Jul -- Entertainment: Piramiddo no Kanata ni: White Lion Densetsu (1989 Film)

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Posted on 01-18-19 06:34:35 PM

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If the name of this film sounds slightly familiar to anyone who's into weird NES/Famicom JRPGs, it should. This is the movie that the NES game Ghost Lion by Kemco is loosely based on (Waito Raion Densetsu: Piramiddo no Kanata Ni was the FC game title, I don't know why they flipped around title and subtitle for the game adaptation.) I had first learned about the existence of this movie about 8 or 10 years ago, and have been trying to hunt it down (both legal and not-so-legal methods), but it's so obscure that the IMDB page for it has hardly any information on it, aside from it being a collaboration between an American and Japanese studio. From what I can gather, while it has an English title of "White Lion", it never saw release outside of Japan despite the movie being filmed entirely in English.

I learned yesterday through a YouTuber buddy who's working on Ghost Lion review that someone ripped and uploaded the entire movie from a VHS tape, so I went straight to it to finally see "The Ghost Lion Movie" at long last. And though my expectations were pretty much "it doesn't matter if it sucks as long as there's some similarities to the game", I was actually surprised that it's an average little flick. Liberties were absolutely taken when they decided to base a game on it, but if you're familiar with the movies for Sweet Home or The Tasmania Story, and each of their game adaptations, the changes are nowhere near as drastic. In fact, I don't see why it never saw release in America, it probably would have done fine as a family movie in 1989 or 1990... or as a direct-to-video release to recoup any losses.

About the only thing I can seriously complain about is the ending, specifically the titular White Lion; without spoiling anything, no, they did not get an actual white lion for the part, just some of the laziest special effects I've ever seen, even for 1989. Let's just say that "ghost lion" would have probably been a much better term to call the thing. And I'm not sure I understand any message this movie was trying to teach, aside from "don't argue with your parents or else you'll get stuck in a parallel universe and have to hunt an angry jungle-cat-spirit-monster" I guess.

Anyway, if you folks are as curious as I was, here it is to judge for yourself as I'm not a professional movie critic, just an enthusiast of bizarre cinema:
Beyond The Pyramids: Legend of the White Lion / ピラミッドの彼方にホワイト・ライオン伝説

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