The all-time best 25-foot tall stone samurai god, kaiju star, and part-time bad guy squasher to ever grace the silver screen. Daimajin was first released in 1966 by Daiei Studio at a time when Toho Studios had a firm grip on monster films with their very successful Godzilla series and monster brawl Kaiju Eiga films. Daimajin differed from Toho's overblown crush fests in that it was a somewhat serious and more adult oriented monster film than anything Toho had released recently. This isn't to say Daiei Studio was at all very serious, after all, they also released Gamera. Standing only 25 feet tall, he was also dwarfed by the enormous kaiju competition.

His first film, simply Daimajin, opens as a fairly straight-forward period samurai piece. A once peaceful village is not being ruled by the tyrannical Samanosuke, who came to power 10 years previous by assassinating the previous lord, Lord Hanabusa, who had calmed the village's fear of the stone god in the mountains: Daimajin. A few of the Hanabusa clan had survived and taken shelter in a cave near Daimajin (in the form of seated stone samurai). After putting down a very short revolution, Samanosuke is warned that he will have to answer to Daimajin. Now full of himself, Samanosuke sends some henchmen to destroy the Daimajin statue.

The soldiers attempt to first destroy Daimajin by driving a metal spike through its head, but run away screaming when the wound around the spike starts to bleed. Finally pissed off, Daimajin comes to life to bring a little pain down on Samanosuke. Daimajin fights of samurai (hand-to-hand!), crushes walls, and finally spikes Samanosuke to a wall with the same spike from his head (adult themes!).

Here's the kicker: Daimajin doesn't stop. He continues to rampage, even after the villain is dead. He's finally stopped by a prayer from a surviving Hanabusa clan priestess, then just kind of disintegrates.

It's a beautifully shot movie, with a great soundtrack (from Akira Ifukube, who did a number of early Godzilla films, great effects (from Eiji Tsuburaya, also from Godzilla), and a interesting takes on monster movies. Part Golem, part samurai film, and all crushing goodness.

It's interesting to note how self-serving Daimajin is. He doesn't appear in the film until an hour into it and doesn't bother with sweet vengeance until he's personally offended by Samanosuke. Considering the villagers were begging for his help for 10 years, Daimajin is a bit of a jerk. I guess when you're an indestructible stone god, it comes with the territory.

Daimajin was a big hit for Daiei Studio and prompted two sequels: Return of Daimajin and Wrath of Daimajin. Both of them are rather ho-hum, and Daimajin makes limited appearance in both. He does, however, part a lake Moses-style in Wrath of Daimajin.

All three films are available in a 3 DVD box set from your favorite retailer. It's a interesting take on Kaiju films most people aren't going to ever get to see.