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 The mainstay and best-known of the Japanese science fiction films of the Sixties are undoubtedly the Kaiju Eiga or 'monster movies' but there were also quite a few other science fiction productions which did not quite fall into this category. Some of those films are listed here and may, depending on your point of view, be considered to be Kaiju Eiga. Likewise, some of the films on my Kaiju Eiga page may not - it's a personal perception, but most of the productions will be listed on one or the other. If it isn't, please let me know. The extremely popular series of SF films, a compilation product of the Japanese Shin Toho film and television studio series 'Supah Jaianto' which ran from 1956 to 1959 and starring Ken Utsui as a hero called 'Super Giant', resulted in almost a 'genre' by itself and provided sufficient films to merit a separate page. A lot of the original Japanese science fiction (and other) productions were unmercifully cut and overdubbed for the U.S. market, often released containing new footage with American actors to change the focus of the story line so, depending on which version you have seen, the story outline given may not exactly match up to what you remember.  Science
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1961 Directed by: Kôji Ohta Written by: Shin Morita, Akihiro Watanabe Produced by: Hiroshi Okawa Music by: Michiaki Watanabe Cast:
Shin'ichi (Sonny) Chiba, Ryûko Minakami, Mitsue Komiya, Seiichirô Kameishi,
Rin'ichi Yamamoto, Kappei Matsumoto, Takashi Kanda, Shirô Okamoto, Junji
Masuda, Hidemichi Ishikawa, Shinjirô Ehara, Harold Conway, Genji Kawai, |
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1961
Sekai Daisenso aka The Last War; The Final War Toho Company Directed by: Shûe Matsubayashi Written by: Toshio Yasumi, Takeshi Kimura Produced by: Sanezumi Fujimoto, Tomoyuki Tanaka Music by: Ikuma Dan Cast: Furankî Sakai, Akira Takarada, Yuriko Hoshi, Nobuko Otowa, Yumi Shirakawa, Chishû Ryû, Jerry Itô, Eijirô Tôno, Sô Yamamura, Ken Uehara, Seizaburô Kawazu, Nobuo Nakamura, Chieko Nakakita, Minoru Takada, Shigeki Ishida, Naoko Sakabe, Kôzô Nomura, Masao Oda, Yutaka Sada, Nadao Kirino, Kôji Uno, Seiji Yoshida, Toshihiko Furuta, Kyôko Mori, Teruko Mita, Takuzô Kumagai, Sôji Ubukata, Shirô Tsuchiya, Keiichirô Katsumoto, Naoya Kusakawa, Wataru Ômae, Yoshio Katsube, Masaki Shinohara, Yutaka Oka, Kôji Uruki, Kôji Abe, Yûko Tominaga and others A series of accidents, mistakes and false alarms in the missile bases of the super-powers brings them to the edge of World War III. The accidental collision of two of their aircraft over the North Pole is enough to trigger off the final conflict and the film documents the ensuing battle and its effect on mankind. Trailer |
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1962
Yosei Gorasu aka Gorath, Gorath The Mysterious Star, Astronaut 1980 Toho Company Directed by: Ishirô Honda Written by: Takeshi Kimura (screenplay) Jôjirô Okami (story) Produced by: Tomoyuki Tanaka Music by: Kan Ishii Cast: Ryô Ikebe, Yumi Shirakawa, Akira Kubo, Kumi Mizuno, Hiroshi Tachikawa, Akihiko Hirata, Kenji Sahara, Jun Tazaki, Ken Uehara, Takashi Shimura, Seizaburô Kawazu, Kô Mishima, Sachio Sakai, Takamaru Sasaki, Kô Nishimura, Eitarô Ozawa, Masanari Nihei, Kôzô Nomura, Keiko Sata, Hideyo Amamoto, George Furness (as Jôji Fânesu), Ross Benette (as Rosu Benetto), Jun'ichirô Mukai, Nadao Kirino, Fumio Sakashita, Ikio Sawamura, Toshihiko Furuta, Yoshiyuki Uemura, Rinsaku Ogata, Masayoshi Kawabe, Yasushi Matsubara, Tadashi Okabe, Kôji Uno and others A spaceship flies through a mysterious cloud and picks up some alien organic cells. Once back on Earth, the cells multiply and reconstitute into the monster Gorath. A red hot planet is discovered to be on a collision course with Earth and scientists set off large explosions in the Antarctic to shift the Earth from its orbit and out of the planet's path. These explosions wake the sleeping monster which proceeds to interfere with their attempts to save the Earth. It is eventually destroyed and the planet is saved, but not before being devastated by tidal waves and global warming. |
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1963 A group of tourists become shipwrecked on a strange island and are forced to eat an exotic type of mushroom to avoid starvation. They slowly succumb to the effects of the plant and start turning into mushrooms themselves. A lone survivor escapes to tell his tale but, soon after, discovers mushroom-like growths erupting on his face. The film was nearly banned in Japan as the makeup that some of the cast wore as they were turning into mushrooms was reminiscent of how many people looked after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. |
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1965
Garibah No Uchu Ryoko aka Gulliver's Travels Beyond The Moon; Gulliver's Voyages In Space; Space Gulliver Maseo Kuroda / Toei Company Directed by: Yoshio Kuroda Written by: Hideo Osawa (story), Shin'ichi Sekizawa, Jonathan Swift (novel 'Gulliver's Travels) Produced by: Hiroshi Okawa, Akira Onozaki Music by: Isao Tomita Voiced by: Chiyoko Honma, Masao Imanishi, Seiji Miyaguchi, Shôichi Ozawa, Kyû Sakamoto, Akira Ôizumi English version: Herb Duncan, Robert Harter, Darla Hood An animated sci-fi film featuring a boy who sets sail with a toy soldier and Gulliver in search of the Star of Hope. Their adventures include saving a planet which has been taken over by runaway robots. This was one of the first Toei animated features to depart from Asian mythology. Kyu Sakamoto, who died tragically young in an air accident, is well-known for his European chart hit 'Sukiyaki'. |
