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Jû jin yuki otoko (1955)
One of several reasons Toho holds grudges towards the west...
When this film was released in America in 1957, two years after its theatrical release in Japan, it had been cut to just 63 minutes. Library music was implanted, along with narration and scenes starring John Carradine and Morris Ankrum, both of whom would have been more useful elsewhere. Toho apparently had faith in the American distribution company, they even loaned out the snow monster suit to film the new scenes. In any event, the American version was and still is a travesty.
*potential spoilers*
The story of the original version concerns a group of five skiers who go out for a weekend in the Japan alps. Three head to an isolated hotel while two others go to a shack some distance away. That night one of the skiers in the shack is killed and the other goes missing. The only evidence as to the cause of the death and disappearance are mysterious footprints and tufts of hair stuck to a few places inside the shack.
Some time later, a search party is organized that contains the three original skiers, a professor, and several helping hands. Their goal is to find the creature that killed the skier and locate the missing person. This becomes somewhat complicated when two greedy men arrive intent on using the snow creature for profit...
Overall, Ju Jin Yuki Otoko is an effective little film from the early days of Toho fantasy. The suit work is good, as are the majority of the other effects used. The musical score from Masaro Sato is one of his best early scores. The cast includes many many people that would go on to become Toho regulars, including Akira Takarada, Momoko Kochi, and Nobuo Nakamura.
Sadly this film is unavailable from official sources in its uncut form as Toho has removed it from its catalogs due to constant lobbying by the Ainu. Uncut prints are available, however. I recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Toho's early fantasy films.
Jishin rettô (1980)
Above average but highly flawed disaster film...
Compared to films like The Swarm or When Time Ran Out, Jishin Retto (Deathquake, Earthquake 7.9, Megaforce 7.9, etc.) stands as a very competent disaster film. It even stands very well when pitted against some of the higher class disaster movies released before it. The fact that the film centers around plot lines that would have better place in The Young and the Restless than in a disaster film tends to bog it down during the first hour, though. But at the midway point, the quake hits, and we are treated to a mishmash of new effects and stock footage from Nippon Chinbotsu (and even the exploding freeway scene from Nosoturodamasu no Daiyogen). Not that this is a bad thing. The effects for all of those films were done by Teruyoshi Nakano, and he creates some great new images while not going overboard in the use of stock footage. The acting, direction, and special effects are all rather well done, and the music and color schemes help to give the film a fittingly dark tone. I was lucky enough to purchase this film on the now oop Toho released laserdisc, which preserves the original 127 minute running time as well as presents the film in stunningly high quality. I have no trouble recommending this film to fans of the disaster genre.
Nosutoradamusu no daiyogen (1974)
Misunderstood and misrepresented disaster epic.
Nostrodamusu no Daiyogen was released originally in 1974 and subsequently banned in its homeland due to two scenes graphically depicting the aftermath of radiation exposure. The Japanese censors thought that the two scenes were far to reminiscent of the Hiroshima bombing to be seen by the public at large. Toho has since disowned the title, which has never been legitimately released in its original and unaltered form.
Catastrophe 1999, the international version of the film, was played in Europe and elsewhere. The film was cut from 114 minutes to 85, mostly removing important characterization scenes and the heartfelt speech of the Japanese Prime Minister that occurs in the final minutes of the film. This cut is still available on VHS in some European nations, but is hard to come by.
In the 1980's, Harry Saperstein (responsible for the US television releases of films like War of the Gargantuas and Frankenstein Conquers the World) got a hold of a print and butchered it into a cut several minutes longer than the international version (88 minutes) but lacking even more of the important scenes in the film. The original introduction was recut beyond repair, most of the references to Nostradamus and his prophecies were removed, and a makeshift ending was tacked on that minced scenes from the original Japanese ending and other parts of the film together. Paramount released a VHS and laserdisc of this version under the title The Last Days of Planet Earth and it is still played on television occassionally.
Thankfully for fans of Japanese cinema, someone located an unadulterated timecoded print of the film and has since made the original 114 minute version available, albeit only in Japan. I managed to snare a copy through an import service. The differences are astounding. Gone is the choppy editing of the international and US versions of the film, vanished is the dubbing, and what's left is one of the finest Japanese disaster films of all time. I can say for a fact that those of you who have only seen the Last Days of Planet Earth or Catastrophe 1999 prints of the film have, in fact, not seen the film at all. Judging the film by watching these butchered versions is not only difficult, but nearly impossible.
I encourage anyone with interest in the film to locate a copy of the 114 minute cut. It may not be for everyone, but those that even slighly enjoyed either of the cut versions are sure to find infinitely more to enjoy in the original Japanese version.
Kairyû daikessen (1966)
Great Dragon Battle
It's always sad to see how a film as fun as this was released once it was outside of Japan. The dubbing for the A.I.P. print is abysmal compared to some of their other treatments of similar titles of the time, and the pan and scan cropping of the film destroys much of the majesty of the film itself. If you'd like this version of the film, however, it's being released soon by Retromedia (if I'm not mistaken).
But, thankfully, all is not lost. Toei Co. Ltd., a studio known more for it's sentai than for anything else, saw to it that this title, along with several other films that are nearly impossible to find, was released to Laserdisc in 1993. While currently out of print, the laserdisc is not impossible to find. If you have a player and some extra cash (while not impossible to find, a copy runs anywhere from $45 to well over $100 these days) I highly recommend it.
