Director: Akio
Jissoji
Screenplay: Kaizo
Hayashi
Based on the novel by Hiroshi Aramata
Cast: Kōji
Takahashi as Koda Rohan; Shintarô Katsu as Eichi Shibusawa; Kyûsaku Shimada as Yasunori
Kato; Mieko Harada as Keiko Tatsumiya; Jun'ichi Ishida as Yoichiro Tatsumiya
(as Junichi Ishida); Haruka Sugata as Yukari Tatsumiya; Ken Teraizumi as Torahiko
Terada; Bunshi Katsura Vi as Shigemaru Kuroda; Tamasaburô Bandô as Kyoka Izumi;
Shirô Sano as Junichi Narumi; Katsuo Nakamura as Ogai Mori; Jô Shishido as Noritsugu
Hayakawa; Hisashi Igawa as Ryokichi Tagami; Shôgo Shimada as Arata Mekata
Canon Fodder / A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)
Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis came to me, and Britain, through an old Arts Magic DVD release, one of the earlier DVD distributers who
brought a lot of cool stuff in the medium’s older days, some returning in Blu
Ray (the Bloodthirsty trilogy of Toho Studio vampire films from the
seventies like The Vampire Doll (1970)) to
those sadly not (their dalliance in early polygonal 3D anime like the bizarre
dystopian body horror Malice@Doll (2001)).
Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis has a lot of significance as a film just by itself
as a release. It is an adaptation of the first novel of Hiroshi Aramata’s series documenting the history of Japan through
occultism. Aramata has been described
as a polymath and the best way to some up his work with this story, all
centering around a villainous magician named Yasunori Kato who attempts to
destroy Tokyo over countless decades of the 20th century, is that he
is also alongside his acclaim in fantasy/science fiction literature a natural
history specialist, one who brought Western texts to Japan off the back of the
success of his literature, translator of fantasy novels, author and expert in a
variety of areas from occultism and to iconography, and an honest-to-God
candidate to that term "polymath" in his knowledge. His book
franchise, which Tokyo: The Last
Megalopolis begins adapting the first 1985 novel of, begins here with Kato
brought to 1912 Japan, at a significant turn in the country's history to modernization
in Kato's quest to resurrect Taira no Masakado,
a Heian period provincial magnate and samurai, who died on March 25th 940 and
famous as the leader of the first recorded uprising against the central
government in Kyōto. Killed and with his head eventually finding its way to the
future site of Edo, later to be Tokyo, it was buried there and is of course the
central target in this film for Kato to resurrect in his goal to destroy Tokyo
itself, even if Masakado himself
wishes to not be resurrected and disturbed from his slumber. The legend of Masakado's head, among the details that
sadly might be lost to those without knowledge brought to this tale, makes even
Kato's goal to ravage Tokyo more connected to real folklore; the 1923
earthquake which is central to the film when it comes to the burning down of
the finance ministry building during said earthquake in Tokyo, was blamed on Masakado1.Alongside the
decision, in 1874, of the new government officially proclaimed him an “enemy of
the emperor”1, neither did bulldozing his grave by mistake when
building the finance ministry help, and by 1928, a new grave was build with
even a priest called in to hold a pacification ceremony1. Beyond
even then, more incidents blamed on a curse followed, only for change to
transpire in 1984 when, after public pressure, his deity status was reinstated
and great care taken not to antagonize him any further2.
Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis, if there is a big issue with the film, tries to cram so much in
just over two hours of an ambitious work. As this novel series goes, it
continues with Franklin D. Roosevelt,
32nd president of the United States, as prominent character in one of the
stories, a target for occult assassination, as does the controversial novelist Yukio Mishima, so Hiroshi Aramata's has so much content within itself to unpack as
ambitious storytelling. For what it is worth, this does an admirable attempt in
containing just a prelude to this wider novel series, contained in a worthy
way, and the film is important for me too as this was my introduction to its
director Akio Jissoji, who presents the fascinating and noble trait of how he
could saddle art cinema and genre cinema without contradiction. He worked both
with the Art Theatre Guild, a
significant film production and distribution company for seminal experimental
work, with the titles as deep and experimental like This Transient Life (1970), to pure genre, his legacy also
encompassing his work in the tokusatsu genre with television and cinema like
his collaboration in the Ultraman
franchise. Even the screenwriter Kaizo
Hayashi stands out; before this film, he made the truly unique film To Sleep So as to Dream (1986) as his
debut, a tribute to Japanese silent cinema by way of a magical realism
detective narrative.
Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis is more genre leaning, but you can see a director (with his
screenwriter) who fit at ease with the fantastical and the somber with this
curious mix of real Japanese history attacked by demons and evil occultists,
presenting the Meiji era ending in 1912 and leading to the Taishō era, a period
of flourishing Western influence and big events, the construction of the first Tokyo
Metro Ginza Line subway beginning in 1925, a year before the end of the Taishō
era itself. The Taishō era itself, through pop culture, has become a
fascinating era for me in its eventual turmoil, leading to the militarization
of Japan, and its aesthetic culture, from Seijun
Suzuki’s incredible trilogy of surreal films between 1980 to 1991 set in the
decade, authors like Edogawa Ranpo starting
their career from the era and anime series like Mononoke (2007) having a narrative arch about a cat-goblin monster
terrorizing people on one of the earliest subways in Tokyo opened in the era.
Even if you have no knowledge of a lot of the history or the mythology and
occultism filtered through Aramata’s
work, this film adaptation is rich in presentation and story.
It is visibly a
big box office film from the eighties Japanese cinema era, and yet also really
idiosyncratic due to its content. It finds itself between horror and
supernatural period suspense, even pure body horror, contrasted by a historical
drama where its biggest drama when not saving Tokyo from decimation is its
growth into the 20th century. Alongside Taira no Masakado's possible resurrection, there is also the real
figure of Eiichi Shibusawa (played by
Shintarô Katsu here), the father of
"Japanese capitalism" in charge of the head of the Tokyo Improvement
Project, bringing together a variety of specialists in different fields trying
to transform Tokyo into a major metropolis with global influence. All of this
is under threat if Kato, if not through the assistance of a direct descendent
of Masakado, Yukari Tatsumiya, uses
her daughter instead into the 1920s if need be to get his goal completed. It does feel with hindsight a prelude to a
bigger work, over other novels, but this film does not feel slight, its own
fully told tell but a curious juxtaposition between conversations between
higher ups about where they will take Tokyo to turn it into an influential
city, and deal with the constant risk of earthquakes, contrasted with stop
motion monsters and work even involving Swiss artist H. R. Giger among the great practical effects and craft on display.
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The film’s
escalation is pretty simple – Kato wants to reawaken the buried Masakado in the middle of Tokyo, whether
he wants to be resurrected or not - and instead the film becomes a curious
juxtaposition of history and occultism, where even if it based on spirits and
luck, a prominent detail of the film is the theme of industrialization and
indiscriminate expansion of Tokyo destroying stability if not done carefully,
notable as this brings in the 1923 earthquake as caused by Kato. This is a film
where real author Kōda Rohan is the
protagonist, as played by Kōji Takahashi,
trying to save Tokyo, and it is fascinating as a film because of these
juxtapositions. There is a long scene discussing the way to evoke, even if
considered to build underground, going through a tumultuous period in its
history, between destruction to economic growth, immediately followed by a stop
motion worm creature being forcibly removed out of a female victim from the
throat, which pretty much sets up the tone.
