Bijo to ekitai ningen

Although THE H MAN doesn't feature any city stomping monsters, this is one of the best sci fi's from Japan's Toho studios. THE H MAN is an eerie thriller about a mutant blob creature lurking around Tokyo's sewer system and devouring people, leaving only their clothes behind.The blob creature, apparently a mutated human, seems to be out for revenge against a group of Japanese gangsters. It seems to always be lurking around a seedy gangster owned Tokyo strip club and devouring the mobsters. I have heard that the in Japanese version, the H MAN was a gangster exposed to an atomic bomb blast and returns as an H man to get revenge, but this is unclear in the English language version. I also found the films subplot involving Tokyo gangsters interesting in that it shows to westerners the seedier side of Tokyo's night life scene.

The film has one scene that I found pretty rough when I first saw this film as a kid. A scientist explains his theory that atomic radiation can mutate people in H men. In his lab he exposes a frog to radiation and the frog turns into a blob and then proceeds to devour another frog. The process is shown in a clinical and matter-of-fact fashion that I still find disturbing today.

Note: When this film was first released in the USA by Columbia, it was paired with the mostly dull British import THE WOMAN EATER, a film about a woman eating tree. Since both films deal with people being devoured in a rather gross manner, I wonder what effect the films had on the theaters/drive-ins concession stands.

Like many other posters, I saw this film as a young boy and it gave me nightmares for weeks (maybe even months)! Luckily, my older brother finally convinced me that the "liquid creature" would not survive a swim from Japan to the United States and I was able to sleep again.

I suspect that the modern age's Freddies, Jasons and Leatherfaces would not hold a candle to the effect that this film had on an impressionable youth back then. Perhaps the very fact that the monster had no tangible qualities and could theoretically be any puddle of water you came across was what gave it its fright value.

It would certainly be interesting to see how a remake of this would play today.

THE H-MAN is a fine, and most rare, blend of film noir and 1950s Japanese science fiction. The film is filled with startling visuals from start to finish. It grabs your attention and rarely lets up. Favorite scenes involve the events inside the derelict ghost ship and all the scenes in the nightclub which abound with the right atmosphere. Stylistic and often startling visually, this is a lot of fun to watch and get into. It does require one to suspend their disbelief quite a bit though.

As a first grader at age 6, I felt underpriveledged. All my class mates would come to school on Mondays bragging about whatever Saturday movie experience they had. Most of the time it was a Hercules, or Sinbad or other epic tale and their comments were vivid. But when the conversation revolved around a horror movie their version turned out to be a tease. I could tell that the real deal with horror pictures was to experience it personally. Here was the conumdrum, I wasn't allowed to go the the show without an adult and I didn't want to be seen by my friends with a parent. Well finally an aunt stepped up and volunteered to take me. In that darkened theater, finally seeing a horror movie for the first time, my anticipation was peaking: that is until the H Bomb went off and the tale of this insidious monster began. Needless to say my horror fascination came full circle by the end of the first reel, and the experience left me anxious for many, many, months! Thinking back to that screenining I feel that the H man was a landmark movie and probably generated the same type emotional response as the radio broadcast of War of the Worlds had a generation earlier. A remake would be awesome with todays technology, looking forward to it, and even a peak back to the past with the original version would be nice.

I saw this film when I was a child, and never forgot it. While somewhat similar to films such as 'The Blob' and 'Caltiki, The Immortal Monster' (a Spanish/Italian/Mexican rarity), 'The H-Man' is, as others note, a sort of film noir sci-fi/mystery film. Like most Japanese sci-fi & horror films of the 1950s and 60s, there are instances of unintentional humor, over-the-top acting and a fixation on the effects of radioactivity (not surprising). I had almost given up on finding this title, when fortuitously I ran into a really nice Japanese DVD with superb color and in a widescreen format; no English dubbing, but rather subtitles in the bottom black bar. It was as if I was seeing the film for the very first time! While I have no American version to compare it to, I have no doubt that this version has footage edited from the American release. Interestingly (for me, anyway), the title in Japanese is 'Beauty and the Liquid Human', an odd but actually more accurate title. The H-Man provides some very well-done special effects, creepy atmosphere and a decent amount of suspense. Along with 'Rodan' and 'The Mysterians' (and, I guess, Godzilla), this is among the best of early Japanese sci-fi films.