``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]

Atsumi Kiyoshi and Sukekiyo's Night

While the filming of Kenichi Hagiwara's part was a hot topic, Atsumi Kiyoshi's part as Kosuke Kindaichi was also filmed in 1976. However, there was still no real acting, and it was more like a warm-up, mainly focusing on walking scenes.

On August 31, 1976, Atsumi headed out to film scenes investigating the limestone caves and various locations in the Kansai region. A reporter from Josei Seven accompanied Atsumi on this location shoot, and conducted in-depth interviews with him. I would like to reconstruct this location shoot by quoting parts of the article related to The Village of the Eight Graves and referring to articles published in newspapers and other sources.

Atsumi boarded the 10:12 Shinkansen Hikari bound for Hakata from Tokyo Station, got off at Ogori Station (now Shin-Yamaguchi Station), and was escorted by a Shochiku staff member to Yuda Onsen in Yamaguchi City. Immediately after arriving, he met with local reporters at the Hotel Bochoen and began talking about his role as Kindaichi.

"Kindaichi Kosuke likes to investigate people. Or rather, he has no other talents than to investigate things bit by bit. Apparently Yokomizo Seishi asked me to play this role, but in this movie, the characters are generally troubled, sad, or depressed. So I think they thought it would be nice to have at least one old man who seems to have forgotten something, and that's why they chose me." (Josei Seven, October 6, 1976 issue)

After the meeting, they moved to the inn where the staff were staying, and Atsumi treated them to sukiyaki. Atsumi, who sat next to director Nomura Yoshitaro and cinematographer Kawamata Takashi, did not drink any alcohol. The same was true for Nomura and Kawamata. The staff knew this well, so no one paid any attention. After the meal, Atsumi returned to the hotel where he was staying with his manager. The next morning, Atsumi and the staff traveled to Kagekiyo-do, about a 40-minute drive north from the hotel. It was in this limestone cave on the outskirts of Akiyoshidai that Atsumi/Kindaichi first appeared on film. Atsumi's costume, described in the article as "a pale green, shapeless suit, boots, a white open-necked shirt, a straw hat and a flashlight in his hand," was none other than Kindaichi from "The Village of the Eight Graves."

Regarding Kindaichi's costume, Atsumi said, "The story is set in the present day, after all. Well, I didn't put much thought into the outfit. I just walked out like this. If this were a period drama, I'm sure he'd wear a haori with family crests" (Yomiuri Shimbun, evening edition, September 21, 1976), showing no signs of paying much attention.

The scenes shot at Kagekiyo-do, like those at Shin-Osaka Station featuring Hagiwara Kenichi, feature different costumes from the similar scenes in the finished film, and can only be seen in the trailer. One could say that the filming for the trailer also served as a test. After filming finished in the morning, they moved in the afternoon. The Yamaguchi edition of the Asahi Shimbun carried a headline about this, "Tora-san heads to Yamaguchi." It was as if the location shooting of "Otoko wa Tsurai yo" had taken place there, but that was just how deeply the impression of Atsumi Kiyoshi = Tora-san had been etched.

From Akiyoshidai, he heads back to Ogori Station and takes the Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka. From there, he moves to the National Railways Tennoji Station, where Kindaichi changes trains to go to Kyoto after completing his fieldwork in Wakayama. The camera follows Kindaichi walking on platform 7 of the Hanwa Line, which connects Osaka and Wakayama, using hidden camera footage. The Osaka Nichi Nichi Shimbun (September 8, 1976) sketches the momentary shooting, saying, "The train arrives. People flow. A man pushes his way through the crowd, one step ahead of the flow." Some passengers were the first to spot Atsumi, who was walking quickly on the platform crowded with passengers, wearing a straw hat and looking down. "'Ah, it's Tora-san!' - a laborer-like man shouted and ran over, and before you knew it, Atsumi Kiyoshi was surrounded by a huge crowd of people" (Shin Kansai, September 7, 1976). Although the filming only took about five minutes, this scene appears in the finished film as an impressive one that evokes a sense of travel.

After this, Atsumi and the film crew went to Higashi Honganji Temple in Kyoto. The next morning they went to Tanba Sasayama in Hyogo Prefecture, and from there they went a little further to Tatsushinji Temple in Hikami Town. Just like Kindaichi in the film, they moved around the Kinki region, shooting scenes that lasted just a few seconds. They then moved to a hotel in Wakayama City, overlooking the sunset of Shin-Wakaura. The next morning they woke up at 5:30 and shot scenes of the sea in the fishing village of Shiotsu, as well as a visit to Gokurakuji Temple.

