Demeking Plummets to Earth!

In Godzilla’s absence, it’s good to know that Japanese daikaiju en masse haven’t forgotten to make an occasional excursion to the Big City. We’ve had news of an Ultraman movie, then there’s the exciting discovery of Daisuke Sato’s The Fog Horn, and re-builds of the monstrous Angels and opposing bio-mecha of Evangelion — to name a few of the more prominent. But one potentially exciting giant has hitherto slipped the Backbrain’s radar. In March this year, Demeking made an appearance in Japan, heading for Tokyo with all the enthusiasm of a rabid urban re-developer.

Demekingu [aka Demeking; Space Monster Demeking] (Japan-2009; dir. Kôtarô Terauchi)

Demeking-poster

Synopsis:

Set in a dreary port town in 1970, the story revolves around a group of boys led by the older Kameoka (Kohei Kiyasu) who form their own exploration group. One day Kameoka meets a strange man named Hachiya (Takeshi Nadagi) who works at the local amusement park. Hachiya is convinced a vision of the future he experienced is real, and one day he will have to fight a giant monster called Demeking to stop it from destroying Tokyo. When the time comes, Hachiya suddenly up and leaves. However, with the guidance of a note he leaves behind, Kameoka and his friends set off on an adventure to discover the true nature of Demeking. (Nippon Cinema)

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Demeking01

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directorThe 99-minute live-action movie adaptation of Takashi Imashiro’s popular 1991 manga — an inspiration behind aspects of Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys (which has also been filmed of late), or so it has been said — was directed by Kôtarô Terauchi (pictured at left). Terauchi also wrote and directed the sequel to Kôji Shiraishi’s Kuchisake-onna [aka A Slit-Mouthed Woman] in 2008 — based on a creepy urban legend about a ghost woman with a grotesque mouth. Demeking stars Manami Honjou (The Handsome Suit), Guts Ishimatsu (Blood), Kohei Kiyasu , Takashi Matsuo (Gamera: The Guardian of the Universe; Japan Sinks!; The World Sinks Except Japan), Takeshi Nadagi , Hiroshi Yamamoto (Exte: Hair Extensions), and was filmed around the city of Kamogawa (see on-location pics below).

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demeking-behind-the-scenes02

Two trailers and a teaser have been released so far.

Teaser Trailer:

Trailer 1:

Trailer 2:

The theme song heard in Trailer 2 is by pop group Pe’zmoku. It hit the Japanese charts as a single and the DVD and Music CD are already available in Japan.

The Monster:

So what of Demeking itself? The trailers are rather careful not to show us the monster, though the image of its footprint can be seen as a full-size drawing surrounded by suitably tiny people. This image plays a big part in the film’s advertising, second only to the helmet, dark-glasses and bikie leather of Hachiya (Takeshi Nadagi).

footprint

From the trailers we can determine that Demeking comes to Earth as a meteor that lands in Tokyo harbour, whereupon it swims ashore to the consternation of a group of fishermen, one of whom decides to stand and gawk at it instead of fleeing.

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And the monster clearly has some sort of radiation beam-weapon that it uses on its victims.

In fact, Demeking appears to be a hybrid critter, combining the long neck, toothless mouth and stalk eyes of a snail with a rough, spiky, slightly reptilian, asteroid-like body. It is bipedal and has a tail. The images below (in order: an animatronic model of its head, t-shirt design, reflections in Hachiya’s glasses and rampaging on the DVD cover and on the poster that follows it) can be scoured for hints.

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The film is currently available in Japan on DVD. That’s the good news. The bad news is, of course, that it does not have English subtitles. Hopefully, we’ll see a release in the West before too long.

Gallery (with more posters and images):

Addendum:

Demeking‘s Camera Car:

This entry was posted in Daikaiju, Film, Giant Monsters, News. Bookmark the permalink.

9 Responses to Demeking Plummets to Earth!

  1. Enshohma says:

    I really hope that despite the lack of monster photos, Demeking himself has a good amount of screen time, and makes the movie worth seeing for us more rabid monster fans.

    I don’t mind plot and character over monsters, I just prefer a balance of the two, that all. And diffendly not something like “legend of the Dinosaurs” were we only get a good look at the critters until maybe 20-or-less minutes before the closing credits.

    Outside of that, I like the bipedal snail monster with a meteor-like incased body concept.

  2. Enshohma says:

    Sorry, made a typo on ‘diffidently’…my bad!

  3. Avery says:

    I’m digging the daikaiju’s design! Yeah, here’s to hoping that it does get some good city crunching screen time. The bottom of one of the posters does show it blasting a city up rather good. Can’t wait to see this one, so hopefully we’ll be getting it here. The sooner the better and with English subtitles PLEASE!

  4. Neal says:

    Looks interesting and though the snail head looks rather odd to me, I’m still liking this kaiju design better than the one for the upcoming Death Kappa. Here’s hoping that Tokyo Shock or somebody, anybody, picks this up for American distribution.

    Thanks for the heads up Avery.

  5. G2KM says:

    This is eye opening, even refreshing to say the least. This project seems to be rather interesting. Now we just got to wait for a US distributor…

    Thanks Avery.

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  9. Don Krouskop says:

    This is an interesting movie, but a big letdown for those of us expecting a more traditional kaiju film. Demeking himself barely appears in the movie, as this is more a story about a man’s quixotic obsession than a giant monster epic. The few scenes which feature the titular titan are impressive, but end on a very disappointing note. In all, an indie arthouse film disguised (and deceptively marketed) as a monster mash.

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