This infamous animated film is continuously misrepresented in the West, being often categorized as porn, when it's actually a Gothic horror tale (which, by definition, includes sexual themes and imagery associated with transformation). And while they could eventually accept that simple fact, North Americans will probably never consider such a film as a legitimate work of art on the back of their rigidly puritanical and self-centered mentality. Such disregard also stems from the bothersome, but deeply-rooted Western belief according to which animation is children's fare, a contention which posits that the (very) rigid and moralistic Disney/Pixar narrative is almost the only one suitable for animated material. That's grossly under-estimating the awesome artistic potential of squirming tentacles, but most of all, it's confusing container and content. After all, animation is only a technique used to convey an idea, which is immediately freed from the shackles of reality. As for the animated content, its possibilities are endless, although it is often squarely used to showcase national quirks, which is precisely the case with this typically Japanese outing.
RANT ALERT! RANT ALERT! RANT ALERT!
(Please skip the following three paragraphs if you don't care for a rant against the MPAA)
If you're a productivity-minded society with mostly commercial imagination, reproducing sanitized art products ad nauseam, then you'll surely get the full gamut of talking animals and machines dispensing eon-old lessons about family life and friendship. But if you're a desperately expressive society obsessed by dark dreams of insularity, the nuclear Holocaust and sexual inadequacy, then you might get something like Urotsukidôji, a truly artistic endeavour that's both entertaining and cultural-specific. A film that features fairly explicit sexuality (but nothing hardcore or overly exploitative) ranging from the downright horrific to the sweet and innocent. A film that shows sex as a crucial transformative process... just like it is in real life. You might not know this, but sex is actually a very important part of life! It touches every single person from every culture, every religion and every walk of life. Then why is it banned from the screen? Why should I be ashamed to say that I enjoy watching tentacle-rape scenes that are narratively crucial, gorgeously animated, and full of pulse-pouding action?
The answer can be found in the institutionalized puritanism that plagues the MPAA and other such bodies of morality-control. Whenever sex is approached in a meaningful, level-headed way, these organizations always rear their ugly heads. Many complex, awesome films such as Boys Don't Cry, La Mala Educacion, Clerks, Crash (1996), The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover, Eyes Wide Shut, La Grande Bouffe, Happiness, In the Realm of the Senses, Kids, L.I.E., Last Tango in Paris, Lust, Caution, Mysterious Skin, Requiem for a Dream, and Where the Truth Lies were either brutally edited down or slapped an NC-17 rating (a kiss of death at the box office) thanks to the evil MPAA. Yet, none of these films is exploitative in any way; many of them being actually very tame, such as Clerks who merely discusses sex in a humorous, day-to-day manner. Now, that's what happens when corporate interests outweigh the relevance of art, when dishonest individuals such as Jack Valenti invoke "the greater good" to justify dubious business decisions, and when lobbyists run democratically-appointed officials. Without trying to boast, let me just say that in Quebec, a harmless comedy such as Office Space is rated G while it is rated R just across the border for "bad" words such as 'shit' and 'fuck', which are uttered maybe twice in the whole film. Why? Because film ratings are awarded here by a non-biased governmental organization that appraises content in light of the psychological impact it might have on its audience, not by a partisan Hollywood excrescence that uses "morality" to regulate the market.
Just imagine... Imagine a world without MPAAs and legions of decency, where touching, meaningful films such as Mysterious Skin and Happiness could be enjoyed and discussed by mass audiences, where Robin Williams could properly sing the hilarious "Blame Canada" at the Oscars, and where horror fans could watch pornographic sequences of animation without being tagged as disturbed perverts. Because that's another thing, the generally negative outlook on pornographic animation. It's as if it was somehow worst than live-action pornography. It's as if the tortured toons of hentais had it worst than the unilingual Russian immigrants who nervously stare at the camera while getting agressively double-fucked in mainstream porn. Are you kidding me? Pornographic animation is harmless. In it, no real girl is force-fed cum or anally sweeped by twelve-inch cocks. It's just this silly idea that people have according to which it's nerdy to jerk off to a "drawing", however life-like it might be. Personally, I think that the super-agile, unnaturally proportionned hentai heroines offer much more in the way of fantasmatic possibilities than any live girl could. I don't think that carnal lust for animated characters is any weirder than the consumption of "regular" pornography, insofar as it doesn't alienate the viewer from actual women (which he should love and respect above all). I mean, I know animation is not real, but so are Hollywood starlets. I know I will never fuck Motoko Kusanagi, but I will never fuck Megan Fox either!
END OF RANT
Sorry. I didn't originally want to write such a long rant. It's just that my fingers were on fire while I typed, fueled as they were by my hatred for the MPAA. On the other hand, I couldn't really review a film as controversial as Legend of the Overfiend without putting it into context. And now that I have, there is nothing much more to add other than to say that it is a great horror film that features unforgettable imagery, crisp animation, insane action scenes, and a tight, involving plot with epic proportions. It delivers on almost all fronts, and although the English dubbing (made by porno actors) defuses many emotional scenes, it still benefits from true-to-life, street accents that perfectly befit the irreverant script. Thus, we get "fucking Nagumo" instead of "damned Nagumo" or "fornicating Nagumo". The film also has some historical importance since it is the first incarnation of "tentacle porn" on the big screen. That said, such a form of erotica is not new at all for its roots actually date back to the Edo period. Case in point: below is a reproduction of the famous woodcut featuring The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife by renowned artist Hokusai, dating back to 1814 (app.).
