Shot in 1977, The Witness is the second production and production produced by Kadokawa Shoten, a high-profile entry into the Japanese film industry.
At the end of the 1970s, the studio system of Japanese films was facing a total collapse, and the monopoly of shochiku, Toei, Toho, Nissho and other blockbuster studios was gone forever, and some non-film companies were looking at the tiger and waiting for the opportunity to encroach on the film market, including the powerful publishing giants Tokuma Shoten and Kadokawa Shoten.
In 1971, Tokuma Shoten took the lead in acquiring the Near-Closed Daiei Corporation. In 1975, the reinvigorated Dayei brought to the screen the masterpiece "Honjin Murder Incident", a masterpiece of Japanese mystery novel hero Masashi Yokomizu, directed by newcomer Yoichi Takabayashi, and played by Takahiro Tamura as the famous detective Kazunosuke Kaneda. Ko Lin Yangyi has just been promoted from assistant director to director, and the shooting level of "Honjin Killing Incident" is average, but the attendance rate is unexpectedly good. It gave Haruki Kadokawa, the owner of Kadokawa Bookstore, a big revelation: If you ask a first-class director to make other works by Masashi Yokomizu into movies, he will definitely make a lot of money.
As a result, in 1976, the newly established Kadokawa Picture Co., Ltd. invited the great director Ichikawa Kun to shoot another masterpiece of Masashi Yokomizu, "Inuyasha Family", with Koji Ishizaka playing Kazunosuke Kaneda. Haruki Kadokawa was very business-minded, and he made full use of the bookstore's original fame and sales network to carry out linkage publicity, and this ingenious publicity campaign was effective, and "Inuyasha Family" won the box office of that year with a box office revenue of 1.56 billion yen.
For a time, the Japanese film industry set off a yokogou adaptation fever, and various companies began to grab his works, Shochiku grabbed "Eight Tombs Village", Toho wanted to shoot "The Song of the Devil's Ball" and "Hospital Slope Neck House", Kadokawa Also formulated the shooting plan of "Prison Gate Island", still directed by Ichikawa Kun and starring Koji Ishizaka.
Seeing that 1977 was going to be the year of cannibalism in Yokogou films, Haruki Kadokawa suddenly made a decision to shoot his self-published Seiichi Morimura mystery novel "Human Witness" before "Prison Gate Island". In his view, the interest of Japanese audiences in speculative films has been fully mobilized, but the audiences who like Yokogou's works are older, and if they want to attract more young audiences, they must find works by young writers. Seiichi Morimura is a representative of the newly emerging socialist speculative fiction, his works are not lack of homicide, reasoning elements, but also involve people's concerns about the real problems, there is a strong social criticism, especially the sales of 2.94 million copies of "Human Witness", it is set in Japan's post-war thirty years of vicissitudes of history, the clues are thousands of miles away in the United States, which provide a vast world for screen performance, colorful fashion shows, luxurious hotels, picturesque amusement resorts and new York nightlife. The car chase in the downtown area and the big fight in the black area can bring a completely different freshness to the reasoning movie, which is also unattainable by the Henggou movie.
"Human Witness" takes the route of a huge film, and Kadokawa Pictures invests 650 million yen at the expense of work, which is equivalent to the budget for shooting two films. Before filming began, in order to strive for the best quality of change, the producers adopted a unique approach to public drafts, and a total of 660 adapted scripts were collected. After elimination, 13 scripts are concentrated for reconsideration, and three of them are selected as elected scripts and paid remuneration. Finally, from these three scripts, Shozo Matsuyama's script was selected as the shooting script.
Junya Sato, who directed The Witness, was considered the most Hollywood-style director at the time, having previously collaborated with Ken Takakura on "The Hunt" and "Shinkansen Explosion", the latter of which won the Top Ten Awards of japan's "Movie Shunbun" and his own best director award from readers.
The cast of "Human Witness" gathers a number of stars from Japan and the United States, led by the big stars Jasmine Okada and Toshiro Mifune, who play the heroine Kyoko Yasugi and her husband, Kyohei Koji, respectively.
Yusaku Matsuda, the actor of male No. 1 Tojo police officer, was selected from a number of candidates, and he was still a newcomer at the time, who had previously become a popular actor for playing a rebellious and unruly subordinate police officer in the hit TV series "Roar to the Sun", and it was because of this role that he won the opportunity to play Theoju police officer.
Group photo of the actors who played Jonny and the young Jonny
Haruki Kadokawa invested 400 million yen in publicity for "Human WITNESS" in an effort to make the film a household name. He developed a publicity strategy of film, music, and publishing, and the so-called music was the theme song of the film, "Straw Hat Song", which had been widely circulated before the film's release. The lyrics of "Straw Hat Song" are from the "Straw Hat Poems" in the "Saijo Eighty Poems" published by Kadokawa Shoten, composed by the famous jazz musician Yuji Ohno, who recommended Jo Nakayama to play Joni in the film and sing the song. Zhongshan Qiao himself is a mixed-race child, whether it is his personal experience or singing style, it has become a major selling point of this film.
