| One of director Ishiro
Honda's better known pictures, The Mysterians
would act as a blueprint on countless "alien
invasion" films to come from Toho while also
introducing new techniques to the genre. Where
as Legend
of the White Serpent (1956) was Toho's
first science fiction film to utilize color, Honda's
The Mysterians becomes the first science
fiction epic to use the firm's "Toho Scope”
aspect ratio. This "extended widescreen"
look to the film would become standard throughout
most of Toho's work, prevailing up until the 1980s
before remerging at the turn of the century for
the Millennium series of Godzilla films. This
"technical achievement" aside, Honda's
The Mysterians is a rather ho-hum entry
in the director's portfolio of science fiction
films. As it stands, The Mysterians has
a fairly straight forward plot, which fails to
introduce any memorable characters or give the
actors much to work with, and while the musical
score and special effects are impressive at times,
the film really ends up limping to the finish
due to the film’s very slow pacing.
The plot of The Mysterians
isn't entirely complex, although it does add more
layers to the film's antagonists than most of
the later "alien invasion" movies from
Toho would care to examine. The movie starts out
with a mysterious fire sweeping through a forest
near a village ceremony. Ryoichi Shirashi, a local
astronomer, rushes out to investigate and disappears
during the confusion. Meanwhile, a village near
Fuji is completely wiped out in a large fissure,
as gapping canyons are left where the town once
stood. While investigating the area, scientist
Atsumi and a group of police officers stumble
upon the war machine Moguera. The giant mech then
advances on a town near Koyama Bridge that night,
and is meant by heavy resistance from Japan's
self defense force. However, the conventional
artillery has no effect on the war machine, and
the creature continues its rampage until it tries
to cross the Koyama Bridge, which is detonated
sending the machine crashing down to the Earth
below which destroys it. The remains of the giant
machine are quickly examined, revealing that it
was constructed from materials not present on
Earth. Shortly afterwards, astronomers witness
activity in outer space around the moon. They
alert the world of this discovery, and not long
after the Mysterians emerge, their gigantic dome
breaking through the Earth's crust near Mount
Fuji. A group of scientists are politely ushered
into the structure, where the Mysterians list
their wants from the people of Earth: a two mile
radius strip of land and the right to marry women
on Earth. Although the latter part of their demands
is downplayed as they admit to already taking
three women captive and reveal two others that
they are interested in, one of which is Etsuko,
Atsumi’s current love interest. As expected,
Japan quickly disregards this request and begins
the mobilization of their armed forces around
Mount Fuji. It's also discovered that the missing
Shirashi has sided with the advance race due to
their technological achievements. Japan wastes
no time, though, and quickly launches a full scale
attack against the Mysterians. However, the modern
weaponry is no match for their technology, and
Japan's forces are easily fought back. Distraught
by this set back, Japan sends their plea to other
nations that they might join together to remove
the threat of the Mysterians from Earth. The nations
around the world answer the plea, and in no time
issue another raid against the Mysterians dome,
this time utilizing the newly developed Alpha
class battleships. Sadly, the attack is meant
with failure as well. The Mysterians then increase
their demand, asking for 75 mile radius of land,
as the Earth continues to develop a new method
of attack. Earth's efforts in this matter pay
off as the Markalite Cannon, a gigantic lens that
can reflect the Mysterians’ weaponry, is
designed. Meanwhile, the Mysterians kidnap Etsuko
and Hiroko, causing Atsumi to search for, and
locate, a back entrance to the Mysterians' dome.
In the mean time, the Markalite Cannons are deployed
and the final battle against the Mysterians' base
of operations commences. As Atsumi, later joined
by Shirashi who sacrifices himself in a final
attack on the Mysterians after learning of their
true ambitions, attacks the base from the inside,
the Markalite Cannons assault the base from above
ground. Together, the structure is finally destroyed,
the kidnapped women rescued, and the Mysterians
expelled from Earth for good.
Although a departure from the style
of Honda's last few pictures, The Mysterians
is still very distinctively his as the director
includes his trademark message against the side
effects of nuclear war. The film's title antagonists,
the alien race of Mysteriod, discuss how they
obliterated their own planet in such a war, and
how the few survivors are still ravaged by the
side effects of their own weaponry. An interesting
look at the motives and hardships of a race trying
to conquer Earth, although the terrestrial setting
makes it hard for the message to have the same
impact it had in Honda's work in the years before.
The movie also contains a strong message of unity,
a message continued in the director's Battle
in Outer Space (1959) and Gorath
(1962), as The Mysterians pit humanity
in a situation that requires all of the nations
in the world to pool their resources against a
greater threat. Overall, though, the plot is fairly
straight forward. Still, one should not delude
the influence the picture had on numerous Japanese
science fictions films that were to follow, even
if The Mysterians was, more or less,
inspired by the 1953 adaptation of H.G. Wells'
The War of the Worlds.
General plot of the film aside,
the character development found in Honda's 1957
film is certainly nothing to write home about.
The most explored of the lot would have to be
Akihiko Hirata's Ryoichi Shirashi, who has to
play the "double agent", of sorts, in
the film. His explanation for siding with the
Mysterians, his interest in their advance technology,
feels a little weak, while Shirashi's final decision
to betray them feels much more logical as the
true intent of the alien race is revealed. Kenji
Sahara's Jyoji Atsumi plays the standard hero
here, nothing particularly noteworthy about this
character, certainly pales in contrast to his
similar role as Shigeru in the previous year's
Rodan.
