I think this is definitely the type of film that you're better off going into almost completely blind, but I'll post the trailer anyways as I think it will persuade people that are on the fence. Other than that, all there really is to say is that it's well directly, for the most part well acted, and there's a lot of really unique symbolism, both subtle and overt. Loosely, yes it is an SF film, though I would classify it more as a drama.
For Godzilla buffs there's a few cameos by well known Godzilla actors like Hideyo Amamoto (from GTTHM, EHOTD Godzilla's Revenge, and GMK) as well as a guy from Terror in the Streets (I unfortunately can't easily find what the actors name is).
Here's the trailer for anyone interested:
Should also go without saying the film has a fantastic soundtrack, and one of the catchiest themes:
From now on, I'm going to spoil the film, so stop reading. I'm not going to put spoiler tags, as usually I feel like that makes responding to people more difficult.
SPOILERS:
I thought the film was really strong story wise. One of the biggest praises I can give the film is how "street-level" it is. Although the film is loosely about an alien invasion, other than the brief shot in the fighter plane, and the brief flash of light with Saeko it's unclear if there is actually an alien invasion going on. Sure, yes, we know that news media and outlets are reporting alien sightings, but since the film has a big conspiracy element to it it is very unclear and intentionally ambiguous of whether these are actual extraterrestrials, hostile extraterials or something else. The movie plays out as if we are the actual characters, Minami and Oki, being introduced and coming across a conspiracy and like them, we never get full actual answers of what's going on. It's one of the best examples of a SF drama having just enough for it to be possible to swing one way or the other. While the film clearly has themes of genocide and discrimination (more on that in a second) the film is still just slightly open enough to leave open the possibility that the actions of the governments are justified. At the same time, there's enough evidence that the reverse might be happening: There's hints that the entire blue blood conspiracy may be manufactured such as the fact that it's reported early on that squids have blue blood and there's research going into making of blue blood, the fact that Doctor Hyodo knows something about this that is never properly explained, and dialogue from Hayada. We do know that at the base line the government is certainly killing people, and using conspiracies to silent people connected to it all. There's also a chance that the blue blood and the UFOs are both connected and real, but the latter is innocuous and unconnected. I think for this reason alone, the film deserves a lot of reviewing and I have a feeling I'll notice a lot more.
Similarly, the film also features a lot of red herrings (or blue herrings?
) that I think really enhances the confusion of the film. There's a Beatles rip-off called the Inhumanoids. They play the song "Blue Christmas" that in the film repeatedly plays throughout. At first, when I watched the film, I thought the big joke was that this would be a big schlocky movie where the Inhumanoids were aliens that were using music to convert/turn people into aliens...,which still actually could be true, it's left ambiguous what their actual role in this all was. Their plane gets shot down after they announce that something will happen on Christmas, so that's interesting. There is also a hypnotic element to their music and fans, but I suppose since they are based on the Beatles it shouldn't be much of a shock.Talking more about some of the subtle touches of the film, it's really fantastic when the "dissident cafe" is raided and some of the members get beaten up. We see the people running the club have red blood. This isn't too subtle, but the film doesn't point it out explicitly, making the film show the audience that these people genuinely believed in the cause that they were fighting for and were not just in it for their own gain.
Addressing the themes of the movie, it's clear there's a direct relation to Nazism and the Holocaust. The loose plot is actually people are being born/have blue blood, and it's unclear how they got it, but world governments are beginning to round up those with blue blood and experiment and execute them. Other than the blood being blue, a completely superfluous condition not unlike skin color, the blood doesn't cause any illness or issue. The question I really have was what was the intent behind the film being about this? Unless there's some interview that outright explains it, I'm curious what made the decisions in this movie happen. Is the film about guilt about Japan's actions and involvement with the Nazi's in World War 2/the experimentation on people in China by Japan? That's really obvious yes, but I'm wondering if it's merely a plot-point/generalized view of it or more centralized guilt. It may also be tangentially related to Japanese internment camps in America. A large part of the film goes through the process of dehumanization, which isn't so subtle. It starts out with posing and portraying the idea of an outside invasion force, the UFO's. You can relate the UFO's to any external threat seen in any war. Then, it becomes an issue where the people with the blue blood are increasing, and pose an internal threat. This escalates into conspiracies where people with blue blood are tangentially reported to be bad people/taken out of positions of power: ie Yuki is going to be a famous actress but when she has blue blood a conspiracy is made to discredit her. People who sympathize with the blue blood people are also discredited and targeted.
