``Yatsu Tomb Village'' (1977 edition) What happened in the midst of the Yokomizo boom and Kadokawa films? [That's when movies were born Vol.3 middle part]

The Village of Eight Graves actually exists

Although Shinobu Hashimoto took over as director, the script for "The Village of the Eight Graves" was still in difficulty. The script was originally scheduled to be completed in February or March of 1976, but there were no signs of completion. Even under his predecessor, location hunting to find filming locations had begun in June 1975, as it would not be possible to wait until the script was completed.

What director Nomura Yoshitaro was looking for in this film was the real "Mura of the Eight Graves." He wanted to find the village described in the original as "located in a place that was like the bottom of a mortar. Surrounded by mountains on all sides, it was about two ri square, and the mountains were cultivated up to a considerable height. From the base of the mountains to the bottom of the mortar, rice fields could be seen, but the rice fields were literally the size of a cat's forehead." Nomura was also convinced that the success or failure of the film would be determined by discovering the luxurious mansion described in the original as "a building with a solid, weighty and stable feel, like a huge rock, with a dense grove of cedar trees towering up toward the sky within the earthen walls" - the Tajimi House, the birthplace of Terada Tatsuya (the Tajimi House in the original).

The locations for Yokomizo's films were a challenge, as they required landscapes that had long since been lost in the mid-1970s, a time of rapid economic growth. In ATG's "Honjin Murder Case" (1975), the setting was the former Honjin Ichiyanagi family home, which posed a problem. With ATG's low-budget films, even when building sets, the only option was to recreate the old home with an abstract set, as in Oshima Nagisa's "The Ceremony" (1971). For "Honjin," the producer and art director was Yoshinobu Nishioka of Eizo Kyoto, who offered his childhood home in Asuka Village, Nara Prefecture, for filming, which made it possible to film the story without destroying the worldview of the original work, even though the setting was changed to the present day.

So how did the Kindaichi series, directed by Ichikawa Kon around the same time, deal with these location issues?

In "The Inugami Family," the exterior and grounds of the Inugami residence were created using multiple locations in Nagano Prefecture and Tokyo, and the interior was created by building a set at Toho Studios. The problem was the sequel, "The Demon's Ball Song" (77). How to show Onikobe Village in Okayama Prefecture, where the story is set. Ichikawa also had to face the same problem that Nomura faced with "The Village of the Eight Graves." Moreover, he did not have the time to spend a year searching for a village. Toho's Kindaichi series had a hectic schedule, with filming starting two months after the decision to make the film. The candidate locations that the production department had selected for Onikobe Village did not meet Ichikawa's standards, and the staff was at a loss. Then Ichikawa showed him an old album he owned. It contained photos of the location of "Jinmu of the Tohoku Region" (57), which had been filmed 20 years ago. In other words, he was asking if "The Demon's Ball Song" could be filmed at the same location. Thus, the village of Onikobe was filmed mainly around Shosenkyo Gorge in Kofu City, Yamanashi Prefecture.

However, as you can see from the film, the geography of Onikobe Village as a whole is unclear. Ichikawa himself seems to have felt embarrassed about this, revealing his painful feelings by saying, "It is unavoidable under the filming conditions of recent Japanese films" (The Complete Book of Ichikawa Kon's Films).

Returning to the 1977 version of The Village of the Eight Graves, the renowned cinematographer Takashi Kawamata, who also worked with Nomura on Castle of Sand , was involved from the location scouting . The journey Nomura and Kawamata took in search of the Village of the Eight Graves literally spanned the whole of Japan. The first place they visited was Tohoku. This was because they expected that Tohoku would still retain the scent of old customs and grudges, but despite searching the Tohoku region thoroughly for two or three months, they were unable to find a suitable location for the Village of the Eight Graves. They then turned their attention to the Kanto region, visiting Chichibu and Nikko, but still could not find the right village. They then searched in Shinshu, Ishikawa, and Toyama, before narrowing it down to the hinterland of Kyoto and Okayama.

The problem in deciding on the location was how it would connect to the Tajimi residence. This was because Hashimoto's plan included a spectacular scene in which the Tajimi family mansion would be set ablaze at the end of the film. Of course, even if they found a mansion that matched their image, they couldn't just set fire to a building they had rented for filming, so they needed to make an elaborate replica to burn it down. In other words, they had to find a stately mansion suitable for the Tajimi residence, and at the same time, build an identical open set at the location of The Village of Eight Graves. In that case, it would not be enough to simply film the village and the Tajimi family mansion, which are in separate locations. They would have to calculate the topography and mountain ranges of each location and connect them so that there would be no sense of incongruity.

With Okayama and Kyoto as the final candidate locations, the Hirokane Residence, towering over Nariwa-cho, Takahashi City, Okayama Prefecture, was discovered in Okayama Prefecture. The stately main building, with its castle-like stone walls and several storehouses, was built by a village headman who amassed enormous wealth in the late Edo period. In the surrounding area is Fukiya Furusatomura, where old merchant and townhouses have been preserved over a 500-meter stretch, and within an hour's drive there are limestone caves such as Makido Cave, providing the perfect setting for a film adaptation of Yokomizo Seishi's world.

Once it was decided that the Hirokane residence would be used as the Tajimi family home for filming, other potential locations were selected one after the other. When moving between multiple locations, a "line" is more important than a "point." As a large film crew would be traveling, it would be best to film in the vicinity as much as possible. As a result, Hino Town, Hino District, Tottori Prefecture was chosen as the location for The Village of the Eight Graves. Coincidentally, Hino Town is located on the border between Tottori and Okayama Prefectures, just like the original novel, making it the very image of The Village of the Eight Graves.

The connection to the essential Hirokane House was also perfect, and it was possible to build an open set that recreated the Hirokane House in Hino Town and film the burning scene there. location scouting lasted more than a year, but in the last 10 days or so of the summer of 1976, just before filming, the locations were decided one after another, as if guided by fate.

As an aside, the same Hirokane residence was chosen as the Tajimi family residence for the third remake of "The Village of the Eight Graves" (1996) by director Kon Ichikawa. The location for this village was Hattoji Furusatomura in Yoshinaga-cho, Bizen City, Okayama Prefecture, but this village, dotted with many thatched roofs, had also been used for the location shooting of "Black Rain" (1989) directed by Shohei Imamura. At that time, the conditions for filming were met, as the electric poles and power lines had been buried underground and the village headman's house had been moved to the center of the village. The scene in which 32 villagers are murdered was also filmed in the drama version of "The Village of the Eight Graves" broadcast on BS Premium in 2019.

The cinematography for "Black Rain" was done by Takashi Kawamata, who also shot the 1977 version of "The Village of the Eight Graves." It was also Kawamata who laid the groundwork for Hattoji Furusato Village, which appeared in the 1996 and 2019 versions of "The Village of the Eight Graves."

The reason why the script wasn't completed until just before filming