This alternative
history narrative is an acquired taste, but compelled me as a viewer, not just
from all the curious details of real and reel Japanese history onscreen and
behind it, including Jô Shishido, of Branded to Kill (1967) fame, playing
the real life businessman Noritsugu
Hayakawa, here as in real life funding the first subway, Tokyo Metro Ginza
Line, that becomes a huge plot point here. How it reimaginings such an
important century in world history, let alone Japanese, in all its chaos and
modernization, is important even in terms of the Tokyo subway itself, seen as a
huge moment for Tokyo if, in this case, its biggest threat being all the little
goblin-like stop motion creatures underground. mauling the workers trying to
create the tunnels. Alongside how a literal robot is required, it presents a
fascinating world where occultism, including figures that specialize in lay
lines, is as vital to the plot as the men and women forced to fight Kato, and
how they are just among all the figures who influence this world, contrasted
with real Japanese sociological history and both viewed with fascination. The occultism
itself, in the world of vivid horror cinema aesthetic, is presented as vibrant
and even surreal, where the production design is allowed to be as imaginative
as the period setting is an attempt to bring accuracy to the time periods. H.R. Giger visibly provided work here,
especially on what is effectively his take on the floating orbs of the Phantasm horror franchise, but this is
also a film where a multi-limbed behemoth, in stop motion, wandered out of a Ray Harryhausen production, looking magnificent
when revealed among other special and practical effects. It a spectacle film as
much as with its other content, one which is finding the right foot between its
genre beats and a grandeur, where Kato, through Kyusaku Shimada’s performance, is a villain but one given the cadence
of a figure with menace and a justification of humanity destroying the world
through their growth.
A sequel came, Tokyo: The Last War (1989), which
follows in 1945 in the eve of Japan’s lost in the Pacific War with the United
States, reflecting a seismic change in the country in real history, but sadly
never came to the West. Doomed
Megalopolis (1991-2), an animated episodic adaptation from Rintaro, a well regarded anime director
who started in the beginning of the industry as we know it in the sixties, came
later, readapting The Last Megalopolis
in a more overtly horrific and supernatural take, and even Takashi Miike would cross paths with this franchise as, among the
many tie-in and spin-offs works in cinema and in literature around Hiroshi Aramata's creations, the last
novel Kato was in, Aramata's The Great Yokai War, was adapted by Miike in 2005. It also cannot be denied
that the version of Yasunori Katō as shown here, with his militaristic costume
including cap and cape, likely influenced the design of M. Bison/Vega, the boss
antagonist character from the Street
Fighter video game franchise.
Even if you the
reader only know the games through Raul
Julia’s portrait in the 1994 film, with the costume strikingly similar to
Kato’s here, so Tokyo: The Last
Megalopolis is a big work to consider. It is a novel franchise which sadly
seems not to have come over to the West, in mind to how much content within it
is of its own country's and Eastern Asian culture, to the point Hiroshi Aramata can be thanked for how
much interest he brought to occultist folklore in his homeland, and would need
a lot of explanation to Western readers. It is however novel franchise which tantalizes,
as with every time I have seen this film, even if it struggles with the
loftiness of cramming a huge text into one film, it still has so much to
admire. Even those who helped fund the film have a huge significance in
Japanese genre cinema as, for an exclamation mark, its executive producer is Takashige Ichise. He early on funded
screenwriter Kaizo Hayashi's debut
directorial film To Sleep So as to Dream,
and worked with Brian Yuzna with American-Japanese
co-productions like Crying Freeman
(1995). He also produced Hideo Nakata's Ring (1998), Dark Water (2002), Takashi Shimizu's Ju-Oh: The
Grudge (2002) and a lot of Japanese horror films during the early to
mid-2000s boom in "J-horror" cinema coming to the West. He comes off,
with an incredible and idiosyncratic list of productions even into the 2020s, as
a king level figure for genre history.
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====
1) The
curse of Masakado: why a malevolent ghost haunts Tokyo, written by Jonathan Clements for the Guardian, published
10th June 2019.
2) Taira
no Masakado, written for Yokai.com,
written, illustrated, and maintained by Matthew
Meyer.
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