| The Invisible Man vs. The Human Fly | |
 Theatrical release poster | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Mitsuo Murayama |
| Produced by | Hidemasa Nagata |
| Written by | Hajime Takaiwa |
| Starring | Shizuo Chûjô |
| Music by | Tokujirō Ōkubo |
| Distributed by | Daiei |
| Released | August 25, 1957 |
| Running time | 96 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Preceded by | Invisible Man Appears |
The Invisible Man vs. The Human Fly, released in Japan as Invisible Man and Fly Man (透明人間と蝿男 Tōmei Ningen to Hae Otoko?) is a 1957 Japanese tokusatsu eiga (special effects movie) about an Invisible Man and a Human Fly in Japan. The film is also the second film in Daiei's Invisible Man series both based on a novel by H. G. Wells' called The Invisible Man.
Plot[]
Ryoki Watanabe, the president of Watanabe Construction, is murdered on a Japan Airlines flight. The killing took place in a bathroom none of the stewardesses can recall anyone else entering. None of the passengers interviewed by the police knew him, although one, Doctor Hayakawa, postpones his interview due to a recent heart attack. The police chief suggests a link to two equally unexplained bank robberies that took place in recent months. Chief Inspector Wakabayashi notes that the victims in all three cases offered no apparent resistance, and died in a state of a character. Interviewing Hayakawa and his daughter Akiko, Wakabayashi alarms them by joking that the perpetrator must have been invisible. Working with Doctor Tsukioka, Hayakawa has just recently unlocked the key to invisibility while studying cosmic rays. Their assistant Sugimoto demonstrates their machine by turning a glass invisible but says they've never tested it on anything living.
The bank robber strikes again, with no evidence they even entered the safe save for a matchbox from a nightclub called Asia. The owner, Tatsuya Kuroki, denies all involvement. He introduces Wakabayashi to Hajime, his bartender and a karate hobbyist. Soon after, another murder takes place: a man seems to materialize behind a woman named Noriko Maeda before stabbing her and vanishing. Detective Tada happens to be on the scene and hears a buzzing sound as she points to the sky. Kuroki has an alibi; so does Maeda’s boss, Kusunoki.
Following Hajima as he walks to visit one of Asia’s dancers, Mieko, Wakabayashi watches him bat at what appears to be a fly. He too is fatally attacked after rounding a corner, with Wakabayashi arriving too late to see the murderer. He too hears a buzzing. His fellow investigator Hayama uncovers a connection between Watanabe and several earlier victims: all were assigned to the same secret military project at the end of World War II. After comparing notes with Wakabayashi, Tada brings up the buzzing they both heard. Wakabayashi calls Sugimoto, who considers a shrinking human theoretically possible, but unlikely in practice. Determined to prove that invisibility has practical applications, Sugimoto interrupts the Hayakawas’ dinner wearing an invisible cloak and gloves. The ray only worked on the parts of him less exposed to sunlight, so he needs the accessories to achieve the full effect.
The murderer, a twisted smile on his face, strikes again, stabbing Kuroki. He takes out a vial and releases the gas within, shrinking himself down to diminutive size. Buzzing through the air, he visits Kusunoki next—and the businessman sets down a pool of liquid which restores him to his normal size. Convicted as a war criminal and left stranded on the island where he helped develop the shrinking gas, Kusunoki has been using it to take revenge on his former associates, although he’s almost run out of the ampoules. His hitman, Yamada, has become addicted to it and more sadistic as a result, killing Maeda, Hajima, and Kuroki over his possessiveness of Mieko. His next victim is Hayama, who he outmaneuvers during a nighttime chase.