The release of "Human Witness" was extraordinary, and the box office soon exceeded two billion yen, but the most popular thing that year was the epic blockbuster "Hakkodayama" starring Ken Takakura, which grossed as much as four billion, and in the end, "Human Witness" ranked second in the annual top ten high-grossing films list, which far exceeded "The Hunt".
"Human Witness" was released in Chinese mainland in January 1980, although it was also popular, especially "Straw Hat Song" was covered by Zhu Fengbo, Liu Huan, Cui Jian, Cheng Fangyuan, etc., but the popularity of the film was far less than that of "Pursuit".
Although the two films are from the same director, the adaptation of the mystery novel "Human Witness" is obviously more complex in plot, coupled with a large number of flashback shots in the film, whether it is Kyoko Yasugi's recollection, or the recollection of Officer Dongju, intertwined with the real time and space, so that the audience who was not accustomed to this method of expression at that time was easily confused. More importantly, the translated version deleted a key scene in the scene where the US military stationed in Japan killed the father of the police officer Dongju and bullied Kyoko Yasugi, and it was in this shot that Shofutan revealed the seahorse tattoo on his arm, and later Dongju also recognized Shawftan based on this tattoo. Without this shot, the viewer cannot understand why Dongju shot Atovtan in the mirror.
Yang Zhenhua and Jin Bingchang's cross-talk "Playing Chess" interprets the famous bridge section of "The Hunt"
The lack of publicity is also a hard wound to the popularity of "Witness". In the five years since the signing of the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Peace and Friendship in 1978, four Japanese Film Weeks and two Japanese Film Premieres have been held, namely-
October 1978 Japan Film Week, screening of "Wangxiang", "The Hunt" and "The Fox's Story";
In September 1979, Japan Film Week, screening of "Life and Death Love", "Princess Yin" and "Ryuko Taro";
In October 1980, the Japanese film premiered, screening "Ah, Wild Wheat Ridge" and "Absolute Singing";
In August 1981, Japan Film Week, screening "The Call of the Distant Mountains", "Wind and Snow Dusk", "Swan Lake", "Mother's Birthday" and "Assi's Street";
At the premiere of a Japanese film in September 1982, "The Story of Injiro - Wangxiang Chapter", "Ah, Nomari Ridge Sequel", "The Fifth Movement of The Flaming Red" and "River of Mud" were screened;
At Japan Film Week in September 1983, "Kamata March", "The Straits", "Abduction Report", "Hunter" and "My Father and Me" were screened.
Ryoko Nakano and Kurihara Xiaojuan accompanied by Zhang Jinling and Liu Xiaoqing toured the Summer Palace
At that time, the film week was the main channel for Chinese audiences to contact foreign films, and there was always a wave of movie watching during the film week, and the visits of movie stars such as Nakano Ryoko and Kurihara Komaki played a warming role.
However, "Witness" does not belong to any film week, how it was introduced to China has always been a mystery, and the Japanese side has not cooperated with the film's release in China.
Another reason is that "Human Witness" was translated by Changying, and a more interesting phenomenon at that time was that most of the films in capitalist countries were translated by the Shangyi Factory, and most of the films translated by Changying were films from socialist countries such as North Korea, Romania, Yugoslavia, and East Germany.
(From left) Xu Yan, Chen Rubin, Xiang Junshu and Sun Ao
It should be said that "Human Witness" represents the highest level of long-term film translation and production at that time, especially Xiang Junshu's voice for Kyoko Yasugi, reaching the peak of her dubbing career, in addition to Xu Yan's Dongju, Chen Guangting's crossing, Chen Rubin's director of the punishment department, Zhang Yukun's Xiao Futan, etc. also have their own strengths, and the two popular film stars of Changying also participated in the dubbing, that is, Zhuang Peiyuan spoke for Joni, and Chi Zhiqiang contributed to Gungong Ping.
However, the audience is more accepting of the dubbing of the translation, and is not accustomed to the dubbing of the long shadow, not to mention that there are some flaws in this translated version, such as -
In a scene where the criminal police discuss the case, a criminal police officer says: "The person who stabbed Jonny to death was a wrigley fruit knife." "Fruit knife" is clearly a Northeastern dialect.
New York police officer Shoftan went to the black landlady to investigate Jonny and asked, "Does he sell poison?" "Maybe there was no concept of drugs in China at that time, and drugs were translated as poisons.
Shoftan captures a black on the streets of the United States, the little is voiced by Gao Fengxin, and the barber he accompanied in Roman Holiday is a classic, but here may be to highlight the oily slippery tone of the little, speaking in a full mouth of Northeast dialect, Don't catch me! "The typos are all four.
