Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare

Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare was the first in a series of Japanese children's movies created in the 1960s.

There were originally three movies made:

• Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare 1968
• Yokai Monsters: One Hundred Monsters 1968
• Yokai Monsters: Along With Ghosts 1969

The films were produced by Daiei Motion Picture Company, and feature actors in rubber costumes playing the monsters.

In 2005, Takashi Miike directed the first new entry in the series, The Great Yokai War, which was more or less a remake of Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare.

Plot summary

In the original Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare, the setting is the Middle Ages. After hibernating for thousands of years, a Babylonia monster called Daimon is awoken from the ancient ruins in which he is sleeping by Arab grave robbers. Daimon then flies to Japan. On the Japanese coast a magistrate, his daughter and a servant are fishing. A sudden storm forces them to head home, but the magistrate decides to 'patrol the area' first. Daimon lands and kills him, sucks his blood and takes on his form. The disguised monster returns to the magistrate's home, where the daughter's dog takes a dislike to him. Daimon kills the dog and then trashes several household altars and shrines, and demands that the broken remains be burnt. The daughter and servants cannot understand his changed manner. His steward confronts him, but the disguised Daimon takes over his body too. A kappa (Japanese water sprite) in the courtyard pond is awoken by the commotion, and comes out of the pond to investigate. Realizing the magistrate is Daimon in disguise, he tries to expel Daimon from the house, but is defeated. So the kappa runs off to beg the help of the apparitions (ghosts and monsters) who live in the surrounding countryside. They can find no reference to the monster he describes in their monster handbook, so they don't believe the kappa's story.

Meanwhile the steward contacts his uncle, a Buddhist priest, who tells him the magistrate is a monster in disguise, and explains to him how he can expel the monster with magic. The steward tries the magic, but Daimon discovers him, and they fight. The steward spears one of the monster's eyes.

A new magistrate comes to replace the old one (though quite why is never explained, perhaps the original magistrate's term of office has ended), but Daimon kills him and takes over his body. Because the monster has lost an eye, when he inhabits the new magistrate's body, that body is also missing an eye. Safe in the new Magistrate's body, the monster has the steward arrested and orders his execution.

Daimon soon desires the blood of children to maintain his immortality, so he has the magistrate's servants hunt down the local farmers' children. Two young boys escape the hunters and beg the kappa and other apparitions to help them. The apparitions and kappa try to combat Daimon, but are too weak, so they call on all Japanese apparitions.

In the final fight Daimon clones himself, and the apparitions expend most of their strength attacking the clones, and not the original monster. But they soon realise they can defeat him by blinding his one remaining eye, so they target his eyes. Daimon is then defeated and flees Japan. The humans and the apparitions rejoice that "he will probably never return" (!), and the Japanese apparitions all go home.

The movie was available on DVD in Thailand in 2008, with original Japanese soundtrack or Thai dubbing audio options, and Thai or English subtitles.

External links

• Spook Warfare at Allmovie.com
• One Hundred Monsters at Allmovie.com
• Along With Ghosts at Allmovie.com