Perhaps being one of the more unsung examples of Spanish Horror master Paul Naschy's bravura filmmaking genius, the masterfully genre-bending cult classic takes Waldemar Daninsky's tragic Lycanthrope to the far-flung exotic locales of feudal Japan since the maniacal ministrations of the inquisition force him and his nubile entourage to seek the aid of Japanese healer Kian (Sigheru Amachi) but it is not long before Waldemar's gruesome Lunar-inspired rampages draws the unwelcome attentions of a master Samurai Swordsman, night-swarming Ninja Assassins, and then being lured to the diabolical castle domain of powerful sorceress Satomi (Junko Asahina) whose zealous claim of being able to cure him of his ancient malediction might disguise an altogether malevolent agenda!
Writer/director/actor Paul Naschy is on especially inspired form with his exciting, phantasmagorical masterpiece 'The Beast & The Magic Sword' one of his more audacious and delightfully unconventional Daninsky chapters that gorily fuses doomy European Gothic with beautifully ornate, stylishly atmospheric Japanese mythology, many of the striking sequences where the bellicose werewolf must do battle with these uncommonly eerie-looking spectres are tremendously evocative, the bold use of colour redolent of maestro Mario Bava's masterpiece 'Black Sabbath', thereby giving Naschy's exceptionally vivid fantasy an otherworldly, exquisitely ethereal sense of having just visited a diabolically dark magical realm of illimitable madness!
Writer/director/actor Paul Naschy is on especially inspired form with his exciting, phantasmagorical masterpiece 'The Beast & The Magic Sword' one of his more audacious and delightfully unconventional Daninsky chapters that gorily fuses doomy European Gothic with beautifully ornate, stylishly atmospheric Japanese mythology, many of the striking sequences where the bellicose werewolf must do battle with these uncommonly eerie-looking spectres are tremendously evocative, the bold use of colour redolent of maestro Mario Bava's masterpiece 'Black Sabbath', thereby giving Naschy's exceptionally vivid fantasy an otherworldly, exquisitely ethereal sense of having just visited a diabolically dark magical realm of illimitable madness!