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Following a nuclear experiment, the
ship Ryujin Maru II and its 23 crew members disappeared while in the South
Pacific. Days layer, another ship, bound for Izu,
stumbles upon the craft adrift at sea. Six of the crew decide to board the Ryujin Maru II to see why
there is no one on deck. To their surprise, they
find no one on board at all, only piles of disheveled
clothes. In the captain's room, they find an unfinished
log, and begin to suspect that the crew must have
been killed somehow. While leaving the captain's
room, Dai, one of the crew members who boarded
the Ryujin Maru II, is killed by a mysterious blue liquid
that climbs up his leg and melts his body, leaving
only his clothes behind. After killing Dai, the
liquid takes the shape of a man and is joined
by another one from the window. The monsters rush
at one of the terrified men and quickly claim
another victim. Next, Sou is killed on the dock
while trying to escape. Only two of the original
six make it off the ship alive, and they spot
Liquid People walking around the deck as they
disembark on their own fishing vessel.
Much later, in the outskirts of Tokyo, a drug
smuggler by the name of Misaki is mysteriously
killed while trying to get away, leaving only
his clothes behind. The police investigate by
going to his apartment, only to find his girlfriend,
Arai Chikako, who says he hasn't returned for
five days. Arai works at the cabaret, so the police
decide to go there for further investigation.
After her performance, the police go back to Arai's
room and find a man backstage with her. After
finding a note to Arai in his pocket, they bring
him in as a suspect. He is identified as Masada,
an assistant professor at Jyoto University. Masada
explains that he wanted to talk to Arai about
Misaki, and explains his theory that Misaki's
disappearance is the result of his physical form
melting away, possibly from an extreme amount
of radiation in the rain that night. The police
don't buy a word, and set up patrols at Misaki's
apartment where Arai is living.
 That night, a man by the name of Nishiyama sneaks
into the apartment and threatens Arai, asking
her where Misaki is; however, he gets no answer
as Arai explains that she simply doesn't know.
After thinking it over Nishiyama states that he
will spare her life for tonight, and leaves out
the window. Not long after, Arai hears gun shots
that are followed by a scream. Arai then opens
the door to the apartment and faints in the hall.
The police go the room to investigate, and look
out the window only to see clothes and a gun lying
out on the street.
In the morning, the police take Arai in for questioning,
but get no new information from her. Masada arrives
at the police station to try and prove his theory
to them once more, this time he invites them to
go back to the hospital with him where he announces
that he has collected witnesses that will prove
his theory. Once there, the witnesses tell their
story of the six members of their ship that boarded
the Maru, and how four of the men lost their lives
that night. Masada next shows him the effect of
the Ash of Death, the type of nuclear explosion
that the Ryujin Maru II was exposed to, on a toad.
The toad melts almost immediately, all of
its cells are transformed into a liquid. The police still don't buy that Misaki's disappearance is related to this, though.
Meanwhile, more reports come in of people in Tokyo who have vanished but their clothes remain. This includes a man and women, who seem unrelated at all to Misaki. The police decide to question Arai again, this time showing her a group of pictures, asking her to identify who came into the apartment the night before. She points out Nishiyama out of the pictures, a member of the Hanada gang.
 While this is going on, Masada finds a lifesaver on the docks
that belongs to the Ryujin Maru II, and he starts
to suspect that the liquid might have attached
itself to it and traveled to Tokyo. Masada takes
the lifesaver back to the University, where he
and his colleagues find out that the lifesaver
is indeed radioactive. Arai then visits the institute
to find Masada and tells him about the murders,
and how a liquid killed the victims. Professor
Maki is intrigued by the girl's story, and asks
that Masada go to the police station and tell
them their findings. Masada complies, but is still
laughed at down at the station. The police become
notably annoyed with his persistence in pursuing
this theory. To stay in their favor, Masada
divulges that he believes that waiter at the cabaret
maybe in on the drug smuggling.
That night, the police visit the cabaret again,
disguised as customers. They watch and mark down
which tables the waiter stops at for long periods
of time. Every time someone from one of these
marked tables starts to leave, they arrest them
as a suspect. Eventually the guests of the club
begin to catch on, and one of them fires his gun
right before they cuff him. The waiter hears this
and warns Uchida, an intricate figure in the drug
smuggling ring, and they retreat to one of the
dancer's rooms. Once inside, they try and escape
through the window, but are cut off by an H-Man.
The waiter along with one of the dancers is killed.
The H-Man next tries to get Arai, but is distracted
by one of the policemen, who starts firing at
it. The H-Man liquefies the officer, and then
leaves through the window. During the commotion,
Uchida takes off his clothes, to fake his death,
and escapes.
The police now accept Masada's theory about the
Ash of Death. It's also confirmed that the liquid
got to Tokyo by attaching itself to the lifesaver.
Furthermore, the captain's journal from the Ryujin Maru II mentions that six of his crew "vanished", leading them to believe that there are six of the H-Man creatures. Maki explains to the authorities that the only
way to kill the monsters is by electrocution
or incineration. Then Masada, after studying Uchida's
clothes, explains to the police that weren't radioactive,
meaning he must have escaped. Shortly after this
discovery, Arai is kidnapped by Uchida.
 To combat the H-Man menace, a Special Task Force is assembled to kill the monsters. They plan to use their
high voltage discharge units to stop the liquid
people's infiltration upstream. Next they plan
to evacuate and fill the surrounding bodies of
water with gasoline, to incinerate the ones already
in the city. Before the authorities can put this plan into
operation, Uchida leads Arai into the sewers to
retrieve the stash of drugs that the waiter had
been hiding down there.
In the meantime, Masada
finds a piece of Arai's clothing floating in the
water near one of the sewage valves, and rushes
in the sewers looking for her. The police catch
wind of Masada's actions and ask permission to
go down with one of the teams preparing the "gasoline
operation." A rescue team is then prepared, and
goes in after them.
Uchida is killed shortly after
by one of the liquid people, and Arai begins to
flee. Masada finds her, and manages to help her
get away as the rescue team discovers them both,
with the liquid people in hot pursuit. The Special Task Force wastes no time, using flamethrowers and killing three of the liquid people. The water
is then ignited, burning alive all two more of the H-Man monsters that take human form. The final H-Man starts to climb the walls although an inferno of fire sweeps the sewers, putting an end to their reign of terror. |
