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With the current steady increase in Western knowledge of and interest in the Japanese supernatural, I think this film could earn a much wider audience. It's the tale of a samurai who encounters two fishermen who have trapped a mischievous tanuki and tell him they plan to kill and eat it. (Tanuki, or raccoon dogs, are real Japanese animals, but they are also a common form taken by shapeshifting prankster yokai, and this is one of those.) In his late wife's honor, the samurai buys the creature from the fishermen and sets it free. That night the tanuki, in the form of a human girl, appears in his room telling him of its gratitude and promising to protect him forevermore. Meanwhile, the samurai's no-good, drunken, womanizing son is plotting with his girlfriend to do away with dad and inherit his fortune... but the supernatural protector isn't having that! There follows a cavalcade of murders, apparitions, plots and counterplots, and a final battle in which a slew of classic yokai show up to wreak havoc. It is great, spooky fun, with a very satisfying ending. I wouldn't call it horror, but any fan of the "Yokai Monsters" films or Miyazaki's "Pom Poko" will feel right at home with it.

In every way this film improves on its immediate prequel, The Force Awakens. I attribute that to the previous film's careful, almost shot-for-shot recreation of Episode IV, the original SW film. While I enjoyed TFA a great deal, and I understand the reasoning of essentially rebooting the franchise by reintroducing all its main themes and plot points, it did feel a bit over-familiar to a long-time fan. But The Last Jedi takes off from that beginning at top speed and delivers an exciting ride full of twists, dangers, spy missions, humor (rather a lot of that!), possible romance, and drama. Mark Hamill is excellent as a bitter and reclusive older Luke who slowly rediscovers his hope for the future. The new characters all step up to stronger roles, with an intriguing subplot between Rey and Kylo Ren and a great turn by new arrival Rose. There are important discussions on the workings of the Force and the place of the Jedi, and an ending that seems to leave the Resistance at its lowest ebb but contains great hope from unexpected sources. I did think it tried a bit too hard to be snarkily funny, and it plays very fast and loose with physics, but i don't think those are major flaws in a film that is so very much fun.

--Seriously. When I saw Massawyrm at Ain't It Cool News say this, I wasn't quite sure how it could be so, but having seen it I agree completely. A lone man of peace on a spiritual quest, whose disciple in turn takes up his blade (not gun!) and carries on the fight? Classic. Look at the visual design and choreography of the hand-to-hand fight scenes; absorb Washington's beautiful performance as the calm, ascetic Eli, all soft-spoken certainty, not some evangelical fanatic but a true warrior mystic. Even the trope in which an evil man tries to steal spiritual power and pays a dear price is more East than West. Don't get so hung up on the surface religious aspects of this one that you lose sight of its true soul; pay close attention to the bookshelf.