A Feast Fit For A God: Yellow Dragon's Village (2021)

Yellow Dragon's Village (Japan, 2021)

Rating: ***

Starring: Yuni Akino, Itsuki Fujii, Wataru Ichinose

You all know this dance: After a night of being drunk and merry, a group of eight teens plan to go on a camping trip the following day, only for their travel to be cut a little short when their car blew a tire. Fortunately, there's a nearby village they can leg to and get help, although the grounds suspiciously appear to be mostly devoid of youth and the elders living there are acting a tad strange upon their arrival. 

Any worries from all of these, however, are temporarily put at ease when the village people have the kids stay at a lodge for dinner and rest. And then comes the day after; one of the teens is missing and another gets knifed in the back during breakfast. People in masks and shrine uniforms then arrive to crash the stay and it's soon revealed that the villagers have chosen their young visitors as sacrifices to a deity centered on cannibalism. Not wanting to be the main course as anybody would, a brief struggle have our hapless group escaping into the woods, where the insane villagers proceed to hunt them down one by one. You all know this dance...

Or do you?

Clocking only for about an hour and nine minutes, Yellow Dragon's Village (2021) may look like your classic backwoods slasher set-up, but, without spoiling a lot, there's more to the story than just dumb teens getting hunted down by a cult of cannibals; For its worth, the film's horror elements are steady and effective, creepily building on growing uncertainties and dread for its scares before eventually leading to murderous cannibalism and distressing cult behaviors as exploitative set-pieces. It is around the height of the plot's madness when the film throws a curveball at us, a twist that may put off those expecting the usual blood and gut stab-a-thon all the way, but those who are willing to keep an open mind and have a good sense of cinematic cheese, expect the second half to be an entirely different movie. One that's full of well-choreographed fights, a little bit of explosions and a lot of corny dialogue! 

From that point on, Yellow Dragon's Village (2021) becomes a revenge-driven action thriller as everyone who took part on the village's macabre traditions start paying dearly for their atrocities when their own past comes back to get even. The intense dread of horror is completely gone and the tone shifts to silly and fun, high flying kicks and swordfights clashing as heroes and villains duke it out while throwing hilariously smug banters at one another. It plays on this theme of criticizing blind devotions towards tradition and the enforcement of it towards the youth, it's an idea brought upon by our protagonists often as they lay waste on their enemies, though the execution of it leans more on the cheeky side thus not overly serious and still entertaining. 

The production's small budget limit can be sensed throughout the movie, particularly the minimal gore effects and use of CG for the story's more dynamic visuals, but that did little to nothing on making Yellow Dragon's Village (2021) less enjoyable as a fun B-grade horror-comedy action thriller mash-up. If you have the chance to catch this and you happen to be in the mood for a hammy romp, I say give it a try!

Bodycount:

1 male knifed on the back

1 female shot on the head with a shotgun

1 female shot on the head with a hunting rifle

1 male shot on the head with a shotgun

1 male killed offscreen
1 male shot with a shotgun
1 male shot with a shotgun
1 female had her neck snapped
1 victim shot with a shotgun
4 victims knocked out, implied killed later

6 victims seen killed, bodies piled up

8 victims seen strewn all over

7 victims knocked out, implied killed later

1 victims knocked out with a kick, implied killed later

2 victims seen killed

7 victims mentioned killed

1 victim had their neck broken

1 male shot with a shotgun

1 female shot with a shotgun

1 male blown apart with a grenade

Total: 48