What a fantastic this film is!!
Mr. Haraguchi Tomoo, a director, is known as the famous special make-up artsis and he joined many japanese horror films, for example, "Gamera" series, "All Night Long" series, etc.
Also he is known as a stenuous collector of japanese classic horror movies, espesialy the movies which many charming japanese monsters ("youkai") appeared.
In this film, various pleasing japanese monsters played togather with human actors and sctresses. They looked very funny. And the SAKUYA world is just like the fantastic circus.
Of course, there is evil monsters either. The Sakaki family have order to battle against them by Shogun.
This plot is: In 1707, Sakaki Bizennokami Yoshiaki killed "kappa" (river monster). But he was dead. His magic sword named Muramasa used to eat the life of its owner. His young daughter Sakuya must succeed to his business. The Sakaki family had order to kill the monsters. There was a baby of "kappa" which his father killed. Sakuya decided to look after him. Sakuya named him Tarou.
Half a year later, Tarou grew into a boy in an instant. The Shogun's men ordered Sakuya to trace the volcanic activity of Mt. Fuji to its origin. Sakuya left Edo (Tokyo) to Mt. Fuji with Tarou and two ninjas, Nigarasu Shuuzou and Mashiragi Hyoue.
On the way, they killed a mysterious magician, who could metamorphose girls into dolls, and a "kaibyou" (a.k.a. bakeneko, woman cat monster).
They got to Mt. Fuji and they knew that "Tsuchigumo no homemiko" (spider queen) called into activity to conquest the world. Sakuya and her fellows challenged "Tsuchigumo no himemiko" to a battle...
So simple plot! Mr. Haraguchi made straight the most japanese-like horror entertainment movie! Banzai!:>
