Toei Trailer Theatre # 1: I AM THE WOLF MAN – PROUD AND GENTLE-HEARTED.

We jump here from Nikkatsu’s trailer department to that of their ‘60s rivals/’70s successors for the title of “Japan’s coolest movie studio”, Toei – basically just in order to give me an excuse to write a few words about ‘Wolf Guy: Enraged Lycanthrope’ (Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, 1975).

I was contemplating a full length review of this remarkable motion picture, but, having revisited it this weekend, I honestly don’t think there is much I can say about the film that will not be made immediately apparent by the act of watching it. (If ever a work of art spoke for itself, etc.)

Essentially I think, ‘Wolf Guy: Enraged Lycanthrope’ represents a kind of platonic ideal of everything a “cult movie” can and should be – all the more-so given that, as with most of Toei’s admirably unpretentious output, it was more than likely knocked out in a couple of weeks for a hypothetical audience of adolescent manga fans and boozed up salarymen, without the slightest notion that it would still be attracting attention over four decades later.

When I first encountered ‘Wolf Guy: Enraged Lycanthrope’ last year, via a slightly iffy fan-subbed download of a Japanese TV broadcast, it blew me away to such an extent that I could barely even take it all in. Returning to it for a second time, I decided to take a slightly more methodical approach and test my initial hypothesis that this is a film in which every single moment of screen time has something awesome happening in it.

Did it pass the test? Well, let's put it like this - there’s a brief scene early in the film, shortly after Sonny Chiba’s character Inugami-san witnesses a member of defunct rock band The Mobs being torn to pieces by an invisible tiger on the streets of Tokyo, when he is taken in for questioning by the police. This scene, which lasts about two minutes, is not especially awesome, although it does attain the level of ‘mildly awesome’ in the fan-subbed version, whose translation has one of the police officers declaring, “A spectral slasher? Seems to be the only explanation!”.

Aside from that, everything else that happens in ‘Wolf Guy: Enraged Lycanthrope’ is categorically, unreservedly awesome. It puts the pedal to the floor right from the outset, and barely lets up for a second.

By the grace of the international film copyright gods, it is also now available in the US and UK as a blu-ray/DVD combo pack from Arrow, so you have NO EXCUSE for failing to verify these findings for yourself.

‘Wolf Guy: Enraged Lycanthrope’ – watch it, live it, love it.

(Ok, perhaps don’t “live it”.)

Nikkatsu Trailer Theatre # 5: WE SELL OUR BODIES BUT NOT OUR SOULS!

Well if my gushing praise in last week’s Seijun Suzuki memorial post wasn’t enough to sell you on 1964’s ‘Gate of Flesh’, perhaps the typically hyperbolic outpourings of Nikkastu’s trailer department will do the trick?

Leaving aside a few meaningless and/or questionably translated exclamations and a some inevitable come-ons to the presumed-to-be-male audience however, I think this lean two and a half minutes actually does a pretty good job of conveying the power of Suzuki’s film, in visual terms at least. (It would have been nice to see a bit more of Takeo Kimura’s extraordinary sets, but, never mind – something tells this film’s original viewing public weren’t putting down their yen at the ticket booth for the sake of the set design.)

According to Suzuki, the film’s female stars were mostly drawn from outside the studio’s usual roster of contract players, as the Nikkatsu actresses were understandably unwilling to engage with such risqué material. With aching predictability, the women are all ranked below both Jo Shishido and Koji Wada (who makes almost no impression at all) on ‘Gate of Flesh’s official cast list, but it should be noted that their performances are excellent across the board. They’re all tops in my book.

We should also note the presence here of Chico Roland – Japanese cinema’s go-to guy for black American roles – appearing in a cameo as a U.S. Army chaplain. Last seen around these parts in 1968’s Genocide, Roland is always an extraordinary presence. Constantly on the verge of breaking into hysterics whenever he is on-screen, and seemingly fluent in neither English nor Japanese, I’ve always wondered what his story was. Any info gratefully received by the Chico Roland Appreciation Society c/o the usual address.