Attending Another Rare Screening of Toho's 'Half Human' (1955)!

Half Human at the Laputa Asagaya. Photo by Brett Homenick.

On Monday, January 16, I was fortunate to attend another screening of Toho's Half Human (1955) in 35mm. It was part of the Laputa Asagaya's ongoing Science Fiction Film Festival program, and it was an offer too good to pass up.

I'd seen Half Human once before in 35mm, which was in late 2019 as part of an all-night film festival. Despite the lateness of the starting time, at least I'm able to sleep in my own bed tonight!

The print was in fairly decent shape, though there were defects aplenty. It certainly wasn't terrible, but the quality varied throughout the screening. Sometimes the print quality was basically perfect; other times it was rough going with a lot of jumps, scratches, and other flaws that one would typically associate with an old film print.

As for the film itself, I can't say that it's all that great. Toho hadn't perfected its formula for tokusatsu films until Rodan (1956), so most productions prior to that, in my humble opinion, don't hold up so well. Some parts of the movie -- the skiing sequence toward the beginning, in particular -- even look like a silent film, what with the lack of ambient sounds to go along with the action onscreen.

Masaru Sato's score is easily the most lackluster and forgettable of his SFX output. Speaking of SFX, the special effects are wildly uneven -- some shots are quite good, while others simply don't work at all. The titular Snowman doesn't come across as sympathetic as I'm sure the filmmakers wanted, but he also isn't as menacing as he should be. In many ways, the movie just isn't all that good.

On the plus side, I enjoyed seeing Shigeo Kato as one of the villagers, and I also spotted Haruo Nakajima as part of the mountaineering team. 

Even though Half Human is a much more lavish production, I enjoyed The Invisible Man (1954) -- last week's film -- much more. The ending to that film was quite a bit more impactful. Half Human's ending lacked any kind of emotion, even though it really should have, given who perished in the end. Thankfully, however, Toho would start cranking out superior productions on a much more regular basis shortly after this one.