From my favorite movies..

Brilliant and touching

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

**SPOILERS** Washing out, due to contracting tuberculosis, as a top test pilot for the Japanese Air Force Mizuno suffered a nervous breakdown that landed him into a Tokyo sanitarium. It was at the sanitarium that Mizuno met and fell in love with fellow inmate the famous and equally destroyed,mentally, Fujichiyo who at one time was Japans greatest dancer.Declared by the sanitarium doctors as being fully recovered and Let out in the outside world Mizuno ends up working as a librarian. In his work in the library Mizuno is approached by a Dr. Sano who's been a great fan of his when he was flying planes for the air force. Dr.Sano telling Mizuno that he can get him back into shape to fly planes has Mizuno agree to him being experimented on by the doc. Dr. Sano ends up putting Mizuno into this state of suspended animation for 10 days. when he comes out of it he's told by a scared and nervous Dr.Sano, who seemed surprised that he survived that it, the experiment was a total failure. Finding out from Dr. Sano that there has been other experiments by him, where all those involved died, and with him now being the only survivor an outrage Mizuno suddenly turns into a cloud of gas and attacks Dr. Sano engulfing and suffocating him to death.Mizuno realizing that he has achieved, due to the late Dr. Sano's experiments, super powers goes on a crime spree vaporizing into a fine mist and then robbing Toyko banks and killing a number of bank employees and police by asphyxiating them. Mizuno then makes his escape by fading away into thin air. Mizuno's, who's later dubbed by the police and newspapers as the Vapor Man, crimes are not for his own greed and misguided revenge against the world but to get enough money to have his love dancer Fujichiyo be able to get back to dancing by having a public recital of her talents. Mizuno wants Fujichiyo to become Japans premier dancer and the crazed Mizumo doesn't care how many banks he'll rob and people kill, with his new found powers, in order to do it.A really strange and at the same time touching love story, if you can excuse or overlook the bank robberies and killings involved, of a man ,Mizuno, gone insane with love for the woman ,Fujichiyo, he loves. Who's a sweet caring and conscientious person not having the heart to betray and turn him in to the police. For the crimes that he committed for her which she had no knowledge of.Arrested and thrown in jail Fujichiyo refuses to tell the police who her lover, who's committing all these vapor crimes, is. It's Mizuro himself who comes forward to tell the shocked public that he's the notorious Vapor Man and vaporizes himself going on to both rob a bank and kill a bank guard to prove it.The police are helpless to stop the Vapor Man and finally have to release Fujichiyo. That leads to her, and the Vapor Man, renting out a Tokyo theater to give her dance recital like the Vapor Man always demanded. At the recital a bunch of drunken yahoos crash the place thinking that it's some kind of strip show. This has the attending Mizuno, whom these jerks don't realize, the Vapor Man tell them to get the hell out of the theater and get their money back at ticket counter. This makes the theater crashers even more rowdy and in return Mizuno vaporizes attacking them and driving the entire bunch out in panic.The Tokyo police in a last desperate move, when the theater is emptied out with only Mizuno and Fujichiyo being in it, pump gas into the place in oder to knock out the Vapor Man and take him captive. Fujichiyo realizing what's happening and wanting to stop once and for all the death and destruction of her lover Mizuno pulls out a lighter. As she and Mizuno embrace, after her very successful dance number, Fujichiyo flicks her bic and blows the entire theater up killing herself in the process. Mizuno unfortunately survives and now has to live the rest of his life, which is forever, with the guilt of not only the many people he killed and victimized as the Vapor Man. He also has to live with the fact that he drove his one and only love Fujichiyo to kill herself because of the crimes that he committed for her.

The Human Vapor is a surprisingly worthwhile change from the usual round of men in rubber suit Japanese horror films. It is an effective cross between The Invisible Man and Phantom of the Opera with just a dash of Hangover Square.The kabuki sequences were very well staged. The musical score is lush, heartfelt and at times quite moving. It has tremendous production values and some good, sincere acting. It is marred only by over-abundant comic relief and choppy editing (although the latter is almost certainly the fault of it's American distributors).It is also hampered by its current un-availability in any medium. My sad, long out of print, much-abused VHS rental copy is close to 20 years old and appears to have been made from a very worn out, badly scratched and faded TV print.Does anyone know of a restored print? A letter-boxed version? A DVD???? All in all though, it is worth watching....really.

I saw this film only once, in Sydney around 1977, and was called "Vapour Man". I have looked for it sporadically since due to the soundtrack. The theme is as haunting as Bernard Herrman or Elmer Bernstein and was implanted into my mind until a couple of years ago when I was unable to recall it. Japanese cinema and TV series like "The Samurai" and "Phantom Agents" were almost as influential on Australian kids of the time as American and British products and luck we were indeed. Really heartbreaking theme.

The Human Vapour shows that there was a lot more to 60s Japanese science fiction movies than Godzilla and Mothra. While the version I watched was badly dubbed and transferred to video, it still stood out as superior b-grade sci-fi. The FX may be quite primitive but the concept was handled well, the acting more than adequate, and the central relationship between the Vapour and the Kabuki dancer was suprisingly touching. Try and track this one down if you're looking for something different.