Director: Ishiro Honda
Year: 1959
Country: Japan
Alternate Titles: Bijo to Ekitai-Ningen; Beauty and the Liquid People
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
When a rash of mysterious disappearances surround a nefarious criminal gang, a scientist and a deceased-member's lounge singer-wife team up to proof the existence of the radioactive blobs at the source of the events and try to stop them once they get free on the community.
Review:
Overall, this was a rather enjoyable genre-effort. One of the film’s best aspects is the rather ingenious manner the story weaves together several seemingly random plotpoints into a cohesive setup. The classic setup here is a full-on film-noir style story, complete with the focus on the gangsters, the girlfriend who gets dragged into the proceedings against her wishes and the hard-boiled cops on their trail evoke those classic gangster dramas of the past. There is a general sense of evil pervading every corner of the environment, with the rain-slickened streets, somber atmosphere and stark police interrogations of the criminal organization members, which are emblematic of the style of film presented here.
From this basic framework comes the rather fun horror elements of the story. By introducing the theory about the radioactive poisoning affecting the sailors on the ship, this one offers up a perfectly logical point to bring about the appearance of the murderous blob of killers that slowly get brought up. Their introduction into the story, basically hunting down the criminal gang in the rain-drenched streets on the outskirts of the police investigation into their activities, is rather chilling. Not only is the concept, men irradiated by exposure to radiation and turned into shapeshifting killers, serves this one well enough as the origins of the creature while the overall look of the strange beings in either liquid glop or gaseous humanoid forms leaves an incredible impression.
This fine setup is perfectly exploited by the action scenes within here. The mix of horror and action is rather enjoyable, including the incredibly creepy and chilling setpiece on the boat where the fishermen recall the experience of finding the deserted ship covered in nothing but clothes and claustrophobic shots of the ships’ interiors. The eeriness of the ghost ship, enhanced by the dark atmosphere that brings out the look of a true ghost-ship which provides the perfect launching point for the various attacks on the crewmembers where they are shown dissolving into liquid in a matter of seconds in shocking sequences.
The other big action scenes here are just as much fun. The nightclub ambush, full of the various gangsters concocting their plans and officers interacting with the different gang-members in the midst of their plans while the blobs appear to strike leading onto the series of fun dissolves of the various policemen or gangsters it comes into contact with all done against the blaring jazzy music, making for a fun sequence. Leading into the stylistic finale in the sewers where the final confrontation is held with the creatures amidst the flames of the authority’s plans to stop them, these big scenes are more than enough to hold it up over its few flaws. This one is really only hurt by the rather unquestionably out-of-place storyline involving the inability to recognize the creatures’ existence, since it’s two or three visits to the police to get them to believe the truth which doesn’t really serve any point here. However, it’s really the main issue here.
Overview: ****1/2/5
With plenty of highly enjoyable elements scattered throughout the film, it has enough going for it that those minor issues aren’t even worthwhile enough to hold it back. Recommended viewing for any fan of these types of genre entries or other aficionados of the studios’ fare, while those that aren’t into the dated genre entries should heed caution here.
This review was originally written for Asian Movie Pulse and is gratefully reprinted with their cooperation.
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