Tsukioka attempts to develop a machine to cure invisibility, but the ray it emits proves lethal when tested on rabbits. At Asia, Yamada uses another ampoule to lust over Mieko undetected, though it backfires when she mistakes him for a fly and swats him away. Enraged, he kills her just before she walks on stage. Wakabayashi has no luck advancing his human fly theory before the police chief, and with the bodies piling up, he begs Tsukioka to turn him invisible to crack the case. The scientist refuses on moral grounds. As Hayakawa and Sugimoto continue to work on a cure, Yamada infiltrates the lab and kills them both. After the funeral, Tsukioka uses the invisibility ray on himself. He drops in on Yamada and Kusunoki, who are at odds over Yamada’s failure to steal the ray, and hears them plan a second attempt. Once inside the lab again, Yamada dives into a vat of chemicals, killing him instantly. The police discover his remains at normal size, but with no possible mode of entry besides the vents, Wakabayashi deduces that he was the human fly.
The detectives charge Kusunoki with the murders but seem to have no proof until Tsukioka enters the office, offering his testimony. Asking to change in the next room before he goes down to the station, Kusunoki uncorks an ampoule and escapes. With all of Tokyo on alert, Kusunoki kills a passerby, then calls Wakabayashi and Tsukioka to demand the invisibility ray. When Tsukioka refuses, he sets off a bomb beneath a train, killing 790 passengers, and threatens to do it again the following week.
Wakabayashi meets Kusunoki atop the Marunouchi Building to hand over the device. The human fly arrives by helicopter, allowing him to spot the soldiers surrounding the building. He reveals he’s already set the next bomb to explode, then demands Tsukioka reveal himself. Instead, Wakabayashi attacks him during the handoff, foiling his efforts to set off an ampoule, but loses his gun. As he flies away, he reveals that he planted the bomb on faraway Christmas Island. To their surprise, he returns to the helipad moments later, held at gunpoint by Akiko, now invisible herself. He manages to disarm her, but Wakabayashi shoots him off the roof.
Tsukioka, having perfected the invisibility cure, agrees to turn the machine over to the government, but not before using it one last time on himself and Akiko to give a group of reporters the slip.
Cast[]
- Junko Kano as Akiko Hayakawa
- Yoshiro Kitahara as Chief Inspector Wakabayashi
- Ryuji Shinagawa as Doctor Tsukioka, the Invisible Man
- Ikuko Mori as Mieko
- Joji Tsurumi as Sugimoto
- Yoshihiro Hamaguchi as Detective Hayama
- Shozo Nanbu as Doctor Hayakawa
- Bontaro Miake as Chief of the Metropolitan Police
- Ichiro Izawa as Kokichi Kusunoki, Fly Man
- Shizuo Chujo as Yamada, Fly Man
- Ko Sugita as Hajima
- Tatsuo Hanabu as Director Tada
- Yasuo Harumoto as Tatsuya Kuroki
- Koichi Ito as Chief Detective
- Shoichi Kawashima as Detective
- Kazuko Miyakegawa as Policewoman
- Teppei Endo as Doctor
- Ken Yamaguchi as Professor
- Kyoko Anan as Maid
- Chikayo Matsuo as Waitress
- Kan Takami as Old bank custodian
- Koji Matsuyama as Sadanaga, reporter
- Shinji Takada, Ryuichi Ishi as Reporters
- Toshiko Hashimoto, Kinuko Mochidome as Stewardesses
- Kazuo Sumida, Eiichi Takamura as Golfers
- Toru Konoki as Branch manager
- Saburo Sakai as Deranged man
Other Crew[]
- Production Design by Taijiro Goto
- Assistant Directing by Kiyoshi Ishida
- Special Effects by Toru Matoba
- Based on an idea by Toshikazu Yamano
Home media[]
- Arrow Video will release a double feature Blu-ray of The Invisible Man Appears and The Invisible Man vs. The Human Fly on March 15, 2021.
Trivia[]
- This film shares part of its Japanese title with the Japanese release of the much better-known 1958 American science fiction film The Fly, which was released in Japan as Fear of the Fly Man (ハエ男の恐怖 Hae Otoko no Kyōfu), though with the 'Fly' in "Fly Man" spelled in katakana rather than kanji characters. While both films feature "fly men," Invisible Man vs. Human Fly actually pre-dates the latter film by almost an entire year.