Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters (1968) User Reviews

Yokai versus nasty samurai

[ChungMo · 7/10 · 18 November 2008]

The first film in a series that inspired the recent Great Yokai War. Directed by a veteran of the Zatoichi series and the excellent samurai/horror/kaiju film, Daimajin, this film is ably done and moves along at a good pace. The plot isn't much as it's a rather typical samurai and upper classes oppress the poor story. It's the yokai element that gives the film something to watch.

The yokai are all clearly rubber marionette puppets or actors in suits so you have to watch with different expectations, sort of a stage show with puppets. It's the design and spooky atmosphere that makes this fun. The final dance of the yokai as they go off into the sunrise is a great scene and made the movie for me.

Not a great film but fun.

Bizarre beyond belief

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 3 April 2016]

THE HUNDRED MONSTERS is a very bizarre little Japanese film and the first part of a 'YOKAI MONSTERS' trilogy. These films were remembered in the new millennium when none other than Takashi Miike directed his own version of the story (THE GREAT YOKAI WAR). Like other period monster flicks from Japan in the 1960s such as DAIMAJIN, THE HUNDRED MONSTERS feels very much like a traditional samurai movie with added monster action.

The story is a simple and familiar one about some ruthless property developers kicking a bunch of worthwhiles out of their homes. Even worse, they destroy a sacred shrine in the process. This storyline could be told in any country or era, but at least the characters are sufficiently interesting to keep viewers watching. And then we have the monsters, which are among the most bizarre ever filmed. I can't really describe them here, but there's stuff that'll have your jaw dropping, particularly the umbrella monster. A mix of practical and visual effects combine very well to create some fantastic scenes that certainly stick in the mind.

Fun, with wonderful, but underutilized, special effects and creature design

[yourmotheratemydog715 · 6/10 · 25 October 2019]

100 MONSTERS?! What a great film title, bringing to mind one hundred yokai (traditional Japanese monsters and spirits) wreaking havoc on an Edo-period village. The real film doesn't quite live up to that promise, but it's a fun entry into the '60s Japanese popcorn horror canon.

As is the case in many Japanese flicks from this time, the bad guys are powerful landowners who push around the good guys and take their land, their women and even their lives. But after the lords fail to complete a ritual after a "hyaku monogatari" (monster story-telling) event, they are haunted and hunted down by bloodthirsty monsters.

I love yokai to death, so any cinematic representation is fun for me. And what monster action we get here is fittingly awesome; we get a long-necked woman (rokurokubi), long-tongued umbrella monsters (kasa-obake) and faceless humans (noppera-bo), all of which look fantastic. The special effects are surprisingly good and hold up perfectly after 50+ years. Whenever the creatures are the focus of the camera, the film is fun as hell.

The problem is they are not the focus very often. Instead, we're treated to a pretty basic "samurai vs. landlords" plot that proceeds in a rather cliche fashion. It makes for passable watching, but it's not too exciting and not what anybody started watching a movie called 100 MONSTERS for. This is to be expected from a budget flick from the '60s, but it does affect the enjoyment factor of the film.

Overall, though, it's an easy, fun watch with wonderful creature design and delightfully odd moments. Recommended for yokai fans or monster movie lovers, even if it won't become one of your favorites.

Strange and surreal Japanese horror-fantasy

[jamesrupert2014 · 7/10 · 28 January 2019]

Unscrupulous magistrate Tajimaya (Takashi Kanda) uses theft, coercion, violence, and ultimately murder to take over a tenement house and a shrine with the intent of tearing them down. He also uses his leverage to force Ôkubi (Keiko Koyanagi), the beautiful daughter of the tenement's owner (Tatsuo Hanabu) to become his mistress. Tajimaya's actions and disrespect angers the local spirits, the Yôkai, and soon he and his minions find themselves cursed and harassed by monsters. The film, first in a Yokai trilogy from Daiei Film, is an imaginative fantasy with odd imagery (the 'umbrella monster' features prominently in the advertising) superimposed on a typical Japanese samurai adventure. The monsters (a mix of animation, puppets and costumes) are frequently quite bizarre. I am not familiar with Japanese folklore, but I gather that many of the diverse creatures represent traditional tropes (for example: the umbrella monster ('Kasa-obake') and the long-necked woman (Rokurokubi). 'Yokai: 100 Monsters' ('Yôkai hyaku monogatari') is entertaining and offbeat (at least from a 'Western perspective'), and likely a good introduction to yet another fanciful Japanese film genre. Note: I watched an English-subtitled version that, judging from some of the idioms, seems to have been made several years after the original film was released.

