Friday, February 14, 2020

THE MAGIC SERPENT 1966 (SINISTER CINEMA)

This is a wonderful Japanese fantasy adventure film.

The story is very simple. A benevolent ruler is killed by an evil enemy and he takes over the throne. A young prince is rescued from the hostile take over and is raised by an elderly magician.

The young man is raised to be a great fighter who them feels he must return to his home country and destroy the evil ruler. There is plenty of great sword play and it slowly build up to a clash between good and evil.

The evil ruler changes into a huge lizard monster and the prince changes into a giant frog and the monsters battle to the death along with a giant spider that is also on the side of good.

The widescreen presentation and the beautiful color are really spectacular and the only problem I have with the entire movie is the soundtrack. It is off by about a second or two and it kinda ruins the entire movie.

Dubbing has never been very good, but in this case it isn't the dubbing, it's the print. However, I have never seen a print of this film that isn't that way for some reason.

If you like great Japanese monster and fantasy movies, then this is the one for you.

It has been said that this was George Lucas' inspiration for his epic Star Wars movie back in 1977. It is indeed very similar. Recommended.

No comments:

Post a Comment