The most unimpressive aspect of the character
development, though, would have to be the film's
two lead female roles, Etsuko and Hiroko (played
by Yumi Shirakawa and Momoko Koch, respectively).
Even by the film's end, one knows next to nothing
about them, and the only thing to differentiate
the two is which of the leads they have a romantic
interest in.
As expected with the sub par character
development, the acting in The Mysterians
is merely adequate. There are no breakthrough
performances, nor does any given actor's performance
add to the enjoyment of the film, but it's still
done competently here. The most impressive performance
in the film would have to be credited to Takashi
Shimura, likely no surprise to anyone familiar
with the film Ikiru
(1952) or Seven
Samurai (1954). Although even Shimura
plays the role of Adachi pretty mundanely, lacking
the energy one tends to associate with the actor's
best work. The film's principal actor, Kenji Sahara,
isn't all that memorable here either; he plays
his character pretty similar to his previous roles
along with some later ones, such as in H-Man
(1958). At this point, Sahara still appears to
be in need of honing his skills slightly, as the
actor's true talent wouldn't be realized until
six years later in Honda's Matango
(1963) and Atragon
(1963). As for the rest of the actors, sadly,
there isn't a whole lot to talk about. Most of
them don't get a great deal to do, and none of
them manage to give an impressive performance
with the material they are given. It should be
mentioned that the English speaking actors, while
far from notable, are at least credible here in
how they read their lines and very much a cut
above most similar roles seen in Toho film's either
before or after 1957. Well, that is in regards
to when they are speaking English, as the actors’
Japanese lines are pretty awful, and why they
need a translator during one scene and then are
talking in full Japanese the next is anyone's
guess.
Some of the more negative aspects
aside, the film’s strongest point is easily
Akira
Ifukube's riveting score. There are a wide
variety of enjoyable tracks to be found during
the course of the film, such as the military march
when troops begin mobilizing around Mount Fuji
and the theme of different nations of Earth meeting
to discuss the Mysterian threat. However, thee
most memorable theme would easily be the movie’s
“battle theme”, which to this day
stands as one of the composer's highlights of
his career.
Still, back in the day, one of
the film’s main draws was the heavy use
of special effects, but how do they stack up in
retrospect? Well, the special effects in The
Mysterians, like most of Toho’s science
fiction films, are a mixed bag and range from
the extraordinary, the mat work with the fire
torn forest, to the embarrassing, the gigantic
waves tearing through a city. The movie's most
famous creation, Moguera, is also utilized with
mixed results. In still shots, the mech looks
rather impressive as an antiquity style war machine.
However, in action, the mech is less imposing.
The bottom "skirt" part of the machine
seems to wiggle rather noticeably while it’s
rubbing against anything, while the "knees"
seems to share this same problem depending on
the leg movement. The creature's trademark eye
beams, etched on the print by hand here, look
extremely crude, but considering special effects
technology of the time one can't be too harsh
in this regard. One of the film's most impressive
shots, though, does occur during Moguera's city
raid. The house level perspective of Moguera toppling
over a power line as it advances still commands
a little bit of awe in the way that the shot is
established. In fact, all of the film's model
buildings and structures are done extremely well
here, each set being done in a level of detail
that makes them credible for the full-size structures
they are intended to represent. Another thing
worth noting is that a lot of the military in
this film is not special effects, as Toho was
able to work with Japan's defense force for a
lot of the film's scenes. The ending result is
several shots which move fluidly from real military
hardware at work to Eiji
Tsuburaya's special effects, such as flamethrowers
being used against the war machine Moguera. Another
impressive effect is related to the Mysterian's
dome, as the shots of the scientists slowly walking
toward the gigantic structure are very well constructed
here. Sadly, a lot of the film's numerous battle
scenes are not as well staged, some featuring
some very crude mat work. In general, for their
time, the special effects tend to be more impressive
than not, and Tsuburaya does deserve a lot of
credit for his efforts.
When all is said and done, though,
the pacing of The Mysterians is the real
problem with the picture. The movie starts out
strong with the forest fire followed by Moguera's
attack. The action during the start of the film
is well juxtaposed with scenes to help elaborate
on the story, while the flow between the two feels
very natural. Sadly, once the title aliens emerge,
the film starts to get bogged down in how it examines
the impending events. The meeting of the Earth's
Defense Force is a strong example of this, as
it’s being conducted in Japanese with those
same lines then translated later for the foreign
leaders, to add a flare of credibility to the
scene. However, it makes the sequence feel incredibly
long, as the audience is basically dictated the
same information twice. The battles themselves
feel noticeably drawn out as well, in particular
the climax, as similar shots and events are shown
over and over again. In reality, it's hard to
pinpoint an exact instance in the film which is
to fault for the pacing, as, in general, The
Mysterians feels like the editing overall
needed to be tighter, with many shots being cut
away from sooner. The film does have a couple
of amusing moments though, intended or not. The
most noteworthy in this respect is the appearance
of the second Moguera, which emerges near a Markalite
Cannon only to be almost instantly destroyed as
the gigantic weapon topples over, due to the unturned
earth from Moguera emerging, and crushes the Mysterian's
war machine.
Overall, The Mysterians
is an important entry in Toho’s special
effects film catalogue, even if it is overshadowed,
in terms of quality, by numerous other entries.
The basic concept of the film would be explored
by Honda again in two years, for the film Battle
in Outer Space, while the director would
issue his most famous rendering of the theme eight
years later, for Invasion
of Astro-Monster.
|
(2.5/5)