This eventually culminates in the final act, where it is revealed and said that the world militaries will take out those that have blue blood and their sympathizers. Explicitly, at the end the military leaders tell the soldiers that "this is not murder as they are not human". I imagine that similar things are espoused by cruel fucked up racist dictators and leaders of genocides. Unfortunately relating it to todays events, it's not unlike the current treatment of dissidents in China, or undocumented people in the United States by Donald Trump, which unfortunately makes this an evergreen movie. People are related to an external threat, rounded up, and anyone who disagrees is shamed or called a traitor. They are de-legitimized by being called bad people based on bad actions of a very select few (bad hombres) in order to justify treating them like animals. Of course, for obvious reasons the film isn't about current events, but I think this film really sufficiently sums up a lot of ethos and pathos involved in terms of the rise of totalitarianism and the course for genocide. Similar to Gojira 1954, it's a historically significant film that is both entertaining and mind-opening.
While obviously not condoning the murders of people by the hands of Oki, I think the film also does a good job at making him a sympathetic character and not a complete monster. It shows the danger of people buying into fucked up operations and assignments all in the interest of national security. It also serves as the build-up to one of the worst gut-punches I've ever seen in a film. I love all the awkward imagery with Oki discovering blood right after having sex with Saeko and also showing some form of actually being human. Same with all the shots of him traveling with Saeko. Worth noting that while obviously Christmas is a Christian holiday in the west in Japan it's often celebrated a romantic holiday for couples. It's interesting thinking about why Christmas was specifically chosen as a holiday to basically predicate the film on.
Another theme of the film can be seen related to disease and sexuality. Again, another evergreen subject. While thankfully Covid-19 hasn't caused the outrage or skepticism caused in the film, I do know and have seen people be discriminated/targeted because they contracted Coronavirus. While again this predates the AIDs crisis, I found it very interesting that there's an element of sexuality involved in all this. Everyone we are seen to have blue-blood, minus Harada, has some sort of sexual relation involved and a big theme of the film is the unknowingness of how it spreads. I also thought the film might have had some relation to Japan's declining birth population, although I'm not sure if that was even a thing happening in 1978. A red herring though the Inumanoids is connecting western drugs and sexuality to degeneracy and possibly "foreign invasions of Japanese people having biracial kids, although the film sort of makes the case itself that it's not promoting any sort of xenophobia.
On an unrelated and personal note, I really loved all the shots from NYC in the film. I've pretty much been to every single place in those scenes. I'm pretty sure the cemetery that Minami meets Hyodo in is Greenwood Cemetery. I admit it got me a bit nostalgic, especially because I used to hang out in DUMBO and Williamsburg where Hyodo talks more to Minami. Since I haven't been back to NYC in a year, and most likely due to corona won't go back for a few years, this has made me incredibly nostalgic. My only complaint is that when they go to "3rd Avenue and 50th street" that definitely wasn't shot in Brooklyn (unless I mistook where they were going)
I liked how NYC was portrayed a lot, not overtly grimy but not the big bustling times square fame laden place a lot of foreign productions like to make NYC out to be. The fact they even went to Brooklyn was incredible. All of this makes me wonder how often we see random street level shots of tokyo in certain films and how Tokyoites might have similar responses.In summary, I loved this film. I thought the film was well directed, with great cinematography, music and themes. Completely underrated gem and everyone should see it.
