Tômei ningen or The Invisible Man, released just prior to New Year's Eve 1954, was Toho's second science fiction film and Japan's second invisible man film, all in all the country's third (known and confirmed) sci-fi movie. Filmed in a rush to capitalise on Gojira's success, the movie has its moments, and Eiji Tsuburaya's special effects are fairly solid. A complete departure from H.G. Wells, Tomei ningen serves up touching some touching drama and a generic film noir mob plot, and mixes in some song and dance numbers.
Japan's first sci-fi movie was Tômei ningen arawaru (1949), or The Invisible Man Appears. Made for movie studio Daiei, the invisibility effects of that film were made by Eiji Tsuburaya, before his move to Toho. In 1954 Toho apparently wanted to do their own slant on the theme, and subsequently had Tsuburaya re-work his magic.
The film opens with a car hitting something invisible in the middle of Tokyo. While examining the accident, an invisible man (Haruo Nakajima) suddenly becomes visible, dead under the car. In his pocket police find a letter, explaining that this invisible man decided to commit suicide,but that there is one other man like him, invisible, living in the city.
Taking advantage of the situation, a gang of criminals calling themselves "the invisible men" start looting race-tracks and banks wearing bandages over their heads. The criminals are organised by a mob boss called Yajima (Minoru Takada), who is also the owner of the nightclub Black Ships, from where he runs an illegal drug business. His right-hand man Ken (Kenjirô Uemura) tries to intimidate the club's singer Michiyo (Miki Sanjô) into become a drug mule, but she refuses, leading him to assault her in her dressing-room, only to be interrupted by the clown Takamitsu Nanjô (Seizaburô Kawazu).
Nanjô works as a clown in full make-up, carrying advertisement signs for the club around town, and happens to be a neighbour of Michiyo's. This kind and unassuming clown is also, surprise, surprise, the invisible man. His best friend in the world is a little blind girl called Mariko (Keiko Kondo). She lives alone with her grandfather (Kamatari Fujiwara), who works as a nightwatchman, and becomes a victim of the criminal gang.
Newspaper reporter Komatsu (Yoshio Tsuchiya) finds out the ugly truth behind the governments program to create invisible super- soldiers during WWII. He helps the invisible to take on the criminal gang, to clear the invisible man's name, and avenge Mariko.
Eiji Tsuburaya basically employs the same techniques as Universal's genius John P. Fulton had in The Invisible Man 22 years earlier.The effects are few and far between, no doubt because of the tight shooting schedule.
On the whole, it's a slow-moving and rather dull affair. None of the characters are ever fleshed out, and remain cardboard cut-outs. There's the good guys and the bad guys, the little orphaned girl and the damsel in distress. The bad guys walk around shouting and sneering, the good guys are kind-hearted and noble. The acting is decent enough throughout the film. The stand-out is Yoshio Tsuchiya, playing the reporter, who may be familiar to sci-fi fans through his appearance in numerous Toho tokusatsu films.
Thematically the film partly deals with the age-old topic of the outsider. Like H.C. Andersen's ugly duckling or Cinderella of the folktale, Nanjô the clown is a person whom people walk past every day without taking notice of, but when the stakes are high the people around him see him as the hero he is inside. On the other hand, it is a tale of someone forced to hide their true identity for fear of persecution of being different, a theme popular in sci-fi from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein onward, and popularised in the later half of the 20th century with rising awareness of gay rights.
However, the story may also reflect on the feelings of many Japanese war veterans after WWII. After surrendering in 1945, Japan was occupied by allied forces, mainly American, who forced upon them the doctrine that Japan had fought an aggression war, and enforced a strict censorship in the arts and media. Many war veterans felt that their sacrifices for Japan were demonised, that they weren't compensated for their loss and injuries and were on the whole forgotten and discarded by the Japanese government – very much like invisible men who had to put on masks to cope with daily life.
But be the interpretations what they may, these themes aren't explored in earnest in the film, instead the script focuses on the personal drama and the generic crime plot. The film is rather violent for its day, and it doesn't go easy on its women. See for example a scene of a club dancer held prisoner by the criminal gang, suspended in rope bondage in a skimpy outfit – and brutally whipped.
As a special effects film it is so-so. As a mob drama it's a bit too generic to be appealing, and the characters are too flat for a good personal drama. Like its Japanese predecessor, the film has a hard time finding its genre, jumping from one to the other, sort of trying on different hats familiar from Hollywood to see which of them fits best.
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