chernobog13: The villainous ninja-wizard Orohimaru, transformed into The Magic Serpent (1966).He may
chernobog13: The villainous ninja-wizard Orohimaru, transformed into The Magic Serpent (1966).He may be a dragon, but instead of fire this guy spouts water! Don’t worry, though, the hero of the film transforms into a giant fire-breathing toad and fights this guy to the death.Here’s the battle as depicted on the cover for the sonorama of the film, but it looks like the artist didn’t see the film. Didn’t I just say the dragon breathes water, buster? Weren’t you paying attention?(Sonorama image via Stan Hyde’s Pinterest page. Hi, Stan!)This fantastic romp from Toei is just one of many film versions of the story of Jiraiya, the legendary ninja. It’s well worth tracking down if you’ve never seen it.The Magic Serpent was never released in theaters in the US, but went straight to television. As far as I know, the last time it was released on DVD was in 2004 from Retromedia as a double feature with the Gamera film Return of the Giant Monsters (aka Gamera vs. Gyaos). It’s certainly time somebody released a remastered BluRay version of this film, because the audio and video quality on the DVD is pretty poor; it looks like Retromedia just videotaped the film when it played on TV, then transferred it to disc. I’m pretty sure of this, because I had a VHS copy of The Magic Serpent, and the (low) quality was the same when played side-by-side with the DVD version. -- source link