Moon Over Tao (1997)

Moon Over Tao (1997)
Aka: Moon Over Tao: Makaraga
Japanese Title: Tao no Tsuki
Translation: Tao’s Moon

Starring: Hiroshi Abe, Toshiyuki Nagashima, Sayaka Yoshino, Yuko Moriyama, Takaaki Enoki, Kei Tani, Yukijiro Hotaru
Director: Keita Amemiya
Special FX: Tomo Hyakutake, Hajime Matsumoto
Action Director: Akira Ohashi

A few years after making Mechanical Violator Hakaider and the two Zeiram movies, writer-director-monster artist Keita Amemiya’s next project was a rather ambitious one. It was basically a Zeiram film set in period, albeit with lower-tech weapons and no “Zone” for our heroes to run around in—I guess filming in the forests of Japan is requires less extras than trying to set a believable action film in an urban setting. The film features alien babes (once more played by the pretty Yuko Moriyama), an indestructible alien monster, and earthlings caught in the middle. But it also features samurai sword fights, magical duels, and a more ambitious human story.

The film is set some time in the Sengoku Period (or some time before), opening at the fortress belonging to a daimyo named Tadaoki (Kei Tani, of Red Shadow and Samurai Fiction). Tadaoki’s men have recently come across a powerful sword while slaying bandits. The lord gives the sword to his trusted retainer, Hayate (Hiroshi Abe, of Godzilla 2000 and Chocolate), and asks him to find the source of the sword. Accompanying him is a warrior monk/magician named Suikyou (Toshiyuki Nagashima, of Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla and Gamera 2: Attack of Legion), who had previously served Tadaoki as a military advisor (though he tends to just up and disappear at times, much to his lord’s chagrin).

The two men decide to start their search in the bandit-infested (and sinister-looking) mountain not far from the fortress. The first person they meet there, however, is not a bandit, but a young peasant named Renge (Sayaka Yoshino, of Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger Shushûto the Movie). Renge is out collecting honey from the local beehives and trying to steer clear of the bandits. Later that evening, Renge is awakened by the strange light in her window. She witnesses a trio of spacemen descending from what looks like a portal of light. The three spacemen get into an argument—they communicate telepathically, so we don’t hear it—and one of them strikes down their compadre with a sword. The other two depart to take their conflict elsewhere.

The fallen spaceman is actually a space woman named Kuzto (Yuko Moriyama) who has her mechanical support insect inject something into Renge so that they can communicate telepathically. Kuzto gives Renge a space gizmo called “the Tao” and tells her to either give it to one of her sisters, or to use it against “Makaraga”, should the entity appear. Kuzto gives Renge a special space tattoo that will allow her to use the Tao…and then expires.

The next day, Renge fulls around with the Tao and activates it, alerting the other two space woman—Marien and Abira (both of whom are also played by Yuko Moriayama, albeit in different wigs and make-up)—and the bandits. You see, the bandits in the vicinity are armed with the same sword that was given to Hayate and the loud sound produced by the gizmo causes the swords to shake violently. Renge turns off the Tao before anything else can happen, but the bandits are alerted to her location. They try to kidnap her, but she is rescued at the last moment by Hayate and Suikyou.

The three decide to follow the bandits back to their lair, where they discover that the brigands are led by a powerful magician named Kakugyou (Takaaki Enoki, of Heaven and Earth and Sailor Suit and Machine Gun: Graduation). We learn that Kakugyou and his men discovered a meteorite some time ago made of a powerful iron they’d never seen before. The iron of the meteorite was used to forge the special katana blades. What is more interesting is that at the core of the meteorite was a little white ball that kind of looks like a human brain.

What is that object? Well, that would be the Makaraga. We learn that the Makaraga is a biological weapon (see Zeiram) and is immortal (see also Zeiram). The Spacewomen got in a fight over it because Marien and Kuzto wanted to send it into the darkest reaches of space, while Abira wanted to use it in whatever revolution her clan was involved in on their home planet. There is a big fight between the good guys (including Marien) and Kakugyou’s bandit army, which inevitably results in the Makaraga being splashed with blood (see Zeiram 2). This awakens the creature and causes it to mutate, first into some worm-like parasites and then into a dinosaur-sized kaiju monstrosity. Will Suikyou, Hayate, Renge, and Marien be able to defeat the creature with their limited Earth weapons?

So, is Moon Over Tao any good? In my opinion, it’s pretty good…I guess. It has a lot going on: from sword fights to magical duels (similar to Big Trouble in Little China), cute space girls to giant ugly monsters, from buckets of blood to even a(n) (extremely) random gratuitous breast shot! There is no reason for people—i.e. people like me, fans of B-movie goodness—to NOT like this film.

That is, unless the execution of the cool concept(s) is less than the concepts themselves.

To me, the big problem is that Japanese fight direction in the 1990s was often (most of the time) rather dire. I personally like the fight scenes in the Zeiram movies, but I won’t ever compare them to even the most mediocre Hong Kong action flick from the same period. A few movies tried mimic their HK counterparts, most notably in Kunoichi: Lady Ninja, but I don’t think Japanese fight choreography was truly revitalized from its older Sonny Chiba days until Ryuhei Kitamura and Yuji Shimomura revolutionized the industry with Versus.

What I mean by all this is that the action direction is severely lacking in Moon Over Tao. I guess it’s not terrible, but it should have been a lot better. Hiroshi Abe showed us in Chocolate that he can swing a sword convincingly. And I personally enjoy watching Yuko Moriyama fake it. But I thought the martial arts in this film was rather weak. The showstopper was supposed to be a big three-vs-an-army sequence, but the choreography just didn’t grab me, especially on Yuko’s end. Akira Ohashi, who is credited with the stunts, has done both monster suitmation and fight choreography, but I guess he was too early in his game to do much with this.

The special effects are also questionable. Well, mainly the CGI used to animated the Makaraga monster from a distance. The design is certainly unique: the beast as a quadrupedal “base” with four crab-like legs, a large neck, and an even larger head with two horns protruding from its forehead and another from below its chin. But this is 90s CGI in a low-budget Japanese films. Even the most expensive Japanese movies at the time cost a small fraction of what a Hollywood blockbuster would have cost; a low-budget Japanese movie was fighting an impossible battle if it wants to use CGI.

I can see people watching this and enjoying its combination of science fiction, fantasy, and chambara elements, but it didn’t really grab me. And Yuko Moriyama looked a lot cuter as a female ninja or as Iria than she does in any of the three space women she plays here.