4 out of 5

Director: Takashi Miike

Whoosh. This is an insane kids film, buoyed by its great imagination and willingness to paint that imagination on the screen with a real story and some heart. The Great Yokai War is seemingly a bit of a passion project for Takashi Miike, and for better or worse it shows: for better in the sense that you have so many awesome yokai filling the screen, each with a piece of their story put into their presentation and their role in the movie, and for worse in that, oddly, this makes the story and Miike themes a bit less… emotional?… than they usually are. The Great Yokai War is about what it sounds like – the unappreciated Yokais start to group together, brought on by all the bad aspects of humanity (wastefulness, selfishness, etc.) and create a monstrous city from which they intend to, basically, take over the world. Standing in the way are the remaining human-dedicated Yokai, and Tadashi, a shy boy who was named Kirin Rider – the savior of the people – at a recent festival. Yes, Tadashi stumbles in his attempts to be brave but overcomes, and you probably know the cycle from there. The before and afters of this process are Miikes forte – subtle family conflicts and real-world difficulties gracefully layered into recognizable characters. Here its spun with some comedy, and the momentary Miike silliness or two, but the opening and closings are great moments. In the middle is where the visual magic happens, with all of the Yokai, and its truly awesome. If you dont know about yokai, this should make you curious. Its just that it gets a little visual happy with showing every possible yokai and so the characters and story get set aside a little bit. But: for a 2hr plus kids movie, this is still so fascinating and so well-done that this is forgivable. Maybe scary for American kids, but if they can prepare for some creepier visuals, this is a really respectful, silly, enjoyable hero epic.