A film starring Zatoichi himself, Shintaro Katsu, and featuring creature designs by infamous Swiss surrealist H. R. Giger should be pretty keen, shouldn't it? Well, yeah, it should have been. Sadly, it wasn't.

Directed by Akio Jissoji and based on the source material by Hiroshi Aramata, the film begins in 1000 A.D.. A sinister chap going by the handle of Masakado was executed in his native Japan for 'crimes against humanity.' Though he started off with the best of intentions, his failed attempts at uniting the country failed and left him a bitter and evil man, giving the officials not choice but to put him to death. Unfortunately for the citizens of Tokyo, his soul is a restless one and it just won't go away as over the last few years he's turned Tokyo into the most haunted city in the entire world.

Oddly enough, Masakado's grave is in what is now the Ministry of Finance building. A renegade psychic named Yasunori Kato intends to disturb Masakado's grave and unleash the horrible results upon the city. When a prophet finds out about this soon to be happening spiritual invasion in Japan's largest city, he teams up with a physicist and the finance officer named Eichii Shibusawa (Shintaro Katsu) to protect the city. They must work together to stop Kato before it's too late. Luckily, a young lady named Yukari might just be the one with the ability needed to stop Kato's attacks on the city but it's going to take all they've got to get her out of Kato's control.

If the plot sounds a bit confusing, that's because it is. The film bounces back and forth between characters and as soon as we start getting to know and care about one character, more are introduced and it gets to be too much. The ideas and visuals in the film are great though, as long as you have a tolerance for eighties style Japanese effects. Giger's designs are evident throughout and the film has a very interesting and unique look to it that goes a long way to making it at least watchable (even when the movie isn't making a great deal of sense, it at least looks really cool!).

Ultimately, while the movie really does try quite hard to suck you into it's bizarre world of spirits, psychics and monsters it is a bit too ambitious for it's own good. If they'd narrowed down the focus to just a few characters and worked to develop them a bit more the film would have been great. The ideas behind the core of the story are quite interesting and there is a nice sense of dread that serves to create a pretty decent atmosphere throughout. The filmmakers ambitious attempts at creating a truly epic film are admirable but ultimately lackluster despite some nice visuals and interesting cast members.

Video:

The film is presented in 1.78.1 widescreen without anamorphic enhancement. The picture quality is good but not great as although it's reasonably clear and free of any major print damage, it look more than a little washed out and the colors are rather dull. If I had to guess (and this is only a guess), I'd say that ADV used a pre-existing video master for this release, possibly the same one they used for their prior VHS release. Another thing worth mentioning, purists will be irritated to find that the text scroll at the beginning of the film as well as the opening credits have been altered – instead of appearing in their native Japanese with English subtitles, they've been replaced with English credits and English text. Not a big deal for the most part in that it doesn't really effect the film, but it would have been preferable to have it unaltered.