In the end, for "The Village of the Eight Graves," which was filmed in 1976, only shots of the limestone cave for the special trailer and scenes walking around the Kinki region were shot, and the scenes with actual acting were only rehearsed twice, with full-scale production postponed until the following year.

Born in 1928, Atsumi was familiar with Yokomizo Seishi and Kindaichi Kosuke. "Just like Lupin and the Phantom Thief Twenty Faces, they were characters from a dream," he said (Non-no, May 20, 1977). "The Village of the Eight Graves" was published around the time Atsumi became a regular comedian at a strip theater in Asakusa. At that time, he and his friends had discussed, "I wonder if we can do it on stage? That's impossible. It has to be a movie after all" (The Nishinippon Shimbun, August 21, 1976, evening edition). He had also watched the series in which Kataoka Chiezo played Kindaichi, which was being produced at the same time. Atsumi's way of telling the story conveys the atmosphere of the movie.

"The beginning was great. There was a beautiful actress who played the detective's assistant. She was a newcomer that year, or an actress on the rise, and she started off like, 'I wonder if it's OK for me to talk about this here?' (laughs). Then suddenly the subtitles appeared. We were really drawn in by that. The way she told the story was indescribable." (Nikkan Sports, March 29, 1977)

When Atsumi was excited to talk about a movie, he would sometimes mimic the tone of voice and even use gestures to recreate the scene. The writer Kobayashi Nobuhiko wrote that he was moved by the sight of Atsumi intently mimicking a modest scene from Stray Dogs (1949) right before his eyes (the scene where Takashi Shimura drinks rationed beer with Mifune Toshiro and eats pumpkin at his house). Atsumi, who was a skilled observer, would critique a scene that captured the essence of the work not by using words to describe it, but by acting it out from his own perspective.

In that sense, when talking about Chiezo's Kindaichi series, Atsumi is keen to focus on the assistant Shiraki Shizuko, who is an original character in the film (she only appears in "Honjin Murder Case" in the original work, but is not an assistant). In fact, in Chiezo's Kindaichi series, the pattern is that Kindaichi and Shizuko start off by riding a train together to the place where the incident is about to occur, and at the end, they walk along the lakeside or the beach and look back on the incident together. Some films, such as "The Devil Comes and Plays the Flute," start with Shiraki addressing the audience, saying, "Do you all remember the Tengin-do Incident that occurred on January 15, 1950?" Shiraki's presence as a companion to Kindaichi and pursuing the incident together is significant. It is this presence, so far removed from the original work, that highlights the dandy Chiezo = Kindaichi. However, it can be seen from his previous statements that Atsumi = Kindaichi has no intention of looking up to Chiezo as an example. In the aforementioned Nikkan Sports article, Atsumi also said the following about the character Kindaichi:

"Kindaichi Kosuke is interested in the kind of 'red' that emerges when humans rub against each other. He doesn't ask for money because he has solved the problem. Of course, he is different from a detective, judge, or lawyer. I think it's better not to clearly present the role of a detective."

Yokomizo's use of the unique phrase "red" to describe the bloodline is so typical of Tora-san, but Atsumi, who had postponed full-scale filming until the following year, devoted himself to research activities until then. The first place he went to was the Hibiya Movie Theater.

On October 5, 1976, from 5:30 pm, the premiere screening of Kadokawa's first film, The Inugami Family, was held at the Hibiya Movie Theater. Kadokawa Haruki, who produced his first film with this one, greeted the guests in a tuxedo. Atsumi was also present, along with Yokomizo Seishi and his wife, Yokoo Tadanori, and Asaoka Ruriko. At 6 pm, prior to the screening, Yokomizo, Kadokawa, director Ichikawa Kon, and Ishizaka Koji, who plays Kindaichi, gave speeches on stage, after which the screening began.

On seeing "The Inugami Family" for the first time, Yokomizo said, "I was so nervous I didn't really understand what was going on" (The True Story of Kindaichi Kosuke). It wasn't until he saw it again at the theater a month later that he understood.

After the screening, Atsumi praised the film, calling it "an outstanding work among recent Japanese films" (Sports Nippon, October 6, 1976). After completing his undercover investigation into the enemy camp, filming for "The Village of the Eight Graves" was to resume the following spring. What was Atsumi thinking as he faced Ishizaka = Kindaichi and how would he play Kindaichi in the film?

Kosuke Kindaichi in 1977