``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 Part 2]

I once asked Shinji Aoyama, the director who passed away in March 2022, "If you were to film Kosuke Kindaichi, who would you cast?" This was when I interviewed him when the long-unreleased film "Korōgi" (2006) was being released on DVD. The reason I asked him this so suddenly was because "Korōgi" starred Tsutomu Yamazaki, and Aoyama had previously filmed a film starring Kenichi Hagiwara, and the topic of the 1977 version of "The Village of the Eight Graves," a film adaptation by Shochiku in which the two co-starred.

Also, in the online diary that Director Aoyama was writing around the time of the interview, he mentioned that he was watching a bunch of Kindaichi films, and I thought I wanted to see a film based on a novel by Yokomizo Seishi and directed by Aoyama, whose filmography includes the excellent mystery film Lakeside Murder Case (2004), also based on a novel by Higashino Keigo.

While Director Aoyama says that the best is the film adaptation of "The Devil's Ballad" (1977) by Kon Ichikawa, when asked by the author who he would cast as Kindaichi, he answered, "Asano (Tadanobu)-kun, of course!" Since his feature film debut "Helpless" (1996), Director Aoyama has also worked with Asano Tadanobu in "Eli Eli Lema Sabachtani" (2005) and "Sad Vacation" (2007). Asano = Kindaichi is certainly perfect in terms of appearance and atmosphere. Also, the character of Kindaichi Kosuke is one that can be played by Chiezo Kataoka, Ken Takakura, Akira Nakao, Koji Ishizaka, Ikko Furuya, Toshiyuki Nishida, Takeshi Kaga, Goro Inagaki, Hiroki Hasegawa, Sosuke Ikematsu, Hidetaka Yoshioka, and Tadanobu Asano. Of course, there's also Atsumi Kiyoshi, who directed the Shochiku version of "The Village of Eight Graves."

In the second part, we will look at The Village of the Eight Graves, which finally began full-scale filming in 1977, and at the same time, the explosive Yokomizo boom that saw a succession of Yokomizo's works being adapted into film and television.

Click here for the first part

Part 2 is here

Index

• Kosuke Kindaichi takes on the Tsuyama incident
• Prelude to resuming production
• Second filming of "The Village of Eight Graves" begins
• The Aesthetics of 32 Murder
• Caves and bats
• Shochiku vs. Kadokawa Films
• The annihilation operation of "The Village of Eight Graves"
• Shoken's irritation
• How the catchphrase "Tatari ja!" was born

Kosuke Kindaichi takes on the Tsuyama incident

When trying to adapt a novel into a film, if one hits a dead end, they may dismantle the original work. For example, director Ichikawa Kon adapted the film version of Yukio Mishima's The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (1958) with his wife, screenwriter Wada Natsuju, but was at the mercy of Mishima's gorgeous, beautiful prose. So he borrowed Mishima's creative notebooks written before he started writing, and by using them to dismantle and reconstruct the original work, he found a ray of hope in his adaptation.

As mentioned above, filming for The Village of the Eight Graves, which began in August 1976, was halted after less than one-tenth of the filming had been completed, with full-scale shooting scheduled to begin in April of the following year. In the meantime, however, there had been many films, including The Inugami Family (1976), and TV adaptations of Yokomizo's works, so it seems that Atsumi Kiyoshi, who played Kindaichi Kosuke, was unsure of how he should play the role, given that Ishizaka Koji and Furuya Ikko had presented fresh portrayals of Kindaichi. Director Nomura Yoshitaro also commented as follows:

"Last year [1976], we shot the walking scene and rehearsed the acting twice, but it seemed like Atsumi himself was not confident, or he couldn't get it, and I couldn't get it either." (Eiga Jiho, June 1977 issue)

So Nomura and Atsumi focused on the "Tsuyama Incident." They tried to get hints for the film by tracing the origins of the original work. Nomura explains his purpose for visiting the site of the Tsuyama Incident as follows:

"Let's go and investigate together with Atsumi and hear all sorts of stories. Then when Atsumi and I come back, everyone will ask, 'Atsumi, what was the story about the 30 murders?' Then Atsumi can just talk about what he saw. The people listening to him don't know about this story, but since Atsumi has seen it, he can speak with confidence, or his own thoughts. Once he tries that, that's the role of 'The Village of the Eight Graves'" (ibid.)

The investigation into this case was even made into a TV program. The program was called "Our Main Character: Not Tora, Atsumi Kiyoshi" and aired on Tokyo Channel 12 (now TV Tokyo) on April 25, 1977. Weekly TV Guide (April 23, 1977 issue) said, "The program portrays Atsumi Kiyoshi as an actor who transforms from Tora-san to Kindaichi Kosuke, focusing on his investigation and on-site investigation of a murder of 30 people that actually occurred in Tsuyama City, Okayama Prefecture in 1938, away from the movies." Our Main Character is a documentary series that began in 1976, featuring veteran film directors such as Ichikawa Kon, Imamura Shohei, and Kumai Kei, who take on people active in various fields. The first episode featured an unusual pairing of director Yoshida Yoshishige and Hagimoto Kinichi.

However, when directors from the film industry were used, many of them were very particular, and pairing them with busy stars inevitably put strain on the schedule. When the program started, the next episode had not yet been shot - in other words, there was not even a single episode in stock, so the broadcasts continued like a tightrope walk. Initially, the planned pairings of Koichi Saito and Keiko Kishi, Jun'ya Sato and Kishin Shinoyama, and Shohei Imamura and Tsutomu Mizukami were canceled due to scheduling issues, and plans to feature Seicho Matsumoto and Konosuke Matsushita also did not work out. Ichikawa Kon, who was filming "The Inugami Family," was also supposed to feature Shigeo Nagashima, but filming was scheduled to take place from July 28 to August 1, 1976, when Toho studios were closed, but was postponed due to scheduling conflicts (filming was later carried out and aired on January 3, 1977).

