movie together go it right. The yokai were quirky, with personality and were believable as characters and you quickly fall in love with them. The "bad guys" were weird and gave you that creepy feeling that was just right.The nuances of the interactions of this film is what has me say that it is the perfect film for both adults and kids to watch. The kids will get the basic ideas, good vs evil and some of the simpler themes but the adults should realize that part of this film comments on the disposable nature of our society, how we so quickly cast things aside and how transient childhood is. How soon we forget them magic of childhood to grow up and don't see things that are right in front of us. Perhaps this film is a gentle reminder to us to treasure the children around us, listen to them as they see things we don't, and never forget what it was like to be a child even when you grow up.

gothic_a666 In many ways, The Great Yokai War is a Japanese version of The Neverending Story. Both push the limits of fantasy as a genre and create a dynamic world in which a young boy becomes the hero of an epic. But Yokai stays true to its folk roots by crowding the plot with all sorts of creatures drawn straight from the very repertoire of Japanese lore. There are kappas, objects turned spirits, snow women, river sprites, gozu, tengu and the list becomes endless as the story progresses. But the movie is much more than an homage to traditions. It is also self-conscious in its parade of monsters as is made evident when a flying fortress is mistaken for Gamera. Miike, known for his hyper violence, manages to create something that will appeal to children without being limited to that target audience. There are hints of the dark material for which he is known but they are harmonized by good humored moments and by the colorful imagery. The acting is also very competent with a child actor that is believable. Amidst the chaos there is also a family drama that is not stressed too much so that it does not overpower the impression of fun. The ludic element is indeed the main ingredient in this cauldron of insanity. Unlike so many of Miike's movies, this one to be enjoyed without any qualms. Even the hints of a coming of age narrative are subordinated to the ideal of splurging in fanciful fantasy. And that it achieves beautifully. While some deeper considerations are hinted that, such as the critic view on a society that produces too much waste, what the movie excels at is the manipulation and employment of archetypes to propel a flawlessly entertaining adventure.

I_John_Barrymore_I One of director Miike Takashi's very best. It's so good it's difficult to put into words. At nearly fifteen years older than the target audience it thrilled me from beginning to end.It recalls similar children's films from the 1980s in the sense that (unlike today) those films weren't afraid to scare - there's a lot of nasty detail here that I initially found jarring but soon realised it's nothing different to what I grew up on. The film is a compilation of '80s kid's films conventions. You name it, it's there: a young boy hero thrust from his own unhappy/dysfunctional world into another, inhabited by mythical and mystical goblins; a quest to save both worlds from an evil force; a beautiful heroine he has a crush on; a sadistic henchwoman (Go-Go Yubari from Kill Bill Vol. 1); a lead villain who draws his evil power from something everyone in the world can relate to. But all these genre conventions are given a fresh spin and added depth.One of the IMDb reviews begins "Where was this film when I was a kid?" and it's a sentiment I agree with wholeheartedly. Even while watching it I lamented the fact that I hadn't grown up on it; that it wasn't a part of my childhood like Labyrinth, Masters Of The Universe and, to a much lesser extent, The Neverending Story. Those films, and others like The Goonies are recalled but never copied - Miike relentlessly offering us a new take on things.Poor CGI is a staple of many of his films, sometimes due to budgetary limitations but just as frequently an artistic choice - a desire to present things in an outlandish way. Here the CGI is mostly average, solely due to budgetary limitations, but nevertheless he does a fantastic job of putting on a spectacle. The CG effects combine with traditional puppets, animatronics and truly extraordinary make-up to create a world filled with rich characters (and characterisation) that frequently borders on the visionary.This ranks as one of the greatest children's films ever made. Not for younger or more sensitive kids though.Just jaw-droppingly wonderful. See it for yourselves and if you think your kids can handle/appreciate it then show it to them. Let them grow up on The Great Yokai War as some small compensation for the fact you couldn't.

screaminmimi The only reason I'm giving this a 9 is that the other kid actors who played Tadashi's tormentors were not up to the job. I presume they were just kids who happened to be the right age and handy, but they were not well coached, and their scenes were a minor annoyance. I say not to judge this by U.S. standards because it's full of ambiguities and the kinds of equivocations that Japanese culture readily embraces, and is not beholden to the black-hat/ white-hat moral constraints U.S. kids' films are routinely subjected to. For example, there is a preciously funny moment when Tadashi's small band of yokai companions finds themselves let down and abandoned by the other yokai, and Shojo--the avuncular Kirin herald--does what many a stressed-out Japanese adult would do. Hint: this would not happen in a Disney film. This picture also has the best product placement for beer you will ever see in a kids' movie. Early on, there's a moment where a school teacher smacks a couple of bullies on the head with her attendance book. There was a TV commercial in Japan a couple years before this movie came out. It was a stop-motion clay animation about a kid who's depressed and playing guitar and singing the blues in his room. His mother yells at him from downstairs to shut up. Then, someone gives him a candy bar and he cheers up and sings a happy tune, but his mother comes in and tells him to shut up again and gives him a dope slap that leaves a dent in his forehead. I mention this commercial, because it was considered funny, and I didn't hear any objections to it while I was there. There is a lot more bloodshed and physical cruelty on screen in "The Great Yokai War" than one would find in a Disney movie. As a parent, if this were a U.S. film, I would be up in arms about such things, although not necessarily the moral lessons drawn at the end of the picture, which, of course, are also not black and white. Since it's a Japanese movie, I accept that those cultural norms allow for imagery that would not get past the standards and practices cops in a U.S. production. However, I'd probably be a little uneasy taking young kids to see it without giving them some sort of pre-show briefing and/or post-show debriefing about the violence and other off- color stuff, or I'd wait till they're older to show it to them.