Where are the actors of "Human Witness" now-
Jasmine Okada was a famous beauty in the Japanese film industry when she was young, and she was 44 years old when she played Kyoko Yasugi, but her charm still exists. At the beginning of her debut, she cooperated with major directors such as Naruse Mikio, Keisuke Kinoshita, Yasujiro Ozu, and Kun Ichikawa, and was portrayed as a typical representative of Japanese women in a series of literary films, with both elegant introverted and sexy wild. At the age of 21, she married Japanese New Wave director Kishigeru Yoshida and became the latter's royal actor, and her style began to change.
"Human Witness" is a representative work of The Transition Period of Okada's performance, and for the first time, it creates a mother image with such a contradictory and complex psychology, which makes people look both hateful and sad. Jasmine Okada retired from the film industry in 1987, and then returned to the screen at the age of seventy with the encouragement of her husband, creating a miracle in the Japanese film industry. Now at the age of 87, she has stopped filming and enjoyed her old age.
Matsuda Yusaku's role as the jealous and vengeful Officer Dongju left an indelible impression on Chinese audiences. In the 1980s, Matsuda Yusaku was a god-like existence in the Japanese film industry, he was 1 meter 85 tall, he was a real karate second stage, debuted as a drama in his early years, but later opened up another drama path with his unique personality and realistic and natural acting skills, and reached the peak of his career through a series of works such as "Detective Story", "Family Game", "From Then On", "Hua Chaos" and so on.
In 1989, Yusaku Matsuda participated in the filming of the Hollywood film Black Rain with Ken Takakura, but it was his last work. On November 6 of that year, he died of bladder cancer at the age of 40. Today, his two sons, Ryuhei Matsuda (Mifado) and Shota Matsuda ("The Man of Flowers"), have also inherited their father's business and become the best of the new generation of Japanese actors.
Toshiro Mifune, who was crowned emperor in Venetian films twice with "Heart", and "Red Beard", is an international superstar in the Japanese film industry, and he had just participated in the Hollywood movie "The Battle of Midway" when "Human Witness" was filmed. Because "Human WITNESS" wants to rent American star actors, the other party from the perspective of reciprocity, requiring the Japanese side to also have international film stars to participate in the performance, so Mifune Toshiro was specially invited to play the role of Gunyohei in the film. Gunyohei was originally a small businessman, but because he was good at drilling, he later developed into a powerful capitalist and became a member of parliament, and Toshiro Mifune successfully portrayed this character with his deep and steady performance. Toshiro Mifune suffered mild dementia in his later years and died of multiple kidney failures on December 24, 1997, at the age of 77.
Joe Nakayama was first a film actor, and later he formed the Flower Travel Band, dabbled in the music scene, was discovered by the famous jazz musician Yuji Ohno, and became the actor of Jonny in "Witness" and the singer of "Straw Hat Song". Joe Nakayama's vocal range can span 3 octaves, and "Straw Hat Song" has achieved the effect of tearing his heart and lungs and crying like a complaint through his interpretation, and this single CD has created a sales record of more than 500,000 copies in Japan.
In 2010, Zhongshan Qiao was invited to sing "Straw Hat Song" at the "Global Spring Festival Gala" of Beijing Satellite TV, and he became the only actor in "Human Witness" who came to Chinese mainland. He died of lung cancer on 6 August 2011 at the age of 64.
Iwaki, who plays Kyoko Yasugi's second son, Jungyō Hei, is the only actor in "Human Witness" who has participated in the filming of Chinese films, and in 2004, he was invited by Hong Kong director Ma Chucheng to play the leader of a transnational criminal gang in "Flying Eagle" starring Yang Ziqiong, Li Bingbing, and Ren Xianqi.
George Kennedy, who plays New York police officer Shoftan, is 1.93 meters tall and is a tough guy star in Hollywood, and he also appeared in "Massacre on the Nile" that year, which was released in China at the same time as "Witness", and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1967 for his role in "Iron Window Blood". He died on February 28, 2016, 10 days after his 91st birthday.
Broderick Crawford, who played the New York Police Chief in the film, is also an Oscar winner, and in 1950 he won both the Golden Globe and the Oscar for "Contemporary Adultery". Because of his long-term alcoholism and unhealthy eating habits, he died of a stroke on April 26, 1986, at the age of 74. He holds two star-shaped badges on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, representing his achievements in the film and television industries.
There is also a Chinese actor in "Witness", she is Fan Wenque, who is from Taiwan, playing Jungong ping's girlfriend Naomi. In 1995, Fan Wenque also played Fujii's mother in the film "Love Letter" directed by Shunji Iwai. She died of a heart attack on November 5, 2002, at the age of 54.