The Lady Vampire
(Onna kyuketsuki, 1959)

Nakagawa Nobuo

Japan

78 min, B&W, Japanese (English subtitles)

Review © 2006 Branislav L. Slantchev

This is the type of film that should have ended on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It is as if Nakagawa was lobotomized after helming his decent kaidan films, then had half the brain of Ed Wood transplanted, then given a vampire novel with half its pages missing, and finally barred from the editing room where the dailies were assembled by a bunch of blind monkeys. Yes, The Lady Vampire is that bad. And no, it has no redeeming virtues whatsoever.

The single genuinely scary sequence	Stop flashing at me; I'm in a vampiric trance

For starters, the film shamelessly misrepresents itself. At the very best, the most generous interpretation is that there was one lady that really did not want to be a vampire and who never seems to have drunk any blood, virgin or otherwise. There was a man vampire though although he seems to have gone through an identity crisis with the moon (not necessarily full) giving him headaches and causing his face to break out. One could almost swear there was a tiny werewolf struggling to get out. The worst part, of course, is that Nakagawa should have realized that attempting to transplant romantically gothic European vampires to Japan without even the slightest modification to make them less, ugh, culture-bound would be disastrous.

Yeah, that 20-year old IS your mom	Tribute to Murnau

Despite his debt to Murnau and the obvious, if ill-advised, emulation of Dracula films, Nakagawa cannot seem to decide just what his vampire is supposed to be. Is he a seducer? A hideous creature that just sucks blood as the rubber bats they had dangling on strings in the cave? It's true that in some sense this vampire is unique; leave it to the Japanese to import a concept and then improve it. This vampire is not afraid of sunlight despite sporting decidedly dandy sunglasses. He's also some sort of Christian if the backstory about him drinking his beloved's blood after that failed Shimabara Rebellion is any indication. (It's funny how the old hag threatens the vampire that if he does not stop lusting after the daughter of his latest conquest God will punish him. I seriously doubt that the director understands just what the relationship between the Christian God and vampires is supposed to be.)

Well, I sort of like the frame	The instant effect of modern art

Storywise, the film is pathetic. Making it more linear than the actual narrative which involves some rather inelaborate flashbacks, it's about the grave social ramifications of the brutal suppression of Christianity in Japan several centuries ago by the Tokugawa bakufu. (As if.) Basically, the Christian princess commits suicide (thus compounding her failure to give unto Caesar his due with a mortal sin) and her distraught page sucks her blood in a fit of ill-conceived devotion. Since there was a cross in the background, this apparently makes him a vampire. So this Takenaka guy (Amachi Shigeru) now roams the island of Kyushu in search of better landscapes to paint, a straggler woman (preferably, but not necessarily, a virgin), and hops to the larger cities for the impromptu art exhibit. Did I forget to mention that he lives in an underground "castle" with a midget (Wakui Tsutomu), a bald muscle man with pea-sized brains (Harumi Yuzo), and an old hag (Satsuke Fuji)? Or that his remote and utterly secret dwelling is well-lit with electricity? Apparently the guy has tapped into the local company's lines.

If he weren't so earnest, I'd be laughing	The infamous candelabra breast pounding torture

One day, Mr Matsumura (Nakamura Torahiko) and his wife Miwako (Mihara Yoko) visit Kyushu, which we are told is where her family comes from. Of course, she turns out to be the spitting image of Princess Katsu, and the vampire abducts the woman to fulfill his eternal love or, failing that, his carnal desires or, failing that, his aspirations to imitate Van Gogh. He promises Miwako eternal life in exchange for posing half-nude which the demure woman cannot refuse on the pain of being tortured with a candelabrum. This particular vicious act involves the vampire donning his cape and then pounding her breasts with a candelabrum while simultaneously threatening to show her pictures of midgets and naked women. If you add to this the unexpectedly metallic clang of the hits, the confusion is supreme.

