Giant Demon God

Directed by
 Budget

Giant Demon God (also known as Daimajin) is a 1966 Daiei tokusatsu kaiju film, it is the First film in the Daimajin film trilogy Published April 17, 1966 (Showa era Year no. 41). The Parallel Work is " Big Monster Battle Gamera vs. Bargon ". Works by Daiei Kyoto Studio. The box office style of using the studios in Kyoto and Tokyo properly and making two special effects in-house with the same work was the first in Japan that even Toho with Eiji Tsuburaya could not be realized. According to Hisashi Okuda, who was the deputy Director of Planning, the production budget was 100 million yen, and although the distribution was a big hit with 100 Million Yen, he said that "after all, it was a ton ton, so hard and no profit."

The proposal of this work has been submitted to the Daiei headquarters, 1965 that in the first 124 times planning meeting in November first week of (1965), was a Daiei Kyoto studio director Suzuki Bomein, planning Deputy Director was was Hisashi Okuda by, Czechoslovakia "of the movie giant Golem " (1936 , Julien Duvivier Director  ) drawn by the Golem takes a legend to the wood  , special-effects technology of Daiei Kyoto studio It is supposed to untilize. The names of people such as Kogenta and Sauma Nosuke in the film are also by Okuda.

The origin of the Great Genie is the Space Iceman who appears in "Gamera vs. Space Iceman", which exists only in the plot .

The height of Daimajin was decided to be 15 shaku (about 4.5 meters) by Yoshiyuki Kuroda and others , considering the realism on the screen . Kuroda later participated in Tsuburaya Productions ' television work, but according to him, this was a call from President Hajime Tsuburaya who saw this work .

Prior to this show, President Masaichi Nagata has shown his enthusiasm to put a sentence on the newspaper at the time saying, "The Japanese film industry will definitely recover." . In the Daimajin series, the blue back composition is very effective, but in the production of this first work, Nagata set up 190 iodine bulbs in a diamond shape on a large scale of 11m x 4.6m. I have purchased a light screen for the back. Since AC electricity causes uneven light in the light, the current converted to direct current at the studio was used as the power source for this light screen, and the shooting was done in perfect condition. According to Fujio Morita, a veteran cameraman from Daiei Kyoto, this equipment, which was imported at a huge cost of about 10 million yen at that time, is also a work of Kyoto Studio, " Yokai Hyakumonogatari ", in addition to the Daimajin series. It is said that there was almost no turn except for the " Yokai Series " such as (1968) .

Morita, who turned the camera across both the main story and the special effects in both the first and second works, said, "If you do not shoot both the main story and the special effects by yourself, the air layer will not be realistic", "shoot by yourself" I accepted this work on the condition that. Morita emphasizes the importance of the cinematographer's position in this work and serves as this. In the Daimajin series, large-scale blue back composition has had a tremendous effect, but the development of the composition screen at that time had to be done by letting it sit for two days in order to match the tone of the films of the composition material, and development It took 20 days to complete the composite screen. While shooting with " Dynamite Doctor (Dr. Drunk) " ( directed by Kenji Misumi , starring Shintaro Katsu ) in all three "Daimajin" works, the cost of one composite screen cut costs 300,000 yen at that time, so the result Morita said, "My heart went crazy" because of the hard work and stress of the shooting schedule. For this reason, "Great Genie Counterattack" is being shot under the joint name of Hiroshi Imai.

Prior to this work, Daiei produced the US-Japan aviation special effects movie " Flight from Ashiya " ( Director Michael Anderson , 1964), which was blue using a blue-painted horizont wall. Back synthesis was performed. However, this method causes color unevenness, so I struggled with the composite screen. The American staff did not trust Daiei's own Tokyo Laboratory, and the development of blue back synthesis was done by sending the film to the United States. After seeing this, Morita independently shot a blue-back test film in which a toy tank came out from the front entrance of Daiei Kyoto Studio in 1965 (Showa 40), and the result was good. It became popular and was the source of the "Daimajin" project.

It was Chikara Hashimoto , a professional baseball player, who acted as a suit actor for the role of Daimajin in all the trilogy . It was Yoshiyuki Kuroda who appointed Hashimoto, and he said that he reminded him that "the leading role is just that." The photo was taken with potato powder, cork dust, and dust made from charcoal powder flying around, but Hashimoto said he never blinked while the camera was spinning. As a result, the bloody eyes became an impressive hit, and even in " Yokai Great War ", he showed both bloody eyes as the blood-sucking youkai Dimon, leaving a strong impression  . Rough eyes could only be cleaned with tea . Morita also said, "I can't get up to that person."

