Sakuya: Slayer of Demons (2000)

How long has it been since I wrote about a yōkai movie? Clearly, far too long.

I’ve already written quite a bit about the long history of tokusatsu depictions of Japanese spirits and monsters, which bridge the traditional stories and the modern kaiju and kaijin material that take inspiration from them. Considering that deeply-rooted connection, you can understand why some tokusatsu production lifers would eventually choose to make something yōkai-related—and Sakuya: Slayer of Demons (Japanese subtitle Yōkaiden) is a prime example of just that. Director Tomoo Haraguchi’s “tokusatsu lifer” status is inarguable: he started out working on models and make-up as far back as Ultraman 80 in the early eighties, eventually working on to previous site subject Ultra Q The Movie and the the nineties Gamera trilogy (more recently, he has some credited design work on Shin Ultraman.) The movie he produced is a smaller scale project that showcases some of what classical effects could do in the new millennium, one set of traditions nestled within a story based on a much older set of traditions.