King Kong Appears in Edo

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King Kong Appears in Edo (also known as The King Kong That Appeared in Edo) is a 1938 lost kaiju two Part film directed by Sôya Kumagai part one King Kong Appearing in Edo: Volume of Change

## Plot

### King Kong Appearing in Edo: Volume of Change

Chinami, a daughter of Hyoe Toba, is mysteriously kidnapped one night. Toba offers a 3,000 ryō (one of several currencies used by the Tokugawa shogunate) reward for his daughter. Yuzuru Kawasaki and other spongers set about searching for Chinami, but Magonojo Go, one of Toba's spongers, sneers at his fellows' efforts. In fact, Go is the very man who kidnapped Chinami, forcing his father Senbei's pet ape to abduct her.

### King Kong Appearing in Edo: The Golden Volume

Toba influences Senbei to counterfeit coins, but he refuses. Toba imprisons Senbei somewhere. To get a clue of his father's whereabouts, Go disguises himself as one of Toba's spongers. Go menaces Toba with the ape covertly. He offers Toba Chinami's location in exchange for the prize money, and takes him to his secret cellar to shut him up. There, the vengeful ape kills Toba but he, too, is fatally wounded. Go then leaves Edo with 3,000 ryō. What happened to Chinami after that is unknown, but it is assumed she was freed when Magonojo received his money from Hyoe.

## Cast

* Misato Magonojo (as Eizaburo Matsumoto)
* Fuminori Ôhashi (as Ryunosuke Kabayama)
* Reizaburo Ichikawa as Toba Hyoei
* Reiko Mishima as Chinami
* Yasutarô Yagi as Inoue Ginbei (as Sanshiro Mori)
* Noboru Takashima as Kawasaki Yuzuru
* Keinosuke Yashiro as Segawa Kinnosuke
* Shotaro Shiba as Azuma Tetsusaburo
* Shin Taga as Nakazawa Shinjûro
* Ryutaro Hibiki Ryutaro Hibiki as Matsudaira Izunokami
* Keisuke Matsudaira as Clerk at charcoal shop
* Kikutarô Yoshii as Clerk at soy sauce shop (as Kikutaro Yoshii)
* Do Jitsukawa as Rice Shop Apprentice
* Giant Ape: Ryunosuke Kabayama

## Staff

* Directed by   Soya Kumagai
* Written by   Daijo Aoyama
* Cinematography by   Yozo Okuda
* Special Effects by   Fuminori Ohashi

## Titles

* King Kong that appeared in Edo (Japanese: 江戸に現れたキングコング Original Japanese release title)

### Part One

* King Kong Appearing in Edo: Volume of Change (Japanese: 江戸に現れたキングコング:変化の巻 Original Part One title)

### Part Two

* King Kong Appearing in Edo: The Golden Volume (Japanese: 江戸に現れたキングコング:黄金の巻 Original Part Two title)

## Remarks

A video that was said to be a fragment of this work was posted to a video sharing service around 2012, but it is known that this was a fake based on the Italian movie " Yukio Yeti " released in 1977.

## Production

the first ever kaiju film, This silent period piece drama film was produced in 1938 by Zenshō Cinema. The film was broken into two parts. The first part called King Kong Appears in Edo: The Episode of the Monster was released on March 31, 1938, while the second part called King Kong Appears in Edo: The Episode of Gold was released a week later on April 7, 1938. Both films ran 5 reels in length and premiered at the Yûrakukan theater in Asakusa, Tokyo.

Going by the plot synopsis as well as flyers promoting the film, it is believed by historians that the ape (looking more like a yeti) is only referred to as "King Kong" in name only and does not appear gigantic outside of promotional photos. These photos that appear on the films flyers and advertisements, depict him being so big that he is holding Chinami in the palm of his hand and is straddling buildings as he faces down Hyoue Toba's men. This, along with the fact that Zensho was a typical Poverty Row studio who did not have sound recording equipment (none of the 173 films they produced between 1936 and 1941 were talkies), leads to believe that Zensho was simply trying to capitalize on King Kong's 1938 re-issue in that country by promoting the ape as being a giant.

However "King Kong" suit creator and actor Ryūnosuke Kabayama (who later changed his name to Fuminori Ohashi and later created the ape creature seen in the 1956 film 水戸黄門漫遊記 人喰い狒々|Mito Kōmon Manyūki: Hitokui Hihi, as well as the suit for Godzilla in the original 1954 film) stated in a 1988 interview "The first model making to be counted as 'special art direction' in Japanese cinema was a giant gorilla which I did for the movie King Kong Appears in Edo fifty years ago. It was also the first movie to feature certain kinds of special effects." With this statement from the suits creator there seems to be some contradiction over the actual size of the title characters.

## History

The King Kong That Appeared in Edo was one of Japan's first tokusatsu films, predating Godzilla by sixteen years. Although inaccurate to its historical setting, some Caligari-esque expressionistic buildings were added for the Anthropoid to climb. Like most of Japan's prewar cinematic output, the film is now completely lost.

Fuminori Ohashi, who would later provide guidance on the construction of the suit for Godzilla in the original 1954 film, created the ape suit and special effects for this film. He explained, "The first model making to be counted as 'special art direction' in Japanese cinema was a giant gorilla which I did for the movie The King Kong That Appeared in Edo fifty years ago. It was also the first movie to feature certain kinds of special effects." However, the film's synopsis, as published in the March 1938 issue of Kinepa Junpo, does not seem to indicate that the movie's "Kong" is a giant at all.