Although fairly crude by today's standards, this adaptation of Charles Perrault's fairy tale is something of a big budget epic compared to other films of its day. It's directed by Albert Capellani, one of the less celebrated of cinema's pioneers who was capable of creating engaging visuals and effects, but who fails to conjure up anything memorable despite some lavish sets and plenty of trick photography. Although long by 1907 standards, the film still skims over the familiar story.
5 Reviews
Japanese Fantasy review
JoeytheBrit10 May 2020
Very, very short.
planktonrules18 August 2012
When you watch the earliest silent films, you really need to adjust your expectations. What might seem like a very inconsequential film today might have been a huge hit and innovative title in its day. That's how it often is with the films of the French filmmaker and animator, Émile Cohl.
"Japanese Magic" is one of the less coherent themes I've seen in a Cohl film. Various Japanese-inspired figures come and go using stop=motion but the film is VERY brief and doesn't seem to have much plot. It's more like an experimental film by Cohl and I can't see it having much interest to anyone today but film scholars and historians. They do get much better than this!
"Japanese Magic" is one of the less coherent themes I've seen in a Cohl film. Various Japanese-inspired figures come and go using stop=motion but the film is VERY brief and doesn't seem to have much plot. It's more like an experimental film by Cohl and I can't see it having much interest to anyone today but film scholars and historians. They do get much better than this!
Japanese Fantasy
Michael_Elliott31 May 2015
Japanese Fantasy (1909)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
This film from director Emile Cohl is actually the shortest I've seen from him since this lasts just under a minute. What we basically get is some stop-motion, which shows us various haiku dolls that seem to come to life and other insects that show up. Trying to find any sort of story in a Cohl film is very difficult and that's certainly true here. Considering this thing runs less than a minutes, it's really hard to judge it but on a technical level it's rather impressive and especially some of the monstrous images that you see. I'm sure you could probably show this thing to a young child today and it would still manage to scare them. I thought the effect with the mice was quite effective as well.
** 1/2 (out of 4)
This film from director Emile Cohl is actually the shortest I've seen from him since this lasts just under a minute. What we basically get is some stop-motion, which shows us various haiku dolls that seem to come to life and other insects that show up. Trying to find any sort of story in a Cohl film is very difficult and that's certainly true here. Considering this thing runs less than a minutes, it's really hard to judge it but on a technical level it's rather impressive and especially some of the monstrous images that you see. I'm sure you could probably show this thing to a young child today and it would still manage to scare them. I thought the effect with the mice was quite effective as well.
Whimsical
Rectangular_businessman2 July 2022
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