Word has leaked out via ENSHOHMA on the Kaijuphile forums about a new daikaiju film, Gehara.
Postscript: for the record the film is called Chohatsu Daikaiju Gehara [Long-haired Giant Monster Gehara] (Japan-2009; short; dir. Kiyotaka Taguchi)
As you can see from this poster image, Daikaiju Gehara is a hairy, though reptilian critter. As far as I can tell from a poor automated translation of the Japanese website, the monster emerges from the sewers and sheds its daikaiju-sized hair across town as it rampages.
The following information is “concocted” from a poor translation of text on the Japanese website, so is open to correction. The film, which I think is a short 15-minute film, was created by SFX technician Higuti Makoto, and was based on a contest-winning story and monster design by Jun Miura.
The film was due to be completed in February and will be screened on TV and at film festivals.
Among the cast is Sano Shiro, who played a significant part in such major films as Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001), Godzilla 2000 Millennium (1999), Godzilla Final Wars (2004) and The Great Yokai War (2005).
Miura is hoping for a sequel.
Postscript 2: Check out August Ragone’s blog for a full — and more accurate — run-down on this film.
- Source: ENSHOHMA on the Kaijuphile forums
- NHK News
- News Journal
I just want to say thanks man for the shout out, it’s very much appreciated and a highlight of an otherwise bland day; the project has been floating around online for some time, but I guess I was the crack that let loose the flood waters, for lack of a better analogy. August Ragone posted more information on the film BTW, which I’ll share here since I can’t e-mail you…
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I read about this last month in “Uchusen” magazine… 「長髪大怪獣ゲハラ」 (Chohatsu Daikaiju Gehara) or LONG-HAIRED GIANT MONSTER: GEHARA* is the full title.
This made for TV movie is yet another parody of the genre (one of the JSDF plans to stop Gehara is called “Operation Perm”!?), and was conceived and written by cult entertainer Jun Miura, and production helmed and supervised by visual effects wizard and director Shinji Higuchi for the NHK network. GEHARA was directed by visual effects artist Kiyotaka Taguchi, who recently produced the indie kaiju movie G, and will air in Japan on February 24th.
Here’s the cast for GEHARA: Ken Osawa (Samurai Fiction) as Hideo Akihara, San Diego-born Mina Fujii as Momoko Akihara, Mitsuko Oka (Virus) as Tsuruko Akihara, Shiro Sano (Godzilla 2000) as Professor Mikami, Tomorowo Taguchi (Bullet Ballet) as the Shrine Priest, Kanji Tsuda (Gamera the Brave) as Kubo the Fisherman, Hiroyuki Watanabe (Ultraman Gaia) as JSDF Commander, Pierre Taki (Always: Sunset on Third Street) as the Tank Commander and comedian Terry Ito.
*Ghosts and monsters (Obake, Yurei and Yokai) with long hair have traditionally been considered scary by Japanese standards, as seen in films like KWAIDAN (1964) and EXTE (2007).
Just wanted to say that the film is a mini-movie and was supervised by Shinji Higuchi, who provided the visual effects for the Gamera trilogy of the 1990s. He later went onto direct LORELEI (2005) and THE SINKING OF JAPAN (2007).
Anyhow, if you want, you can check out my blog for the more details on this made-for-television mini-movie:
http://augustragone.blogspot.com/
Cheers,
August
Thanks for all that information, August. I guess my less-than-accurate interpretation of the less-than-accurate Google translation of the Japanese webpages was… well, less than accurate. 🙂
By the way, Raf, I’m alway emailable on spookshow [at] roberthood.net.
Thanks ‘Enshohma’ and ‘August’ for brining us word of another new kaiju film. This one looks crazy-cool.
Feel a bit disappointed it’s just another parody, but I do think the monster is interesting.
I agree, Jacob. I was way more interested before I realised it was a parody. (Though I’m still interested…)
Endless parodies are, I’m afraid, a sign of a genre’s decadence….
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