In the Japanese world of kaiju monster movies, the illustrious suit maker, stuntman and tokusatsu (practical effects) specialist Keizo Murase, whose career spans over five decades, is an unsung legend. After releasing his autobiography in 2015, he was urged to revisit a script he wrote while working on the Shaw Brothers’ Mighty Peking Man (1977). The result is what the 88-year-old director is calling his “first and last film.” The pitch-perfect, delightfully cheesy and thrilling fantasy concoction about middle-schoolers who must enter a parallel universe to save the world from wild creatures run amok proves once again the genre’s evergreen popularity and its viscerally metaphoric power. The film’s ingenious metatextual nostalgia reinvents the old-school analog scares and sentiments of yesteryear in an affectionate ode to the phantasmagorical wonders of the imagination. It’s sure to inspire audiences both new and old alike.