The premise of the film is as follows. According to the legend, a god known as the Chôjin is born every 3,000 years on Earth to unite the three parallels worlds (the Ningenkai, human world, Jûjinkai, world of man-beasts, and Makai, world of demons) in one peaceful whole. Content with the prophecy, foul-mouthed man-beast Amano Jyaku has spent the last 300 years wandering Earth in search of the one who would become the Chôjin (thus his nickname, urotsukidôji, which means "wandering kid") while the demons of Makai (such as the awesome Suikakujû) plot his demise. Surprisingly, the Chôjin seed is found within a nerdy college student, Nagumo Tatsuo, a young man who enjoys his love for angel-faced Akemi by peeping and masturbating while she's changing clothes in the locker room. A young man whom bodily harm and sex can transform into a gargantuan demon with powerful phallic tentacles. But is he really the Chôjin? And if so, what is his true agenda?
What starts out as a colorful coming-of-age story perfectly combines with the Gothic elements of mythology that gradually seep into the plot, bringing along warped concepts about sexuality and manhood which the teenage characters must face head-on. As the film progresses, the concern shifts from Nagumo and Akemi's budding romance to the upcoming apocalypse via the messianic prophecy of the Chôjin (which, instead of provoking dubious "immaculate" conceptions, relies on its numerous glowing cocks and exploding seeds to impregnate women). On the way to oblivion, intriguing new characters appear such as Suikakujû, demon rival of Amano Jyaku responsible for the 1923 earthquake, and Niki Yûichi, a human rival of Nagumo who replaces his own penis by a demon's in order to become a sort of anti-Chôjin. This is real Gothic horror in the sense that it includes many grotesquely unnatural "romances" bearing catastrophic results as well as dubious "pacts" made between demons and power-mad humans. And do these demons look great, or what? Nowhere better than in Japanese animation! For the most part, they are grotesquely deformed humanoids with extra mouths and phallic, tentacular limbs that bind and rape nubile, but hairless human girls. In other words, they are creatures of pure, depraved pleasure and their bodies are built accordingly. Quite a welcome change of design from that of the tame, sexless Cenobites of the boring Hellraiser mythology... As for the action fan, Legend of the Overfiend provides him with many great, gory fights (the best of which involves Suikakujû and Amano Jyaku on serpentine mounts duking it out over the Tokyo night sky) and a typically extravagant finale featuring the fiery destruction of the city. For the non-discriminating aesthete, it's got fluid and colorful animation and awesome monster designs, combined with the best results during Akemi's initial rape. Sure, it's not Miyazaki, but it's certainly not Dragonball either.
4/5 A unique, historic effort with an epic scale.
RANT ALERT! RANT ALERT! RANT ALERT!
(Please skip the following three paragraphs if you don't care for a rant against the MPAA)
If you're a productivity-minded society with mostly commercial imagination, reproducing sanitized art products ad nauseam, then you'll surely get the full gamut of talking animals and machines dispensing eon-old lessons about family life and friendship. But if you're a desperately expressive society obsessed by dark dreams of insularity, the nuclear Holocaust and sexual inadequacy, then you might get something like Urotsukidôji, a truly artistic endeavour that's both entertaining and cultural-specific. A film that features fairly explicit sexuality (but nothing hardcore or overly exploitative) ranging from the downright horrific to the sweet and innocent. A film that shows sex as a crucial transformative process... just like it is in real life. You might not know this, but sex is actually a very important part of life! It touches every single person from every culture, every religion and every walk of life. Then why is it banned from the screen? Why should I be ashamed to say that I enjoy watching tentacle-rape scenes that are narratively crucial, gorgeously animated, and full of pulse-pouding action?
The answer can be found in the institutionalized puritanism that plagues the MPAA and other such bodies of morality-control. Whenever sex is approached in a meaningful, level-headed way, these organizations always rear their ugly heads. Many complex, awesome films such as Boys Don't Cry, La Mala Educacion, Clerks, Crash (1996), The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover, Eyes Wide Shut, La Grande Bouffe, Happiness, In the Realm of the Senses, Kids, L.I.E., Last Tango in Paris, Lust, Caution, Mysterious Skin, Requiem for a Dream, and Where the Truth Lies were either brutally edited down or slapped an NC-17 rating (a kiss of death at the box office) thanks to the evil MPAA. Yet, none of these films is exploitative in any way; many of them being actually very tame, such as Clerks who merely discusses sex in a humorous, day-to-day manner. Now, that's what happens when corporate interests outweigh the relevance of art, when dishonest individuals such as Jack Valenti invoke "the greater good" to justify dubious business decisions, and when lobbyists run democratically-appointed officials. Without trying to boast, let me just say that in Quebec, a harmless comedy such as Office Space is rated G while it is rated R just across the border for "bad" words such as 'shit' and 'fuck', which are uttered maybe twice in the whole film. Why? Because film ratings are awarded here by a non-biased governmental organization that appraises content in light of the psychological impact it might have on its audience, not by a partisan Hollywood excrescence that uses "morality" to regulate the market.
