Yokai Monsters: One Hundred Monsters

Yokai Monsters: One Hundred Monsters

Cover of the 2003 ADV Films DVD release
Directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda
Produced by Yamato Yashiro
Screenplay by Tetsurô Yoshida
Starring
  • Shinobu Araki
  • Jun Fujimaki
  • Ryûtarô Gomi
  • Shozo Hayashiya
Music by Michiaki Watanabe (as Chemei Watanabe)
Cinematography Yasukazu Takemura
Edited by Kanji Suganuma
Production
companies
Distributed by Daiei International Films
Release dates
  • 20 March 1968 (1968-03-20)
Running time
 1 hr 20 min (80 min)
Country Japan
Language Japanese

Yokai Monsters: One Hundred Monsters (Japanese: 妖怪百物語 Hepburn Yōkai Hyaku Monogatari, lit. "One Hundred Yōkai Tales") is a Japanese horror/fantasy film directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda. It is the first in a trilogy of films produced in the late 1960s, which focus around Japanese monsters known collectively as Yōkai.

The series consists of three films, all released between the years 1968-1969:

The films, produced by Daiei Motion Picture Company, all make extensive use of practical special effects known as tokusatsu. Rather than using stop motion, the films largely made use of actors in costumes and puppetry. In some scenes, there are even examples of traditional animation.

Notably darker in tone than its more famous sequel, Yokai Monsters: One Hundred Monsters focuses much more on a traditional story about Samurai than it does on its titular monsters.[1] While the monsters do appear throughout the film, they are relegated to antagonistic spook roles, more akin to their appearances in traditional Kaidan.

Influence and legacy

Though perhaps not as well remembered as its sequel, Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare, the film was nonetheless notable for its production features. Many of the props and costumes used were featured in the more famous sequel, and are remembered as some of the more faithful realisations of classic Yōkai renderings. In particular, the puppet used to represent the Kasa-Obake in both films has become one of the most recognised images of Yōkai.

Notes

  1. ↑ Papp 2009, p. 229-230.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/14/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.