The Invisible Man vs. The Human Fly

This article is about the film. For The Invisible man's enemies in the film, The Human Fly (kaijin), see The Human Fly (disambiguation).

 **Cinematography** | Toru Matoba

***The Invisible Man vs. The Human Fly***  (透明人間と蝿男,   *Tōmei Ningen to Hae Otoko*?, lit. *Invisible Man and Fly Man*) is a 1957 Japanese ***Tokusatsu*** film directed by Mitsuo Murayama ,with special effects by Katsujiro Hanaoka. it was released in Japan on August 25, 1957.

## Plot

After Ryoki Watanabe, the President of Watanabe Construction, is killed on a Japan Airlines flight. The killing took place in a bathroom none of the stewardesses can recall anyone else entering. None of the passengers interviewed by the police knew him, although one, Doctor Hayakawa, postpones his interview due to a recent heart attack. The police chief suggests a link to two equally unexplained bank robberies that took place in recent months. Chief Inspector Wakabayashi notes that the victims in all three cases offered no apparent resistance, and died in a state of character. Interviewing Hayakawa and his daughter Akiko, Wakabayashi alarms them by joking that the perpetrator must have been invisible. Working with Dr. Tsukioka, Hayakawa has just recently unlocked the key to invisibility while studying cosmic rays. Their assistant Sugimoto demonstrates their machine by turning a glass invisible, but says they've never tested it on anything living.

The bank robber strikes again, with no evidence they even entered the safe save for a matchbox from a nightclub called Asia. The owner, Tatsuya Kuroki, denies all involvement. He introduces Wakabayashi to Hajime, his bartender and a karate hobbyist. Soon after, another murder takes place: a man seems to materialize behind a woman named Noriko Maeda before stabbing her and vanishing. Detective Tada happens to be on the scene, and hears a buzzing sound as she points to the sky. Kuroki has an alibi; so does Maeda’s boss, Kusunoki.

Following Hajima as he walks to visit one of Asia’s dancers, Mieko, Wakabayashi watches him bat at what appears to be a fly. He too is fatally attacked after rounding a corner, with Wakabayashi arriving too late to see the murderer. He too hears a buzzing. His fellow investigator Hayama uncovers a connection between Watanabe and several earlier victims: all were assigned to the same secret military project at the end of World War II. After comparing notes with Wakabayashi, Tada brings up the buzzing they both heard. Wakabayashi calls Sugimoto, who considers a shrinking human theoretically possible, but unlikely in practice. Determined to prove that invisibility has practical applications, Sugimoto interrupts the Hayakawas’ dinner wearing an invisible cloak and gloves. The ray only worked on the parts of him less exposed to sunlight, so he needs the accessories to achieve the full effect.

The murderer, a twisted smile on his face, strikes again, stabbing Kuroki. He takes out a vial and releases the gas within, shrinking himself down to diminutive size. Buzzing through the air, he visits Kusunoki next—and the businessman sets down a pool of liquid which restores him to his normal size. Convicted as a war criminal and left stranded on the island where he helped develop the shrinking gas, Kusunoki has been using it to take revenge on his former associates, although he’s almost run out of the ampoules. His hitman, Yamada, has become addicted to it and more sadistic as a result, killing Maeda, Hajima, and Kuroki over his possessiveness of Mieko. His next victim is Hayama, who he outmaneuvers during a nighttime chase.

Tsukioka attempts to develop a machine to cure invisibility, but the ray it emits proves lethal when tested on rabbits. At Asia, Yamada uses another ampoule to lust over Mieko undetected, though it backfires when she mistakes him for a fly and swats him away. Enraged, he kills her just before she walks on stage. Wakabayashi has no luck advancing his human fly theory before the police chief, and with the bodies piling up, he begs Tsukioka to turn him invisible to crack the case. The scientist refuses on moral grounds. As Hayakawa and Sugimoto continues to work on a cure, Yamada infiltrates the lab and kills them both. After the funeral, Tsukioka uses the invisibility ray on himself. He drops in on Yamada and Kusunoki, who are at odds over Yamada’s failure to steal the ray, and hears them plan a second attempt. Once inside the lab again, Yamada dives into a vat of chemicals, killing him instantly. The police discover his remains at normal size, but with no possible mode of entry besides the vents, Wakabayashi deduces that he was the human fly.