Kairyu Daikessen tells the story of a prince who's kingdom is over-taken by an evil warlord sometime in medieval Japan. A hawk sent by a kind wizard saves the young prince from a group of ninjas and a giant dragon that has killed off the rest of the royal lineage. The boy grows up with the wizard as his surrogate father and mentor. Eventually the prince goes out on his own to take back the kingdom, facing ghosts, ninjas, and an evil wizard along the way. The conclusion is an all out battle between the good prince and the evil wizard, who have transformed themselves into (respectively) a giant frog and a dragon.
As the other two reviewers have noted, the influence of this film on Star Wars is fairly obvious, though the character genders are reversed (the Luke Skywalker of the story is female while the Princess Leia is male). The special effects sequences are very dated but were very well managed for the time. The action sequences are imaginative and plentiful. The monster suits for the ending of the film are based on traditional Japanese art renditions of dragons and frogs. Overall, this is a very fun film, though it is infinately more enjoyable if viewed in its original format. I'm still hoping for a fully restored Region 2 dvd of the title to be released.
King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963)
Very good Goji film from the early years *spoilers*
I was never a fan of King Kong vs. Godzilla as a younger child. The film just always seemed to be so much below Godzilla Raids Again (before it) and Godzilla vs Mothra (after it). A few years ago, when I became obsessed with Americanization of foreign films and with getting as many original language films as I could, I found out why. The American producer of the film basically sliced half an hour of footage out, removed Ifukube's awesome score, and put in a rather dull news man to give "realism" to the proceedings. This makes the Americanized version seem like nothing more than a typical monster movie from that period.
Then I saw the Japanese version. I had been hearing for a few years just how different it was. I had no idea! The film is great. That's all there is to it. The story also makes a point to make fun at advertising and commercialism through the ever changing "Mr. Tako", who is utterly INSANE in the Japanese version. The ending is actually the same as in the American version, only without the spfx ripped from The Mysterians to display a flood. The only difference is that Godzilla roars, showing that both monsters survived the battle to deal their vengence to humanity on another day.
If you want to see the movie, shell out the extra couple of dollars and get the Japanese version. You won't be sorry.
Sora no daikaijû Radon (1956)
One of Toho's best films...
Giant Monster from the Skies: Radon (literal title) has to be one of Toho's greatest films ever. The American and international version is okay, but they inserted annoying narration and deleted some of the simple but cool special effects that were in the original version. The film plays much more like a horror film in its original Japanese version than the American, which deletes some of the music and effects that give the Japanese version its punch. The original doesn't turn to an all out Kaiju romp until about the last 45 minutes, where we are shown some of Toho's best effects work ever. Both the Americanized version and the original Japanese are available from yours truely, email if you have questions. Definate classic of the genre.
Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
Arguably the best cannibal film ever (Possible Spoilers)
First off, I was rather shocked with this film, and it wasn't because of the violence. It's because it was so well made. This is honestly a great movie with a very meaningful story if you can take the chance to see through all of it's genuinely disturbing factors. There are no less than five scenes of rape, all of them utterly convincing and quite impactful. The scenes of human dismemberment are simply the best that I have ever seen, in any film. There is also considerable animal cruelty, with the death of a muskrat, turtle, and pig to name a few. And now on to the review.
Cannibal Holocaust starts out with a professor going in search of a crew of four documentary film-makers who were documenting cannibals in the Amazonia. After getting together with two guides, Professor Monroe locates the remains of the film crew and their film canisters. He is successful in convincing the Tree People to give him the canisters and returns to New York.
Once in New York, he and a group of producers watch the crew's footage, and realize all to well why the cannibals killed them. There are scenes of the crew huddling a group of natives into a hut and burning it, raping an innocent native girl, as well as shooting the natives just for the sake of media recognition. But they soon turn from the hunters to the prey, as the cannibals capture each of them and kill them. It is then decided that the film should be destroyed.
This is a powerful film. The mock-documentary footage is suitably realistic and the actors never fail to portray their characters just as they should. As I said earlier, the special effects crew new what they were doing, and have created the most convincing gore effects that I have ever seen. And unlike most films of the same genre, Holocaust holds it's own in skilled acting as well as direction. Make no assumptions, this is indeed a disturbing film. But it is also a great film, and I recommend it to anyone who thinks they can handle seeing it.
Matango (1963)
intriguing Japanese horror film
Matango (Seen in the US as Attack of the Mushroom People) is a rather effective little horror gem in it's Japanese form. The widescreen views of the misty island sets and the acting of the cast in general (who are all top of the line Japanese actors of the time) is very convincing. This is by no means a cheap film, though the Pan-Scan and dubbed AIP version distributed throughout the United States may make it seem that way. As for the plot, it's fairly simple. A group of shipwrecked persons find an island surrounded by sunken ships and void of any form of sustenance other than mushrooms that seem to thrive there. One by one, the survivors turn to the mushrooms for nourishment, only to be intoxicated by them and eventually turned into the fungus themselves. Sure, it sounds silly, but the production is top notch and highly effective. This film is still a little known treasure of Japanese cinema, and I recommend it.