BIJO TO EKITAI NINGEN

(vt The H-Man; vt Beautiful Women and the Hydrogen Man)

   Film (1958). Toho. Dir Inoshiro Honda, starring Yumi Shirakawa, Kenji Sahara, Akihiko Hirata, Koreya Senda. Screenplay Takeshi Kimura, based on a story by Hideo Kaijo. 87 mins, cut to 79 mins. Colour.

   This Japanese film is, coincidentally, similar to The BLOB (also 1958) but is more ingenious and sinister. Fishermen examining a drifting freighter find only empty suits of clothing - empty except for the captain's uniform, from which a pool of green slime emerges and immediately runs up the leg of the nearest fisherman to dissolve him on the spot. The freighter has entered a cloud of fallout from an H-bomb and the crew has been transformed into a group organism. The monster reaches Tokyo but, unlike Toho's typical prehistoric MONSTERS (also awakened by radiation; GOJIRA), does not knock over buildings; instead it slithers in and out of drains, under doors and through windows, dissolving and absorbing anyone it can catch. There are good special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya, moody photography in the sewers, and rather too much attention paid to a subplot involving gangsters; all in all, a good, slightly surreal film noir.

   JB