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1966 Tanin No Kao aka The Face of Another Teshigahara Productions, Tokyo Eiga Co Ltd. Directed by: Hiroshi Teshigahara Written by: Kôbô Abe Produced by: Nobuyo Horiba, Kiichi Ichikawa, Tadashi Ôno Music by: Tôru Takemitsu Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Mikijirô Hira, Kyôko Kishida, Miki Irie, Eiji Okada, Minoru Chiaki, Hideo, Kunie Tanaka, Etsuko Ichihara, Eiko Muramatsu, Yoshie Minami, Hisashi Igawa, Kakuya Saeki, Sen Yano, Bibari Maeda, Machiko Kyô, Shinobu Itomi, Tôru Takemitsu The story follows an engineer, Okuyama, whose face is severely burnt in an unspecified work-related accident and is given a new face in the form of a lifelike mask, but the mask starts altering his personality. After attacking a woman he is arrested. The doctor comes and requests that he return the mask, but Okuyama refuses and stabs the doctor to death. Behind this scene, people, all with the same faces, are slowly walking away. |
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1966
Kaitei Daisenso aka Terror Beneath the Sea; Water Cyborgs Toei Company Directed by: Hajime Satô Written by: Masami Fukushima (book) Kôichi Ôtsu Produced by: Masafumi Soga Executive producer: Seiichi Yoshino Music by: Shunsuke Kikuchi Cast: Shin'ichi Chiba, Peggy Neal, Franz (Frank) Gruber, Steve Queens, Andre Husse, Erik (Enric) Neilson, Eivary Keller, Hajime Satô, Harold Conway, Mike Daneen, Hans Horneff, Andrew Hughes, Tsuneji Miemachi, Hideo Murota, Jotaro Okami, Gunther Braun The movie, which mixes several different 'genres', features a mad scientist in charge of a vast underwater city. He invents an apparatus to turn people into amphibians, who he proceeds to put under mind control, and uses them in his plans for global domination. The real stars of the film are the futuristic devices used by the scientist to control his fantastic habitat. |
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1968 A girl who was a prisoner in Nazi Germany's Auschwitz death camp, discovers that she has the power to control swarms of insects. She uses this power to crash a plane carrying an atom bomb. All the insects on Earth become wild and start attacking humans, resulting in Armageddon. Trailer |
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1968 This first official American-Japanese co-production tells of a space mission to destroy a huge meteorite which is on a collision course with Earth. Green slime from the asteroid is transported back to a space station where it grows into snake-like creatures which emit violent electric shocks. The station is eventually evacuated ( after most of the crew have been killed ) and then exploded to destroy the alien creatures. |
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1968 Directed
by: Hajime Satô
Written by: Kyûzô Kobayashi, Susumu Takaku
(as Susumu Tanaka)
Produced by: Akira Inomata (as Takashi Inomata) Music by:
Shunsuke Kikuchi
A plane crashes
in the desert leaving the survivors stranded. Unknown to them, an alien
spacecraft is nearby from which emerges a blob-like alien that proceeds
to sneak up on one of the men and oozes into his brain through a gash
on his head. The man is turned into a homicidal vampire that kills all
the other survivors apart from the captain of the plane and a stewardess
who escape into the desert and, eventually, to civilisation. The blobs
catch on to the 'oozing' idea and they all decide to have a go. Apparently
has a shock ending and is not a half bad film despite the 'Fifties' storyline.
Trailer
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1969 Directed by: Ishirô Honda Written by: Shin'ichi Sekizawa (writer) Ted Sherdeman (screenplay and stories) Produced by: Don Sharpe Executive Producer: Tomoyuki Tanaka Music by: Akira Ifukube Cast:
Joseph Cotten, Cesar Romero, Akira Takarada, Masumi Okada, Richard Jaeckel,
Patricia Medina, Tetsu Nakamura, Mari Nakayama, Akihiko Hirata, Wataru
Ômae, Hikaru Kuroki, Linda Haynes, Susumu Kurobe, Burr Middleton, Haruo
Nakajima,
A journalist
is saved by a giant submarine captained by a 200 year old man who takes
him to an underwater paradise city where no one ages. That's when monsters
and mutants sent by the captain's rival, Malic, a 200 year old scientist,
attack. The advanced undersea civilisation battles the legions of the
evil Malic who has plans to rule the world with his flying lions and giant
rats.
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1969
This is a
Japanese sci-fi comedy. Computer salesman Hana goes to a bar, expecting
that a major deal he is involved in will soon be completed, and he uses
company money to pay his bill. A computer glitch causes the bar to be
paid far too much money. Hana goes to see the barmaid whom he paid but
finds that she has been murdered. He uses his computer to bring her back
to life and, together, they eventually get the money back.
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