Wrath of Daimajin

Lord Arakawa (Tôru Abe) rules over a mountainous region of Japan with an iron fist, using kidnapped villagers as slave labour, mining materials from the steaming sulfur pits to produce gunpowder. A group of four young boys - Daisaku (Shinji Horii), Kinta (Masahide Iizuka), Sugimatsu (Muneyuki Nagatomo) and Tsurukichi (Hideki Ninomiya) - take it upon themselves without telling anyone to set off on a perilous trek across the mountains in search of the legendary god Daimajin, to beseech its help in freeing their families from enslavement. Facing hunger, blizzards, rockfalls and many other hardships on the way, while avoiding capture from Arakawa's scouts, they finally reach their goal, but will they manage to rouse the sleeping giant, and will the elemental force of the Daimajin meet its match against gunshot and cannon fire? Directed by Kazuo Mori (Samurai Vendetta, 1959; The Tale of Zatoichi Continues, 1962), a veteran of Daiei Kyoto's jidaigeki films, the concluding part of the trilogy may be lighter in tone than the previous two films, but the climactic scenes of devastation and retribution are no less spectacular.