The H-Man

The H-Man (美女と液体人間) is a Japanese science fiction thriller film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya.

Plot
On a rainy night in the outskirts of Tokyo, a drug smuggler, Misaki, is killed while trying to escape in a getaway car, leaving only his clothes behind. The police go to his apartment to investigate, questioning his girlfriend, Arai Chikako, who says Misaki hasn't returned home for five days. Arai is a singer at a cabaret, and meets Masada, a Jyoto University professor, there. She gives him a note to take to Misaki, but it is confiscated and he is taken into custody by the police. He theorizes to the police Misaki's disappearance is the result of his physical form melting away due to exposure to radiation in the rain that night. The police dismisses the theory.

That night, Nishiyama of a drug smuggling gang sneaks into Arai's apartment and threatens her, asking her where Misaki is. However, Arai doesn't know, and Nishiyama leaves by the window, followed by gunshots. Arai screams and the police investigates, looking outside Arai's bedroom window and finding only a pile of clothes and a gun on the floor.

In the morning, the police take Arai in for questioning, but gets no new information from her. Masada arrives at the police station and invites Inspector Tominaga and Detective Sakata to his medical institute to hear the testimony of a group of fishermen, who allegedly witnessed some of their crew members fall victim to a liquid creature, disintegrating them and leaving their clothes behind. Masada next shows the detectives the test effects of radiation poisoning the fishermen were exposed to on a frog. The frog melts almost immediately, all of its cells transforming into a liquid creature.

Arai later visits Masada and his superior, Dr. Maki, at the medical institute and tells him she also witnessed a man (Nishiyama) dissolving, leaving his clothes behind. Dr. Maki dubs this liquid creature the H-Man. They go to the police station again with their findings and Arai's testimony, where she also agrees to lead police to the gang at the cabaret. That night, the police goes to the cabaret and make arrests, but Uchida, one of the gangsters, is tipped off by the gangster waiter and retreats to dancer Emi's room. Once inside, the gangsters try to escape through the window, but the H-Man appears, dissolving the waiter and Emi, and later Detective Sakata.

Having witnessed the carnage, Inspector Tominaga and others devise a plan to use a high voltage discharge unit to stop the H-Men's infiltration upstream by lighting Tokyo's sewer system on fire. Meanwhile, Uchida has kidnapped Arai and taken her into the sewers to retrieve the stash of drugs. Masada finds a piece of Arai's clothing floating in the water and rushes into the sewers to rescue her. Uchida is killed by an H-Man, and Arai is rescued by Masada. Both get out of the sewer in time as the flames burn all the H-Men, ending their reign of terror.

Cast

 * Akihiko Hirata as Inspector Tominaga
 * Kenji Sahara as Dr. Masada
 * Yumi Shirakawa as Chikako Arai
 * Makoto Satō as Uchida
 * Koreya Senda as Dr. Maki
 * Eitaro Ozawa as Inspector Miyashita
 * Yosuke Natsuki
 * Hisaya Ito

Release
The H-Man was distributed theatrically in Japan by Toho on June 24, 1958. The film was released theatrically in the United States by Columbia Pictures with an English-language dub and 79-minute running time.

The original Japanese version of the film focuses a similar amount of time on the drug-running criminals as the activities of the H-Men. This was cut in the American film.

Columbia released The H-Man on VHS. The film was released on DVD in 2009 in the United States.

Reception
From contemporary reviews, A New York Herald Tribune film critic at the time called it, "A good-natured poke at atom-bomb tests[.] The picture is plainly making a case against the use of nuclear bombs. At the same time, there is a great deal of lively entertainment in the story involving police, dope smugglers, scientists and some very pretty Japanese girls." The Daily Variety described the film as "well made" "seemingly more thoughtful" than The Mysterians and Gigantis. The review noted Takeshi Kumra's screenplay as "effective" and Honda's direction as taking "full advantage of the story [which is a] technically excellent production." The Monthly Film Bulletin noted the film had "all the usual faults and virtues of Japanese SF-cum-horror fiction[.] But for special effects, trick photography and spectacular staging, the Japanese again beat their Hollywood counterparts at their own game: The fantasy element of vanishing bodies and mobile liquid is brilliantly done."