Synopsis
Three competing parties all race against time to track down an elusive creature known only as the Snowman.
Half Human
Cast
Akira Takarada Akemi Negishi Momoko Kôchi Nobuo Nakamura Sachio Sakai Yoshio Kosugi Kenji Kasahara Toshitsugu Suzuki Ren Yamamoto Akira Sera Yasuhisa Tsutsumi Tadashi Okabe Akira Yamada Fuminori Ōhashi Takashi Itô Ichirō Chiba Kokuten Kōdō Takuzō Kumagai Shigemi Sunagawa Senkichi Ōmura Shigeo Katô Akio Kusama Keiichirô Katsumoto Tsurue Ichimanji Kyōko Ozawa Akira Kitchôji Hiroshi Akitsu Rinsaku Ogata Kamayuki Tsubono Show All…
Director
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Original Writer
Editor
Cinematography
Assistant Director
Lighting
Production Design
Art Direction
Special Effects
Visual Effects
Composer
Sound
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Alternative Titles
(Edited into) Half Human, Ju Jin Yuki Otoko, Чудовищный снежный человек, 兽人雪男
Genres
Releases by Date
Theatrical
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Japan
17 May 1957
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USANR
Physical
01 Jan 1990
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USANR
Releases by Country
Japan
14 Aug 1955
- Theatrical
USA
17 May 1957
- TheatricalNR
01 Jan 1990
- PhysicalNR Rhino Home Video #1424 [VHS] 78 minutes
Popular reviews
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This is definitely a infamous one. A movie so controversial that Toho pulled it from distribution and it’s never seen an official release. It’s also agonizingly boring and a chore to sit through.
It starts off well with the story being told in flashback by a group of wounded people with moody rain and a somber atmosphere. We hear a gruesome murder committed over a telephone and discover strange footprints in the snow. Effective and creepy, I’m liking it! Then we cut to six months later and the movie decides it’s time to be dull.
It takes 40 minutes for a glimpse of the snowman and the rest is padded with scenes of walking and…
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Oh Honda
In all honesty I feel like it's cheating putting this in the same category as that of the Big-G and his other larger than life contemporaries as comparative to them the Half-Human is straight up just a regular ass hairy ass squatch yeti hybrid that lives in the Japanese alps. So may say that it technically doesn’t belong here, and I may be inclined to agree even, however I also don’t partially care for the technicals of this list at the moment as I’m just using it as an excuse to watch a shit loud of kaiju flics I’ve wanted to see and or revisit. Anyways with that said how was the titular Half-Humans…
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What started as a fun little "don't mess around on the mountain during a snow storm" type movie, ended up turning into a darker story about societal outcasts and man's exploitation of nature. Or I'm overthinking it. Either way, I liked it and loved the dark ending.
Catch it here if youre curious:
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An elusive "kaiju" film due to its offensive depiction of native tribes. The reason I use quotes is because the abominable snowman creature is hardly bigger than the people.
With the offensive depiction, there's no background basis for me to go off of, but I imagine the disheveled look of 95% of their population isn't an appreciated one. Not to mention the repeated abuse to one of their own.
Starting out, the film actually captured me fairly well. There's an eerie atmosphere surrounding the rainy meeting and the snowy mountains in the following story told. It plays out like a good Japanese horror film, building up tension. Sadly, that tension fizzles out after the first act, as we begin an…
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Hooptober 8.0, pt.40- In which Ethan takes a trip up Mount Fuji
17/6 Countries (Australia, Belgium, UK, USA, Japan, Italy, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Austria, UAE, Finland, Spain, Germany, Iceland, Czechoslovakia, France, Sweden) (COMPLETE)
11/8- Decades (1980s, 2010s, 1960s, 1990s, 1970s, 2000s, 1950s, 1930s, 1940s, 1910s, 1920s) (COMPLETE)
2/1- Kaiju or Kong film12th Ishirō Honda (after Latitude Zero, The Mysterians, Matango, The H-Man, Mothra, Varan, Godzilla, Rodan, Gorath, Dogora and Space Amoeba)
Honda's followup to Godzilla is the least known of his Kaiju works, largely because it was deliberately buried by Toho after its release. There's a good reason for that, namely that its depiction of Burakumin can certainly be described as culturally insensitive, if not outright derogatory. Living near…
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Daikaijourney: The Best of the Beasts
Half Human is most notable for being one of the earliest kaiju films by Toho studios and for its self-imposed ban for housing a racist portrayal of burakumin as barbaric savages. Think of them as similar to the untouchables caste in Indian society, basically the lower-class folk who were pushed to the rural outskirts of Japan. Other than the isolated snowy mountain setting, it's a well-trod tale of mankind trying to pull nature out of its habitat kicking and screaming and everyone suffering the consequences of that hubris. You can really tell Toho had been hankering for those King Kong rights a long while before they'd have him square off with Godzilla in '62.
