DEMON SLAYER THE MOVIE: THE MUGEN TRAIN

Japan, 2020, 117 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Haruo Sotozaki.

This is a feature film version of a popular television series, Demon Slayer, popular in 26 episodes.

This is a film for the initiated, for the fans of Japanese Anime, for manga films, for Japanese traditions of animation. The older, uninitiated audience, this film may be difficult to watch and appreciate.

However, audiences will be impressed by the quality of the animation style, the drawing, the characters, the vast imagination, action, violence. And, the editing and fast pace propel the action forward – until the end, rather drawn-out, elegiac and mournful about death, but finding a new hero to carry on the tradition of the Demon Slayer.

This is a basic tale of the struggle between good and evil. It presupposes a world of Demons, supernatural creatures, hostile to humans, invading the human world, here the passengers on a train, determined to destroy the humans. It also presupposes a world of human heroes, some specially chosen with destiny, younger fighters, aspiring to be heroes and to join in the quest against the Demons. The film opens with a master Demon Slayer visiting the cemetery, seeing the headstones and naming all those heroes who had died in battle. The film then goes on to introduce three youngsters, one of whom had wears a boar’s head, who hurry on to a train, eager to find the hero slayer.

The hero was on the train, talks to the youngsters, they in admiration of him.

The rest of the film, there is a mysterious presence of the Demon, the human shapes, young male, that he assumes. There are all kinds of combat sequences, the three youngsters and their trying to help, even to being wounded, but the hero going on, long battles and confrontations, the hero being wounded, but defiance against the Demon who is equally determined. And the three youngsters look on with both admiration and dismay.

All the human Demon Slayers live transient lives, and, ultimately, the present hero also dies. However, the youngster who has been in admiration is clearly marked out to be his successor and, while there is a long sequence of mourning for the dead hero, the young man then steps into the hero’s shoes and marches on… To the next Demon slaying adventure.