The December 6th episode of the same year featured "Our Main Character: Yokomizo Seishi of the Inugami Family," directed by Shindo Kaneto. This pairing had been decided from the beginning of the program, but Shindo had purchased Yokomizo's complete works and read them through before beginning the interview, so Shindo did not visit Yokomizo until October 29th. Filming began at Yokomizo's residence in Seijo on the 4th of the following month, and Yokomizo was so enamoured with Shindo that he wrote in his diary, "He is a very good person, and he reads my writings very well, so I have decided to do as he says in everything" (The True Story of Kindaichi Kosuke), and he was interviewed at his home in Seijo on November 5th and 6th, finishing filming. Yokomizo, who later watched the broadcast, wrote, "I was impressed that he didn't move me at all, and yet he was able to do it so well" (ibid.).

Since the boom began, there have been many episodes featuring Yokomizo. On June 27, 1977, Kon Ichikawa aired "Our Main Character: Kindaichi Appears - Ishizaka Koji," which showed footage of the filming and editing of "Gokumon Island," as well as an interview with Ishizaka in between.

In this context, "Our Main Character: Not Tora - Atsumi Kiyoshi" seems to have become a prologue to "Mura of the Eight Graves," which was different from previous programs. This episode was directed by Nomura Yoshitaro, so it was probably easy to link it to the production preparations for "Mura of the Eight Graves." Unfortunately, I was not able to see the footage, so I will compare the program introduction columns in newspapers and magazines at the time and the scene report by Atsumi/Kindaichi published in "Heibon Punch" (April 25, 1977 issue) to recreate what they did and what they saw at the scene of the Tsuyama incident.

Atsumi and Nomura get off at Mimasaka-Kamo Station on the Inbi Line and see a silvery white world surrounded by mountains on all sides. They meet with the deputy mayor at the town hall to ask about the incident, and hire Mr. T, who works at the town hall, as their guide. Mr. T played with Toi Mutsuo as a child, who would go on to murder 30 villagers, and he vividly describes how Mutsuo excelled in elementary school and the events of the night of the incident. They then drive to the village where the incident occurred. Atsumi is left with the impression that "if I didn't know about the incident that happened in this village, I would only think it was a truly peaceful and bright village, so peaceful."

Three or four old women who live in the village show up, but Atsumi gets the sense that they are shunned. "I was trying my best to forget, but these people had come to dig it up again -- that's the look on the grandmothers' faces."

At first, the old women were reluctant to talk, but in front of Atsumi, who said, "I intend to convey to the audience the weight of the incident on which this story is based through the character of Kindaichi Kosuke," they gradually began to speak. Sports Nippon (March 14, 1977) listed the following as new facts that Atsumi uncovered at this time:

"1) When the incident occurred, there was a sound like splitting bamboo, and the villagers knew that something had happened. 2) The woman who was shot in the leg at that time kept the bullet as a souvenir. 3) It was a hunter who discovered the path the criminal used to escape over the mountains, and when he saw a gap in the mountain mist and followed the path, he came across the scene of the criminal's suicide."

Atsumi also visited the mountaintop where Mutsuo committed suicide. One of the motives for the crime is thought to have been ostracism due to tuberculosis, but Atsumi himself had suffered from tuberculosis in his youth and sympathized with Mutsuo. After being released from the hospital, Atsumi went to a nearby tobacco shop to borrow a phone, but the clerk's face turned pale and he tried to run away, convinced that he would catch tuberculosis. Atsumi theorizes about Mutsuo's feelings as follows:

"This man was probably lonely. If his sister hadn't gotten married and his brother hadn't lived elsewhere, I don't think this crime would have happened. I think the fact that he ran into the mountains after killing so many people might have had something to do with the fact that his sister, who had gotten married, was on the other side of the mountains. What was the last thing this man saw before he committed suicide by putting his big toe on the trigger of a gun?" (Weekly Myojo, May 15, 1977 issue)

Yokomizo carefully showed that the real Tsuyama incident and "Mura of the Eight Graves" were different events, for example by changing the location of the village, so that they would not be seen as the same thing, but in the film, on the contrary, the Tsuyama incident and "Mura of the Eight Graves" are made to be seen as nearly the same thing. This is clear from the structure in which Atsumi acts as Kindaichi in the program and Kindaichi investigates the Tsuyama incident. Then, Atsumi/Kindaichi connects the Tsuyama incident with "Mura of the Eight Graves" by saying, "Around here, there are many ruins related to the battle between the Mori and Amago clans. There must be many sad stories. The story of the killing of eight Amago clan warriors may have actually happened," and begins to tell a strange story he discovered during his research.

"I heard a strange story in this village. Someone killed a mountain priest, and the curse may have resulted in the murder of 30 people."

Whether this is true or not, by drawing a connection from "Mura of the Eight Graves" back to the Tsuyama incident, the real incident and fiction are mixed together. Considering that the film "Mura of the Eight Graves" deviated from the original novel in that the curse was real, it seems that Atsumi intentionally linked the two. This on-site investigation can also be seen in "Mura of the Eight Graves Special Report No. 3." In the serious look on his face as he speaks, you can see the prototype of the scene at the end of "Mura of the Eight Graves" where the mystery of the incident is solved.

As Nomura intended, there is no hesitation in Atsumi's speech as he talks about what he saw in detail. The audience is also captivated by Atsumi's eloquence. This is the Kindaichi Kosuke of Kiyoshi Atsumi, who is different from either Koji Ishizaka or Ikko Furuya.

Prelude to resuming production