Akira Ifukube, who was in charge of the composition, said, "Since the genie is a god, I had a divine image, but when I saw the video, the bloody eyeballs on my blue-black face moved and glared at me, so this is great. I was surprised when it came to that, "he said. Ifukube gives this genie a very impressive theme song consisting of three scales, and builds a profound depth in the work world. According to Hisashi Okuda, all three directors, including Okuda, Yasuda, Misumi, and Mori, are big fans of Ifukube music.

The staff of Daiei Kyoto put the know-how of the historical drama set built over many years to create a miniature of a spectacular building. According to the height of the genie, the speed of the film was increased by 2.5 times, and the size of each tile was unified to a scale of 1 / 2.5. Dozens of people are pulling the collapsed castle gate, and a bulldozer is also used. The miniature of the genie that collapses in the last scene was created by Ryosaku Takayama, but it did not collapse as expected, and considerable trial and error has been carried out. The final collapse of the genie miniature in the play was done by applying compressed air from above.

The open set of the fort was set up in a quarry in Kutsukake, Kyoto. The Kutsukake quarry was also used for the second and third open sets. The crank-in was taken on February 3rd, the crank-up was taken on April 10th, and the shooting took 3 months including the test period.

## Plot

In a remote village in the province of Tanba, a household of peasants cowers during a series of earth tremors that are interpreted as the escape attempts of Arakatsuma, also known as Great Demon God, a violent divine spirit said to be trapped within the nearby mountain held in fear and reverence by the locals.

As the village gathers at the local shrine to perform an ancient ritual to pacify Daimajin, Ōdate Samanosuke (Ryūtarō Gomi), chamberlain to the local lord Hanabusa Tadakiyo (Ryūzō Shimada), stages a coup d'état. He and his henchmen slaughter Hanabusa and his wife, but their son and daughter escape, aided by the heroic samurai Kogenta (Jun Fujimaki). Back at the shrine, Samanosuke's men break up the ceremony, forbidding all such gatherings in the future. The elderly priestess, Shinobu (Otome Tsukimiya), issues a dire warning, but the men ignore her.

Kogenta takes the two children to his aunt Shinobu's house. The priestess takes them up the mountain, into forbidden territory, where a gigantic stone idol of the mountain god who had sealed Daimajin long ago stands half-buried atop a waterfall. Near this idol is an ancient temple - safe as only Shinobu knows of its existence.

The children grow to adulthood. The son, Tadafumi (Yoshihiko Aoyama) reaches his 18th birthday. The years have been miserable on the villagers. Samanosuke is a brutal leader (in one scene, he gouges out an old woman's eye with a red-hot iron hook) who is using every man in the starving village as slave labor. The place is ripe for revolution, and surviving Hanabusa retainers are starting to return.

Kogenta journeys to the village to try to gather the old retainers, but gets himself captured. A boy, Take-bō, gets word to Tadafumi and his sister, Kozasa (Miwa Takada) that their friend is a prisoner. Tadafumi tries to rescue him, only to discover it's a trap. With both awaiting execution, Shinobu tries to talk to the tyrant, warning him that the god of the mountain's curse will befall him should he continue his evildoing ways. Samanosuke, refusing to heed Shinobu's words, kills her and orders the idol demolished. With her dying breath, Shinobu curses Samanosuke to die a harsh, merciless death and declares that if he attempts to destroy the idol, the wrathful Arakatsuma sealed inside it will come out.

The crew that travels up the mountain to smash the idol accidentally discovers Kozasa and Take-bō, and force them to take them to the statue. The soldiers bring out an enormous chisel and proceed to hammer it into the idol's head; they stop when they see blood beginning to drip from it. Horrified, the men attempt to flee, but the earth cracks open and swallows them.

Kozasa begs the god of the mountain to save her brother and Kogenta and punish the wicked Samanosuke. At the fortress, Tadafumi and Kogenta are tied to large crosses, awaiting their fates. Kozasa offers her life to the god and attempts to throw herself over the nearby waterfall, but the rock and earth covering the lower half of the idol fall away, and it comes to life. As it walks out into the clearing, Kozasa prostrates herself before it; the idol, animated by the reawakened Daimajin Arakatsuma, assumes a terrifying appearance and goes to Samanosuke's stronghold.