Just imagine... Imagine a world without MPAAs and legions of decency, where touching, meaningful films such as Mysterious Skin and Happiness could be enjoyed and discussed by mass audiences, where Robin Williams could properly sing the hilarious "Blame Canada" at the Oscars, and where horror fans could watch pornographic sequences of animation without being tagged as disturbed perverts. Because that's another thing, the generally negative outlook on pornographic animation. It's as if it was somehow worst than live-action pornography. It's as if the tortured toons of hentais had it worst than the unilingual Russian immigrants who nervously stare at the camera while getting agressively double-fucked in mainstream porn. Are you kidding me? Pornographic animation is harmless. In it, no real girl is force-fed cum or anally sweeped by twelve-inch cocks. It's just this silly idea that people have according to which it's nerdy to jerk off to a "drawing", however life-like it might be. Personally, I think that the super-agile, unnaturally proportionned hentai heroines offer much more in the way of fantasmatic possibilities than any live girl could. I don't think that carnal lust for animated characters is any weirder than the consumption of "regular" pornography, insofar as it doesn't alienate the viewer from actual women (which he should love and respect above all). I mean, I know animation is not real, but so are Hollywood starlets. I know I will never fuck Motoko Kusanagi, but I will never fuck Megan Fox either!
END OF RANT
Sorry. I didn't originally want to write such a long rant. It's just that my fingers were on fire while I typed, fueled as they were by my hatred for the MPAA. On the other hand, I couldn't really review a film as controversial as Legend of the Overfiend without putting it into context. And now that I have, there is nothing much more to add other than to say that it is a great horror film that features unforgettable imagery, crisp animation, insane action scenes, and a tight, involving plot with epic proportions. It delivers on almost all fronts, and although the English dubbing (made by porno actors) defuses many emotional scenes, it still benefits from true-to-life, street accents that perfectly befit the irreverant script. Thus, we get "fucking Nagumo" instead of "damned Nagumo" or "fornicating Nagumo". The film also has some historical importance since it is the first incarnation of "tentacle porn" on the big screen. That said, such a form of erotica is not new at all for its roots actually date back to the Edo period. Case in point: below is a reproduction of the famous woodcut featuring The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife by renowned artist Hokusai, dating back to 1814 (app.).
The premise of the film is as follows. According to the legend, a god known as the Chôjin is born every 3,000 years on Earth to unite the three parallels worlds (the Ningenkai, human world, Jûjinkai, world of man-beasts, and Makai, world of demons) in one peaceful whole. Content with the prophecy, foul-mouthed man-beast Amano Jyaku has spent the last 300 years wandering Earth in search of the one who would become the Chôjin (thus his nickname, urotsukidôji, which means "wandering kid") while the demons of Makai (such as the awesome Suikakujû) plot his demise. Surprisingly, the Chôjin seed is found within a nerdy college student, Nagumo Tatsuo, a young man who enjoys his love for angel-faced Akemi by peeping and masturbating while she's changing clothes in the locker room. A young man whom bodily harm and sex can transform into a gargantuan demon with powerful phallic tentacles. But is he really the Chôjin? And if so, what is his true agenda?
What starts out as a colorful coming-of-age story perfectly combines with the Gothic elements of mythology that gradually seep into the plot, bringing along warped concepts about sexuality and manhood which the teenage characters must face head-on. As the film progresses, the concern shifts from Nagumo and Akemi's budding romance to the upcoming apocalypse via the messianic prophecy of the Chôjin (which, instead of provoking dubious "immaculate" conceptions, relies on its numerous glowing cocks and exploding seeds to impregnate women). On the way to oblivion, intriguing new characters appear such as Suikakujû, demon rival of Amano Jyaku responsible for the 1923 earthquake, and Niki Yûichi, a human rival of Nagumo who replaces his own penis by a demon's in order to become a sort of anti-Chôjin. This is real Gothic horror in the sense that it includes many grotesquely unnatural "romances" bearing catastrophic results as well as dubious "pacts" made between demons and power-mad humans. And do these demons look great, or what? Nowhere better than in Japanese animation! For the most part, they are grotesquely deformed humanoids with extra mouths and phallic, tentacular limbs that bind and rape nubile, but hairless human girls. In other words, they are creatures of pure, depraved pleasure and their bodies are built accordingly. Quite a welcome change of design from that of the tame, sexless Cenobites of the boring Hellraiser mythology... As for the action fan, Legend of the Overfiend provides him with many great, gory fights (the best of which involves Suikakujû and Amano Jyaku on serpentine mounts duking it out over the Tokyo night sky) and a typically extravagant finale featuring the fiery destruction of the city. For the non-discriminating aesthete, it's got fluid and colorful animation and awesome monster designs, combined with the best results during Akemi's initial rape. Sure, it's not Miyazaki, but it's certainly not Dragonball either.
4/5 A unique, historic effort with an epic scale.