The detectives charge Kusunoki with the murders, but seem to have no proof until Tsukioka enters the office, offering his testimony. Asking to change in the next room before he goes down to the station, Kusunoki uncorks an ampoule and escapes. With all of Tokyo on alert, Kusunoki kills a passerby, then calls Wakabayashi and Tsukioka to demand the invisibility ray. When Tsukioka refuses, he sets off a bomb beneath a train, killing 790 passengers, and threatens to do it again the following week.

Wakabayashi meets Kusunoki atop the Marunouchi Building to hand over the device. The human fly arrives by helicopter, allowing him to spot the soldiers surrounding the building. He reveals he’s already set the next bomb to explode, then demands Tsukioka reveal himself. Instead, Wakabayashi attacks him during the handoff, foiling his efforts to set off an ampoule, but loses his gun. As he flies away, he reveals that he planted the bomb on faraway Christmas Island. To their surprise, he returns to the helipad moments later, held at gunpoint by Akiko, now invisible herself. He manages to disarm her, but Wakabayashi shoots him off the roof.

Tsukioka, having perfected the invisibility cure, agrees to turn the machine over to the government, but not before using it one last time on himself and Akiko to give a group of reporters the slip.

## Cast

* Yoshiro Kitahara as Wakabayashi (Investigation One Section Manager)
* Junko Kano as Akiko Hayakawa
* Ryuji Shinagawa as Doctor Tsukioka
* Ikuko Mohri as Mieko
* Joji Tsurumi as Sugimoto
* Yoshihiro Hamaguchi as Detective Hayama
* Shozo Nanbu as Doctor Hayakawa
* Mitaro Taro as Inspector General
* Ichiro Izawa as Kusunoki (Etsuo)
* Shizuo Nakajo as Yamada
* Yasushi Sugita as Hashima
* Tatsuo Hanafuu as Chief Detective Tada
* Harumoto Fujio as Kuroki

## Staff

* Production: Hidemasa Nagata
* Planning: Osamu Yoneda
* Director: Mitsuo Murayama
* Script: Hajime Takaiwa
* Original plan: Riichi Yamano
* Photo: Hiroshi Murai
* Special photography: Toru Matoba
* Music: Tokujiro Okubo
* Art: Taijiro Goto
* Recording: Kimio Tobita
* Sound effect: Katsujiro Hanaoka
* Special technology: Toru Matoba
* Still: Tadao Miyazaki

## Notes

1. " Fear of a Flying Man " -American science fiction movie. Original title *The Fly* . Although the Japanese title is similar, it was released in 1958 and has no direct relation to this work.

## References

This is a list of references for **The Invisible Man vs. The Human Fly**. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]

1. ↑ Invisible\_Man\_vs.\_Human\_Fly
2. ↑ https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%80%8F%E6%98%8E%E4%BA%BA%E9%96%93%E3%81%A8%E8%9D%BF%E7%94%B7

## Gallery

Main article: The Invisible Man vs. The Human Fly/Gallery

**Japanese**
**Invisible Man Appears* (1949) · ***The Invisible Man vs. The Human Fly*** · *The Invisible Avenger* (1954) · *Invisible Man: Rape!* · Oh! Invisible Man · *Oh! Invisible Man – Invisible Girl Appears!?* · *Invisible Demon* · *The Invisible Swordsman* ·*
**Other**
*Invisible Avenger* · *Invisible Invader* · *Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare* · *Yokai Monsters: Along With Ghosts* · *Kujira Gami* · *Memoirs of an Invisible Man* · *The Invisible Man* (1984) · *The Invisible Man* (1977) · *Dr. Jekyll Meets the Invisible Man* (1977) · *The Human Vapor* · *The Secret of the Telegian* · *The H-Man* · *The Fly* (1958) · *The Invisible Woman* (1969) · *The Amazing Transparent Man* · *Fear the Invisible Man* · *The Invisible Witness* · *The Invisible Man* (2016) · *The Invisible Maniac* · *The Invisible Man* (2017) · *The Invisible Man* (2018) · *Invisible Man* (2018) · *Mad Monster Party* (1967) · *Strangler of the Swamp* · *The Invisible Man Attacks* · *The Incredible Shrinking Man* · *The Astral Factor* · *Attack of the 50 Foot Woman*