Anyone who finds themselves obsessed with kaiju movies is eventually going to stumble on the Daimajin series (probably once they run out of Godzilla movies). That's my experience at least, and I remember the first movie in this series not really doing much for me, even though its mix of samurai drama/action with scenes of the titular giant (rock) monster sounded like a match made in heaven. A samurai + kaiju movie? "Sign me up," I thought.
The first film didn't work for me all that much, and neither has this sequel, Return of Daimajin. It's honestly not terrible, in terms of how it looks and how the action's pulled off. It just feels oddly lifeless and uninspired to me, like it doesn't want to be a deadly serious samurai drama, but it also doesn't want to be too goofy (or generous) with its kaiju scenes. At under 80 minutes, it didn't test my patience as much as it could've, but it didn't really have the time to venture into any interesting directions narratively.
Like the first movie, this one was admittedly watchable. It wasn't offensive. It wasn't terrible. It just didn't do nearly as much for me as I wanted it too, and if my memory serves me correctly, I felt basically the same after finishing the first Daimajin.
The first film didn't work for me all that much, and neither has this sequel, Return of Daimajin. It's honestly not terrible, in terms of how it looks and how the action's pulled off. It just feels oddly lifeless and uninspired to me, like it doesn't want to be a deadly serious samurai drama, but it also doesn't want to be too goofy (or generous) with its kaiju scenes. At under 80 minutes, it didn't test my patience as much as it could've, but it didn't really have the time to venture into any interesting directions narratively.
Like the first movie, this one was admittedly watchable. It wasn't offensive. It wasn't terrible. It just didn't do nearly as much for me as I wanted it too, and if my memory serves me correctly, I felt basically the same after finishing the first Daimajin.