Letterboxd Season Challenge 2019-2020! Theme two, part two - a swords and sorcery film!
(Chosen by Jackie!)
I think film based on ancient myths and legends often fall into a trap of their source material predating modern storytelling conventions by so long as to require active legwork to bring them up to standards. After all, many of these stories were meant as parables rather than narratives, yarns of creation and heroic deeds and grand tragedy that explain or contextualize a vital aspect of the natural world or a people's shared identity, easily identifiable to all upon repetition, reinforcing a sense of who we are. Plots repeating across cultures and details painted with the broadest brush are part of the point. You couldn't get the point across half so cleanly if the teller were liable to forget important details halfway through the telling. The mythological tradition of Japan may differ slightly from those of western cultures this aphorism typically applies to, but I'd imagine the tale of Yamata no Orochi, his tricking and slaying by the exiled thunder god Susa-no-O, and the discovery of the Kusanagi blade within one of his eight tails works along similar lines. We're recounting how one of Japan's Imperial Regalia was discovered in an example of cunning winning over power. Works just fine for oral tradition, but you need a little more than the barebones details in a film.
Takeru Yamato (otherwise known as Orochi the Eight-Headed Dragon, probably in evocation of the similarly titled Godzilla film), makes... some effort to update the telling for a modern filmgoing audience. Whether those updates were sufficient is a matter of debate. Takao Okawara positions the film as a fusion of several Japanese tales, merging Orochi with the moon god Tsukuyomi, and making his return to earth in a failing prison of crystal and ice the story's main ticking clock. Elsewhere, Takeru Yamato - a legendary prince who wielded the Kusanagi in tales of old - is given an origin story, his battle against Kumaso warriors expanded into a quest to regain his honor after a mysterious power within him seemingly kills his mother and brother. He's also given an explicit destiny, of uniting three great lights (variants on the Imperial Regalia he acquires throughout the film), and defeating the terrible eight-headed dragon in direct combat. For good measure, we've also got a romantic subplot for him to work through, mostly because the legendary Takeru lost a wife to a sea monster. This all sounds fine and dandy, and would play fine if given proper animating impetus.
Well, there's where the film stumbles. It leans in HARD on the destiny aspect, propelling Takeru from place to place less because there's some driving force behind the film, and more because a godly hand from on high says he needs to. The actors all play their parts pretty flat and passionless for the grand mythological stakes at play, with lead Masahiro Takashima especially failing to make much special impression. His chemistry with Yasuko Sawaguchi as love interest Oto is almost entirely nonexistent, which isn't too much of a problem when their scenes together are so touch-and-go in nature, but becomes a massive weight on the third act when their undying love for one another is supposed to help defeat Orochi, and you just don't feel it. Nothing much ever feels like it's happening for any bigger reason than fulfilling formalities, which ain't great when you want to get caught up in some high-flying mythological action. The whole thing's just ever-so-slightly draggy, and keeps me from earnestly running along with its plot.
Doesn't help that in a lot of ways, Takeru Yamato isn't much to look at, either. I understand this was something of a lower-budgeted film for Toho, having taken Okawara off the Godzilla films to helm this as the start of an intended trilogy, but the film is devoid of their usual lo-fi charm. They're typically at least charmingly low-budget, skillful within the constraints of their cheapness. A lot of the creatures on display here are incredibly stiff for coming out've a company that spent the previous forty years perfecting these techniques. The chrome, bird-shaped god Amano Shiratori makes more appearances than most any other creature, and has no points of articulation whatsoever. Kumasogami looks alright, if incredibly slow and dinky in combat, and the CG-morphing is at least neat-looking for the mid-90s. Sea monster Kaishin Muba just sorta sits there in the background of a green-screen while his tentacles whip about rather unconvincingly. When Orochi finally arrives in the film's final twenty minutes, his heads and necks look pretty good, as befits anything that came out of the Heisei Ghidorah molding press - but his BODY, oh god his body. I've looked at pictures of the figurines Bandai put out, and I couldn't for the life of me tell you it had legs before doing so. It all looks like one enormous, unmoving fleshy lump that slides forward like it's one treads or something. He's the centerpiece of a film meant to kick-off a new moneymaker for Toho after Godzilla's intended retirement the next year, and yet I cannot see a cent of what I'd expect for a film of that status.
Don't even get me started on how the humans interact with the puppets and suitmation. I'll admit it's rather neat Toho opted to position the creatures as either smaller than normal or send the humans into the midst of their gigantic bodies, but the effect is not convincing in the slightest. Some of the worst effects come about when we're just trying to imply someone is sharing space with a prop that could easily be made larger with forced perspective, yet is achieved through pretty terrible greenscreen.
In fairness, by volume the movie's action is more martial arts than kaiju action, and the parts where actors are jumping about one another with swords and fists and fireballs is pretty enjoyable. The big clash between Takeru and the Kumaso leader (who gives him the name Takeru, incidentally) even has a glint of weight and portent as the pair clash through multiple locations and grow ever-more battered. A few moments which seem intentionally humorous land well, like when Oto is cornered by dozens of guards who appear from nowhere. And I do have to admit, for as short of Toho's usual standards most of the effects fall, the giant gleaming samurai warrior Utsuno Ikusagami does look pretty glorious when he wrecks Orochi's shit with needless violence.
It's just most of this has to come shortly before, shortly after, or share screenspace with elements I find it difficult to sit through. The lack of a narrative lifeblood other than "because destiny says so" highlights how much of the connective tissue is perfunctory, most characters don't register as interesting or well-conceptualized even without the performance issues, and I can be grooving along to a neat-looking effect before something cheap and amateurish bursts in to kill my vibe. In total effect, there's bits and pieces where I appreciate the spell, but it still plays as a shoddy semi-adaptation of an oral legend without much work put towards making it cinematically viable. For all the protagonists interact with special effects and go flying through the air, the story neglects their personage in order to work with the same broad brush strokes of character and event that an old telling from back in the 500s would rely upon, and it doesn't work onscreen all that much. Perhaps I'd be better served by The Three Treasures, the three-hour long, Toshiro Mifune-led adaptation of this same tale Toho released back in 1959. I'd say the effects will be worse but the story more palatable, but... honestly, knowing how much better the surrounding Godzilla films look compared to this, maybe effects 35 years regressed will feel more acceptable.
2.5/5
No comments:
Post a Comment