Terrific
Wrath of Daimajin provides a new story, some terrific visuals and still gives you the thrill of seeing Daimajin kick ass at the end.
Plot: After their fathers are forced to work in a labor camp, four young children embark on a quest to free them, gaining the help of Daimajin at the end.
Review: The third of the trilogy, Wrath of Daimajin is also the most unique. Unlike Return of Daimajin, it doesn’t feature a repeating story from the previous entries. Instead, we get a tale of heroism, one I found so enthralling, I forgot Daimajin was supposed to appear at the end. The quest of the four kids feels like an adventure, one that I found myself drawn into, eliminating the usual impatience I feel for Daimajin to show up and wreak havoc.
Part of the reason the story is so good is the characters. All four of the kids come in different ages and sizes. While their personalities are not distinct from one another, the visual differences are enough to give them more depth than they’re written. I was also blown away at one point by a shocking death that doesn’t get backtracked. This movie is serious, folks, and just because they’re all kids doesn’t mean they’re invincible.
The visuals in this movie are stunning. You have the wonderful grassy, hilly Japanese landscape, but there’s also a terrific sequence in a raging river and even snow! Yes, snow! I’ve never seen Daimajin covered in snow before. The snow isn’t just there for atmosphere, either. There’s a tense scene where the entire party is put in peril due to the cold and being covered in snow. So, it wasn’t just there because the filmmakers were like, “Hey, we hadn’t featured snow before in a Daimajin movie.”
If this movie has any weaknesses, I would say it’s the villains. They aren’t that memorable. True, they’re complete bastards; they callously throw people into an acid pit (called a “sulphur pit”) to intimidate their prisoners. They’re planning to use the new bridge being built to go terrorize other people in their territory. They’re not nice people. But, compared to the other Daimajin movies, they’re just there. There’s no over-the-top, scenery-chewing antagonist. The bad guys are just bad guys without the panache I have come to expect from these movies.
As for the divine god himself, Daimajin is featured in this movie longer than the others. He teleports, too! So, he’s not just a one-trick pony, he evolves! Which is cool. Besides that, he’s stomping around, destroying buildings, causing people to run and scream. He murders the main bad guy brutally – again, as the guy is bland, it seems unnecessarily brutal, but hey, who am I to judge? Daimajin just stomping around and glaring is cool on its own. His theme music is killer as well.
Do I recommend this movie? Hell, yeah. I recommend all the Daimajin movies. This one especially gives you some new elements, a better story, different locales and doing this movie with kids was the right choice; their innocence is endearing and a breath of fresh air when every kid in movies nowadays seems to need an attitude. If you liked the other Daimajin films, this one has a more extended appearance of everyone’s favourite grumpy god, which is reason alone to watch it.