Prophecies of Nostradamus

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Prophecies of Nostradamus
Directed by Toshio Masuda
Produced by Osamu Tanaka
Tomoyuki Tanaka
Written by Tsutomu Goto (story)
Toshi Yasumi (earlier screenplay)
Yoshimitsu Banno
Narrated by Kyōko Kishida (Japan)
Jack Ryland (US)
Starring Tetsuro Tamba
Toshio Kurosawa
Kaoru Yumi
Yôko Tsukasa
Music by Isao Tomita
Cinematography Rokuro Nishigaki
Editing by Nobuo Ogawa
Distributed by Toho
United Productions of America (UPA) (USA)
Release date(s) Japan:
August 3, 1974
United States:
July 13, 1979
Running time 114 min. (Japan)
88 min. (US)
Country Japan
Language Japanese

Prophecies of Nostradamus (ノストラダムスの大予言 Nosutoradamusu no daiyogen?) also known as The Last Days of Planet Earth or Catastrophe: 1999 is an experimental 1974 feature film by Toshio Masuda, inspired by the prophecies of Nostradamus. The film credits Toshio Yasumi as principal screenwriter, though Yasumi did not actually work on the film. Instead, Yoshimitsu Banno revised his script for The Last War (1961) and Yasumi was credited out of respect.

The film is notorious for its rarity. After complaints from a "No Nukes" group in Tokyo, Toho pulled the film from circulation in 1980.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

The film centers around the family of a scientist, Dr. Nishiyama (Tetsuro Tamba), who are essentially the same roles as those in the 1961 film. While the former film emphasized family melodrama, the new film reduced these scenes to a string, concentrating on hallucinogenic international imagery in a manner looking forward to such films as Koyaanisqatsi and Baraka.

In the film, scientific advances cause an outbreak of giant slugs, oversized bats, children with genetic mutations enhancing their physical or mental abilities, and bizarre changes in weather, such as snow falling on the pyramids. The film gets bleaker and bleaker, until Dr. Nishiyama hypothesizes a scenario that re-edits the climactic war footage from The Last War, augmenting them with a scene of the surviving humans, looking like sufferers of neurofibromatosis, fighting over who gets to eat a snake.

Also notable in the film is the symphonic score composed and conducted by Isao Tomita, with Tomita overdubbing his performances on a synthesizer as a solo instrument.

Although the film does utilize stock footage, primarily drawn from the film's little-seen ur-film, the film has its own unique special effects. One shot in particular, featuring a chain reaction of exploding vehicles, can be seen in The Return of Godzilla, where the shot was printed in reverse. In this film, the shot is intercut with scenes of human tragedy, as a mad driver tries to force his way through a traffic jam.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Release history

Prophecies of Nostradamus is infamous for its depiction of mutated human beings. After the film was released, a protest group lodged a complaint with the Eirin (the Japanese film ratings board), citing the New Guinea sequence and the post-climactic scene featuring two mutated children. Toho publicly apologized and cut the movie down to 90 minutes before putting the movie back into circulation for the rest of its theatrical run. After its theatrical release and a 1980 television broadcast, the uncut version of the film was officially pulled from circulation by Toho. The 90-minute re-cut does occasionally make appearances in re-releases and it is this version which is on file at the Library of Congress. [1]

Despite all the negative publicity, Toho created an international version of the film dubbed in Hong Kong, which was also 90 minutes long like the re-edited Japanese cut. This version was released on home video in Eastern Europe as well as theatrically in the United States (New York and Los Angeles only). This dubbed version deletes many scenes including ones connecting the Nishiyama family to the prophecies, and a subplot about Nishiyama's assistant's baby who turns deformed.

Henry Saperstein's UPA Productions picked up the film and released another edited version to American television in the early 1980s. Titled The Last Days of Planet Earth, UPA's version runs 88 minutes long and features scenes from both the international and Japanese versions. [2] Much of the semi-graphic violence, including the cannibalism of one of the researchers during the New Guinea Expedition and the peeling of skin of the corpse in the cave which originally revealed the bone, is deleted from the cut version. The Last Days of Planet Earth was released by Paramount/Gateway Home Video in 1995 on VHS and Laserdisc.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Patrick Macias. TokyoScope - The Japanese Cult Film Companion. Cadence Books, 2001. Pg. 167
  2. ^ Romero, Anthony. "Prophecies of Nostradamus (Review)". http://www.tohokingdom.com/reviews/romero/prophecies_nostradamus.htm. Retrieved 16 July 2011. 

[edit] External links

Films directed by Toshio Masuda
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