Lots of fun!

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 4 January 2021]

Daiei could produce a masterpiece like Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon while still putting out movies that featured Gamera, Zatoichi, Daimajin and the Yokai Monsters, who are based on the monsters of Japanese folklore. They may be evil creatures who cause great misfortune and harm or -- quite the opposite -- could also be beings that bring good fortune to those who meet them.

Much like the aforementioned films like Gamera and Daimajin, this is a tokusatsu film that uses practical effects, including actors in costumes, puppets and animation to tell the story.

That story is really about a rich landowner, who wants to tear down a local shrine to build a brothel. He cheaps out and after telling the stories of the yokai, neglects to pay for the ceremony to keep them out. They soon go wild in the town, partying down as they arrive with sake.

Known in Japan as Yokai Hyaku Monogatari, this was directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda, who made six of the Zatoichi movies. It suffers the sin of some Godzilla movies, in that we don't really care about the humans. We just want the monsters. And we've been promised a hundred of them!

The following film, Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare, came out the same year and realizes this issue and instead fills nearly every moment of the movie with monster after monster. This is good. That movie is great.

Fairly equal amount of pros vs cons

[Jeremy_Urquhart · 6/10 · 1 January 2022]

Definitely a movie of quite noticeable ups and downs.

To start with the cons/get through the negatives first, it's a bit of a slog at times thanks to pacing issues, the story is unfocused, and there's not enough monster shenanigans.

The pros are that when the monsters do appear on screen, they're a lot of fun, and the effects are quite creative. It's also anti-landlord, which is always good to see, and there are a few very visually appealing and eerie shots here and there.

Plus, the final 15 minutes does admittedly go pretty hard. Just feels a little slow-going to get there at times.

I wasn't counting, but I think 100 Monsters is an exaggeration.

[BA_Harrison · 6/10 · 1 January 2024]

The first in Daiei Film's Yokai Monsters trilogy, 100 Monsters is a bizarre mix of samurai movie and the supernatural, its weird and wonderful monsters (or yokai) based on traditional illustrations from Japanese folklore.

The film sees a ruthless lord and a corrupt magistrate resorting to underhand methods, including murder, to get their hands on some valuable real estate currently occupied by a shrine and tenement buildings, their plan being to tear down the existing structures and build a brothel. Ronin Yasutaro (Jun Fujimaki) stands up to the bad guys, but more unusual help comes in the form of the yokai, ghostly monsters who appear on the scene after the land-hungry villains fail to conduct a curse eliminating ritual after a story-telling ceremony.

Using old-school techniques to bring the fantastical creatures to life (men in manky costumes, some puppetry, and crude animation), the film is unlikely to wow modern viewers with its special effects, but there's an undeniable charm to the lo-fi approach and the sheer silliness of the monster designs is endearing (a long-necked woman, a one-legged umbrella and faceless people). Sadly, there just isn't enough of the yokai throughout the film, the bulk of the movie focusing on Yasutaro's run-ins with the bad guys - routine samurai drama that fails to excite.

5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for the giant slit-mouthed floating head - now that was genuinely creepy!

The first movie in the Yokai Monsters Troika

[incrediblemeltingman · 10/10 · 6 March 2005]

This is one of the three great Japanese Yokai movies that ADV has released. All the monsters in it are based on Japanese folklore and traditional art. It isn't as silly as "Spook Warfare" (Yôkai daisensô), which was more of a kids comedy, but it is still a lot of fun and has some genuinely creepy moments. The plot is about a wicked developer who is brutally trying to drive people out of an apartment building and destroy a nearby shrine. Of course this makes the the Yokai monsters angry and they retaliate. Movies like this are almost as much about the monsters though as the plot. Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters has some funny monsters and great costumes for a 60's Japanese monster flick. I recommend it.

Light but flavorful genre fun

[I_Ailurophile · 7/10 · 15 September 2023]

The story is fairly simple as corrupt, greedy, cruel officials meet with fates borne out by their own hubris. Inasmuch as there's more to it than that, the details really just come down to elucidation of the rottenness of the officials and their collaborators, and the nature of how they come to be removed as problems for the townspeople they victimize. It's worth observing that the most fantastical elements of the story are mostly reserved for the last fifth of the runtime, with only bits and pieces flavoring the proceedings before that. Still, the tale is compelling broadly, and where '100 monsters' does embrace the horror of scenario, those scenes are distinctly creepy in the way one would hope as death and madness take over. There is perhaps nothing so striking about this 1968 film as to demand viewership, and it's not the only Daiei production I've seen to struggle a little under a lumbering pace. When all is said and done, though, it's well worth watching on its own merits, and overall a solidly good time.