Daimajin rescues both Kogenta and Tadafumi and proceeds to utterly destroy the fortress. After impaling Samanosuke with the chisel on its forehead, Daimajin now turns its wrath upon everyone in sight. Take-bō unsuccessfully begs Daimajin to stop; as the boy was about to get trampled on by the idol, Kozasa steps in and saves him. Kozasa tearfully pleads Daimajin to cease its rampage, letting her tears fall on its stone feet. Its anger now quelled, Daimajin's spirit leaves the idol, restoring it to its former appearance before it collapses into a heap of rubble; out of the ground returns Daimajin.

## Cast

* Hanafusa Kosasa: Miwa Takada
* Hanafusa Tadafumi: Yoshihiko Aoyama
* Hanafusa Tadafumi (boyhood): Hideki Ninomiya
* Sentamaru Kota: Jun Fujimaki
* Otachi Samanousuke: Ryutaro Gomi
* Tadanoki Hanafusa: Ryuzo Shimada
* Inugami Gunjuro: Tatsuo Endo
* Yusuke Kajiura: Shozo Sugiyama
* Ippei Nakama: Saburo Date
* Nobuo Miko: Tsukimiya Otome
* Takebo: Shizuhiro Deguchi
* Gosaku: Eigoro Onoue
* Ogori Suimizu : Yutaro Ban
* Sonjuro Harada: Hideo Kuroki
* Yuno: Keiko Kayama
* Mosuke: Gen Kimura
* : Shintaro Akatsuki
* : Akira Shiga
* : Masako Morishita
* : Hatsumi Yoshikawa
* : Jun Osugi
* : Atsushi Katsumura
* : Kazuo Moriuchi
* : Asahi Amamiya
* : Kanji Uehara
* Motoki Hanzo, Daimajin: Riki Hashimoto

## Staff

* Production: Masakazu Nagata
* Planning: Kuji Okuda
* Director: Kimiyoshi Yasuda
* Screenplay: Tetsuro Yoshida
* Photography: Fujiro Morita (both main and special effects)
* Recording: Dotaro Hayashi
* Lighting: Hiroshi Bima
* Art: Akira Naito
* Music: Akira Ifukube
* Edit: Hiroshi Yamada
* Mito: Eiichi Kusumoto
* Sound effect: Nobu Kurashima
* Assistant Director: Eiji Nishizawa
* Production Manager: Mitsuru Tanabe
* Special effects director: Yoshiyuki Kuroda
* Special effects composition: Teizo Tanaka
* Development: Toyo Developer

## Titles

* The Hideous Idol Majin (International title)
* Majin, the Monster of Terror (United States)
* Majin, Monster of Terror
* Majin, the Stone Samurai
* The Vengeance of the Monster
* The Giant Majin
* Majin
* Fury of Mountain God
* Majin the Hideous Idol
* The Devil Got Angry
* The Giant Evil Monster: Daimajin

## U.S. release

In 1967, American International Television licensed Daimajin for syndication as *Majin, Monster of Terror*. It was dubbed into English in Rome by the English Language Dubbers Association.

## Production

The cinematographer on Daimajin is sometimes credited to Yoshiyuki Kuroda and sometimes to Fujio Morita.

## Release

Daimajin was released theatrically in Japan on April 17, 1966. The film was released simultaneously in the United States with English subtitles by Daiei International Films and in an English-language dub by Bernard Lewis.

## DVD

ADV DVD (2002) [The Complete Daimajin Trilogy]

* Region: 1
* Discs: 3
* Audio: Japanese (2.0 Mono)
* Special Features: Trailers
* Notes: Out of print. Packaged with Return of Daimajin and Daimajin Strikes Again. Reissued as a single disc in 2005.

Mill Creek Blu-ray (2012) [Daimajin Triple Feature]

* Region: N/A
* Discs: 2
* Audio: Japanese (DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0), English (DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0)
* Special Features: Trailers for all three Daimajin films, interviews with cinematographer Fujio Morita on the making of each film (28, 31, and 28 minutes).
* Notes: Packaged with Return of Daimajin and Daimajin Strikes Again.