The Human Vapor
The Human Vapor | 1960 | Dir. Ishirō Honda
The Human Vapor is a pulpy supernatural cops and robbers story about Mizuno (Yoshio Tsuchiya), a Japanese librarian who can turn himself into gaseous form. In the criminal tradition of invisible man stories like The Amazing Transparent Man and, um... The Invisible Man, Mizuno uses this ability to commit a string of robberies, killing all who get in his way via asphyxiation. He is also in love with Noh dancer Fujichiyo (Kaoru Yachigusa), and gifts her stolen money to fund her recital -- a misstep that will lead the police straight to both of them.
Ishirō Honda is best known as the creator of Godzilla, a primordial creature awakened by nuclear radiation who rains fire down upon Japanese cities. In post-World War II Japan, Godzilla was a poignant horror fable of not just the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also the years-long firebombing campaigns by the United States that levelled the country’s wooden cities. These national traumas can be felt far beyond Honda’s kaiju work, however. Not dissimilar from The Human Vapor, The H Man from 1958 is about a man turned to goo after exposure to the hydrogen bomb, melting and dissolving anyone he touches. In 1963, Matango depicted a group of shipwreck survivors being slowly transformed into mushroom beasts, fungal sores covering their bodies as they decay, as if inflicted with plague.
Unnatural mutations are abundant in Honda’s post-war work and it barely needs to be mentioned how radiation poisoning affects the body. But The Human Vapor is a bit different -- we don’t quite know why or how Mizuno can turn into gas, but even as the ostensible villain of his story there’s an empowerment in his ability to control it. Japan had seen firsthand how to vaporize a human being, but to reclaim that phenomena and harness it as a superpower is vividly haunting. In a Hitchcockian finale set at a theatre, where Fujichiyo dons a demon mask for her solo performance, the police determine the only way to kill the vapor man is with a bomb. He must be un-vaporized.
Credit to the effects team here of Hidesaburo Araki, Sadamasa Arikawa, Eiji Tsuburaya and Akira Watanabe who craft the ethereal vapor images. There’s one midfilm scene (pictured) where Mizuno walks through jailhouse bars that sets the stage for Terminator 2 in 30 years time, made even more dreamlike by the animation overlayed ontop of Mizuno.