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Before watching this movie, I was super excited to see it. It’s probably one of, if not THE MOST, allusive Toho SFX films due to it being banned by Toho themselves. First of all, I love Toho SFX films and I have a huge interest in cryptids such as Bigfoot, so you can imagine how excited I was to watch this movie, however I was very disappointed. There are some spectacular shots and scenery, a very atmospheric setting, and the abominable snowman looks really cool, however that’s really all this film has to offer. It starts off really good and atmospheric, although once it gets to the second act, it just goes down hill. There are some instances in the…
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One of the most elusive kaiju films of all time and up there with Prophecies of Nostradamus in terms of infamy, Half-Human was Ishirō Honda's second stab at the genre after hitting the ground running with Godzilla the previous year. While Godzilla continues to be celebrated long after its release, this one is perhaps best left forgotten to time.
It’s a dark and stormy night. A mountaineering club from Towa University has returned from a trip to the Japanese Alps, traumatized and wounded by an encounter with a so-called “monster” responsible for the death of their friend Takeno and several others. A news reporter arrives to interview them about the experience, and Takeshi Iijima begins to recall the events...
So…
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Made a year after Ishirō Honda smashed Japan to smithereens with Godzilla, Half Human (or Monster Snowman) is a much less earth-shattering affair. It doesn't help that the only prints of the Japanese version of this film are borderline unwatchable. The film floats about in a weird state of semi-nonexistence, as Toho locked down its own property after concerns about its racism toward the Burakumin people. Pretty silly considering how later Toho properties would feature far worse racism. Free from its surrounding historical importance and controversy, Half Human is an okay but ultimately unremarkable watch. We get a somewhat sluggishly told Abominable Snowman story that if cut to seventy minutes would have been a banger. There are some really cool…
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a relatively man-sized rubber-suited menace and largely set-bound, brightly lit black & white photography manage to make Honda's immediate follow up to GODZILLA feel almost intimate by comparison, even if it's not all that exciting. also mutilated and released years later in the US (as HALF-HUMAN), this has reportedly been banned for decades in Japan do to fears of provoking and/or offending the country's Ainu population, who've been the targets of institutionalized racism there. although the muddled point here is really that "civilized" society is capable of just as much violence and savagery as that of the inbred, disfigured "natives" who worship a pissed-off Yeti (itself just protecting its child).
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Ishirō Honda’s follow-up to Godzilla, and probably the best abominable snowman movie I’ve ever seen… though after perusing a few lists of them, I think this viewing brings my official tally up to a whopping TWO (three, if you count Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer).
Apparently, the film’s depiction of the burakumin minority group is problematic for anyone remotely familiar with Japan’s caste system (before the film inspired me to read a couple articles about it, I was not), so Toho has Song of the Southed every print they could wrangle up into the darkest corner of their vault (the only existing copy - available to watch at archive.org - looks about as rough as some of these burakumin stereotypes).
It’s too bad we can’t…
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HALF HUMAN had something of an infamous reputation that sort of made it something of a legend in circles regarding Toho’s tokusatsu films. Toho Company pulled it from circulation sometime in the 80s I believe so the only way you can actually watch it is bootleg copies or somewhere online. The reason for this self imposed ban has been allegedly due to its depiction of native tribes in a less then savory manner.
Does the film live up to its controversy and decades long “legendary” status? Well, yes and mostly no. The controversial aspects surrounding the natives are pretty much true to what you’ve heard. Every native except the main native woman are shown to be dirty, seemingly deformed and…