Setting aside the pacing, this is well made in every capacity. The sets and costume design are just as lovely as one would expect from most any period fare coming out of Japan, and the feature is very easy on the eyes, not least as the warm cinematography of Yasukazu Takemura brings out every detail with a soft yet crisp lens. The cast give admirable performances around commensurate with the material, and I find no fault in Kimiyoshi Yasuda's direction in orchestrating shots and scenes. Perhaps most importantly given the space in which 'Yokai monsters' plays, all the most intense elements of the production look outstanding as they come to bear, mostly within the last stretch. All the stunts and effects that are employed look really great, and the imagination poured into the design of the promised entities is matched only by the enthusiasm with which they were realized by the artists who created the costumes and props and the actors who played them. By and large the result is more "fun-scary" than "scary-scary," but it all comes off very well, and in its own manner provides the flavorful entertainment we anticipate.

Unless one is a major fan of Daiei, or the otherwise many monster flicks that Japan has produced over the years, there isn't necessarily a special reason to check this out. It's enjoyable, but not hugely striking, and it perhaps is not the most robustly invigorating or satisfying title one could watch. '100 monsters' is a classic that remains deserving on its own merits, however, and if one does have the opportunity to watch, this is a fine picture to check out for something comparatively light.

Worst false advertisement ever

[TooKakkoiiforYou_321 · 2/10 · 14 January 2024]

Did you look at the cover and title of this movie? Were you expecting some awesome tokusatsu flick sporting lots and lots of monsters with different costumes, exciting special effects, etc. Etc. Etc.? Well, sucks to be you. In reality is this awful thing the real number of monsters present is around 4 (at least, that's the number of monsters I was able to see before falling into a boredom-induced coma) and they're not particularly interesting or worthy of appreciation if compared to what Tsuburaya did two years before with the original Ultraman (hell, even the monsters from the boring 70's Kamen Rider are better than the ones present here). So, the tokusatsu part is lacking, how is the rest? Equally lacking, being comprimised of uberboring period drama that is as interesting as cutting nails or watching paint dry. There's a reason why this series is mostly unknown in the west, and this first movie proves why. Avoid for more interesting pastures with no remorse whatsoever.

Criminally Underseen

[jonahs-43260 · 8/10 · 23 August 2022]

This is the first movie in the Yokai Monsters Trilogy, currently all 3 movies are now on Shudder Canada as of August 22nd 2022 (I do not know about other regions)

This is a fun movie, the movie functions similarly to Kaiju movies like Godzilla & Gamera but it's a bit different than those movies as well.

The human story is kinda dominant & generic but the monsters are still very entertaining when they come in.

The effects are primitive by today's standards but it's the 60s & they might not have had the highest budget but personally I'm okay with that but I'd say lower your expectations just in case,so you don't walk away disappointed.

It takes place in Fuedal Japan which is a good setting for the movie & brings a strong cultural feel to the film.

The yokai are really fun & also at times genuinely creepy,this movie has some great atmosphere at some points.

If I'm not mistaken,this movie actually unsettled me enough to have some weird nightmares the night I watched it.

Overall,lower expectations & have fun with it. It has subtitles so forewarning but it's a pretty fair 80 minutes.

Insta-favorite

[Gravendal · 10/10 · 22 December 2022]

I gotta say, i had no idea what i got into, but i like demons, monsters and paranormal stuff. And this movie had it all, demons, monsters, ghosts, giant heads, curses, treachery, evil lords and thugs.

This movie caught me, and not just by the story but the whole atmosphere it created with awesome scenes, good acting and very nice special effects and make up of the monsters.

Sure, it's actors in suites, marionette puppets but the design and look is awesome and you have to also have in mind, this is a movie form 1968. This was a really good movie and landed on my top 10 horror movies. No joke, i thought it was that good and that much atmosphere around it. It was really enjoyable to watch and something i would defiantly see again with friends if i am going to show something odd and good from Japan.

The story with the two fishermans, damn that one was good. The effects here was 10/10.