Movie Review: Kitaro (2007) directed by Katsuhide Motoki
The Miura family has been going through some tough times. Mrs. Miura died a couple of years back, and Mr. Miura (Go Riju) never got over it. He’s developed a bit of a drinking problem, so teenage daughter Mika (Mao Inoue) has had to step up as caretaker for her grade schooler brother Kenta (Ruka Uchida.) More recently, Mr. Miura was laid off from his factory job, and hasn’t been able to find another. He’s desperate enough to consider pawning his late wife’s wedding ring. A greedy land developer is trying to tear down their whole neighborhood to build an amusement park, and their apartment building is haunted (though Mika’s never noticed.) Kenta has a plan for the last one–send a letter by the yokai post to summon the hero Kitaro of the Gegege Forest!
Kitaro (Eiji Wentz) shows up and drives away the haunting yokai, who turn out to have been hired by Nezumi-Otoko (aka Rat-Man, played by Yo Oizumi), who’d been paid by the developer to drive out the tenants. Kitaro meets Mika and is stricken by strange emotions towards her, especially as she missed all the supernatural events and thinks he’s a random street weirdo.
Nezumi-Otoko decides to sleep at the fox spirit shrine, crashes through the floor, and discovers a strange glowing rock concealed there. Short on cash, Nezumi-Otoko grabs the stone and takes it to the nearest pawn shop. The pawnbroker cheats him on the price, but while that businessman is preoccupied, Mr. Miura comes in to pawn his own item, and feels compelled to filch the stone, then give it to Kenta for safekeeping.
Turns out that the glowing rock is the Evil Stone, which overwhelms weak minds with the desire to own it. In the hands of the stronger-willed, it bestows great power, but also madness and eventual downfall. Several great conquerors have owned the stone and met bad ends. In the present instance, the wicked kitsune (fox spirit) Kuko (Satoshi Hashimoto) was planning to use the stone to punish humanity for its destruction of fox habitat. He reasons that Mr. Miura passed it off to one of his children, and starts going after the kids, requiring Kitaro to intervene again.
This movie is a live-action adaptation of the long-running Gegege no Kitaro franchise, which I talk about on this blog fairly frequently. It uses a mixture of heavy makeup, rubber suits and CGI to bring the many monsters and special effects to life in an enjoyably goofy manner. It’s a “family” film. For the kiddies, there’s a heavy focus on Kenta as the main human character in danger and having adventures. For the parents, there’s the faithful recreation of the look and feel of the cartoon that they watched when younger. And for teens, there’s mild romance and Kitaro being played by a popular music celebrity.
That last bit is the weakest part of the movie. In order to cast a boy band member as Kitaro, the main character is aged up to a moody teenager, handwaved as him finally having hit puberty after 350 years. He also gets prettified; this Kitaro has two functional eyes and no deformities. The romance between him and Mika feels forced, the more so since due to the nature of the franchise, we know it’s not going anywhere. And as often happens with celebrity casting, Wentz is one of the weaker actors in the movie.
But this movie is a visual delight that doesn’t mind dropping unimportant plot points in mid-story and has a mostly happy ending. Be sure to stick around for the credits!
Content note: Nezumi-Otoko, as always, is the source of some body function humor. A bit of blood, and the death of a parent, may make this difficult for sensitive younger viewers. Those unfamiliar with Japanese history may be surprised when a Christian is depicted as one of the owners of the Evil Stone.
Topical: The police, both human and yokai, are depicted as having entirely negative effects in this story.
Overall: An enjoyably goofy movie for families that enjoy a little light horror. Most recommended for those already familiar with the franchise, as no time is wasted on explaining who the recurring characters are.
