Where can I find this?


I read about this in Japanese monster movie magazine a couple years ago and have been looking for it ever since. Anyone know of a VHS or DVD release?

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It's available from Sinister Cinema (sinistercinema.com). This is the Americanized version, Half Human, with inserts starring John Carradine and Morris Ankrum, and Carradine narrating the Japanese sequences.

Unfortunately the original Japanese version (Ju jin yuki otoko, 1955) has been locked away in Toho's vaults since the 1970s owing to protests from the Ainu of Hokkaido, who claim the film maligns them. Having never seen the Japanese film, and since the US version has no visible anti-Ainu sentiments, I can't say what it is that the Ainu object to.

It appears highly unlikely the original will ever surface again (it's apparently unavailable anywhere), so the US version is the closest we're ever likely to get to it. But even this edited version is pretty good, making the unavailability of the original all the more frustrating. I first saw this movie as a kid and have always liked it, so I recommend it even though it's not the original, unadulterated, complete Japanese film.

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The Japanese version is available online. I saw about thirty minutes of it on DailyMotion.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2194326/

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Yeah, I saw something about that after posting above. Will have to check it out. But I understand it's not subtitled.

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No, it's not subtitled. It's also time coded at the top.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2194326/

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Oh well. Better -- barely -- than never seeing it, I guess.

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That's sweet, thanks man.

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