"I loved her so I drank her blood"	I'd really like to paint you without the veil

Fast-forward now (or, in the case of the film's structure, rewind) twenty years. Miwako's daughter Itsuko (Ikeuchi Junko) is engaged to an intrepid, if nerdy, journalist by the name of Tamio (Wada Keinosuke). At her birthday party, the lights go out, she cuts her finger while slicing the cake, and her fiancee shows up late. All really bad signs. Ah yes, and the butler sees a silhouette in the upstairs room that's supposed to be empty and locked. As luck would have it, Miwako has returned, having escaped from the apparently feeble clutches of her master. She is in a bit of shock but who wouldn't be when suffering from Post-bitten-and-painted Shock Syndrome. Or from the trauma of having to keep a straight face in this film.

Damn scriptwriter confused vampires with werewolves	I really hate this pre-hippie bead stuff

Obviously, Takenaka is going to come back to get her, for which purpose he enters an art contest anonymously (don't ask). He also has the unfriendly tendency to murder maids, women in bars, and random female passers by. Not someone you'd want for your neighbor. His incompetent midget, by the way, is responsible for at least six murders because when Takenaka ducks into a bar to avoid the moonlight, the midget goes inexplicably berserk, jumping on the counter, smashing bottles, and finally breaking the window, which lets the moonlight in and transforms Takenaka into a raving lunatic. I just can't see why the midget did that but I am no expert on the vertically-challenged minion types.

The underground Christian (?) castle	Yes, I do all my own tailoring

Then everything goes to hell as Takenaka's lair is uncovered by a bungling thief, which leads Tamio, Itsuko, and a dozen policemen on a wild goose chase in the mountains of Kyushu. Then Tamio discovers the cavern and an extended finale ensues of such epic ineptness that it should be screened by first-year film students to show them precisely how not to do it. Nakagawa not only fails to maintain any dramatic tension but simply abdicates all responsibility for making a product that can even vaguely entertain someone with an IQ above 60. I won't comment on the rubber bats because these just come with the territory. The effeminate Takenaka trying to whip Tamio was at least (unintentionally) funny. But when the chase/fight sequences began, I cringed. Not only do people trip over their own feet but Takenaka fails to stab the unarmed Tomio for about 10 minutes. If it weren't so painfully obvious that Takenaka's thrusts went at least a meter on either side of his opponent or his slashing at least a meter over his head, I would have said that Tomio is remarkably agile for a skinny reporter in a scroungy overcoat. Oh yes, and when Takenaka transforms into the hideous vampire that he is, for some reason only his face is affected. The film apparently ran out of budget so they could not pay for the makeup guy to apply some scabs and rot to his neck. They also forgot that his nails are supposed to grow.

Yikes: an extra walked in from another kaidan set	Yes, I stiffed the company on the electric bill, so what are you gonna do about it?

A horribly misconceived and ill executed production, this film should have stayed in the vaults deservedly and mercifully forgotten forever. It is for Nakagawa completists only, and even then I would strongly caution people. Some have noted that this was the first real Japanese vampire film as if this is some sort of praise. I'd much rather see the Japanese stick to stories that fit their milieu rather than borrow wholesale from the Europeans. It's not that I object to vampires in general (in fact, I am rather fond of them). It's just that the caped vampire is at home amid Gothic cathedrals, medieval castles, and even modern European cities which still manage to look at least Baroque. But not in modern Japan. At least not without significantly altering his characteristics. In other words, they should have made him more Japanese somehow, possibly by dropping the Christian trappings altogether and avoiding capes, sunglasses, and candelabra like the plague. Incidentally, this would have saved enough money to pay for proper makeup.

The one genuinely inspired still	My neck is that of a 30-year old and I forgot to spring my claw-like nails

The Beam Entertainment DVD is quite decent, with a relatively crisp non-anamorphic transfer at the film's OAR 2.35:1. The blacks could have been deeper and there are occasional print damages and scratches, but nothing too distracting. The monoaural Japanese soundtrack is fine, and the optional English subtitles are without errors. The extras include some talent files in Japanese and the trailer. Really not much to recommend this disc either. It seems that it's gone out of print but even before that the $40 price tag would be way too steep for something like this.

March 7, 2006