``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]

Shochiku vs. Kadokawa Films

In the fall of 1977, when the blockbuster boom hit Japanese cinema, a great clash of the best films took place: Shochiku's The Village of the Eight Graves, which was to be released in cinemas on September 23rd, and Kadokawa's Proof of the Man, which was to be released on October 8th.

Originally, "The Village of the Eight Graves" was planned by Shochiku, and Kadokawa had proposed a partnership with it. If it had gone well, it would have been the first Kadokawa film, with Kadokawa Haruki, then the senior managing director of Kadokawa Shoten, spearheading the promotion. The story was written in the first part of this article, but Haruki eventually became president of Kadokawa Shoten and established Kadokawa Haruki Corporation, which produces films, among other things. He chose "The Inugami Family," based on a novel by Seishi Yokomizo, as its first film, and released it early through Toho for distribution, which was also a way of getting revenge on Shochiku. Intending to directly confront "The Village of the Eight Graves," whose release had been postponed from autumn 1975 to the following autumn, Haruki had planned to release "The Inugami Family," also based on a novel by Yokomizo, at the same time. However, Shochiku postponed the release for another year, and the day of the showdown finally arrived in 1977.

The unusual relationship between the two men was noticed by astute audiences. When Haruki visited Osaka to promote The Inugami Family, he said matter-of-factly, "Shochiku is going to do The Village of Eight Graves with Atsumi Kiyoshi, but no matter how you look at it, Atsumi doesn't have the image of Kindaichi Kosuke" (Weekly Sankei, October 28, 1976). It was expected that the movie would further boost sales of Kadokawa Bunko's The Village of Eight Graves, so it was strange that he would say something that would drag that down.

Furthermore, when a Kadokawa Bunko book was adapted into a film or TV drama, not only by Kadokawa Films but also by other companies, a new ribbon was added to the book to announce this. However, for some reason, as of the spring of 1977, "The Village of the Eight Graves" did not have a ribbon announcing its film adaptation. The Hochi Shimbun newspaper of April 7th of that year inquired about this to Kadokawa. It was likely Haruki who responded as follows:

"Yes, that's right. I overlooked it. But I wonder if Shochiku is really going to do it. They've been saying they were going to do it for the last three years, but they've backed out several times, and they've really embarrassed themselves with distribution and other things."

Although he seemed not to have any confidence that the film would be released in the fall of that year, soon afterwards, the paperback edition of "The Village of Eight Graves" came with a ribbon reading "Shochiku film adaptation decided!" and the back cover featured a lineup of films by Furuya Ikko's "Yokomizo Seishi Series." However, compared to other films of Yokomizo's works, the lack of involvement from Kadokawa was noticeable.

The bad relationship between Kadokawa and Shochiku became apparent through works other than "The Village of the Eight Graves." One of the victims was Go Hiromi. During this time, Go had starred in a string of fresh, youthful masterpieces, including Shochiku's "Farewell Summer Light" (1976) and "Ototo" (1976). His partner on these films, director Yamane Shigeyuki, had also made other masterpieces such as "Permanent Blue" (1976), and was one of the directors whose next works were eagerly awaited by film fans.

This golden duo was planning to film His Motorcycle, Her Island in 1977, based on a novel by Yoshio Kataoka, starring Go and Kumiko Akiyoshi. They also planned to adapt another novel by Kataoka, Make It a Slow Boogie, for which James Miki had written the screenplay. It was decided that the film would be released during Golden Week, and advance tickets and posters were printed, with 100 copies of the trailer made, all waiting to be shown in theaters.

However, at this point, Kataoka and Yamane had only made a verbal agreement to allow the film to be made. This was a bad practice in the Japanese film industry, where if the author's verbal approval was obtained, the film would go ahead and the contract would usually be signed later. For this film as well, the contract was drawn up on March 16th, just before location scouting began, and taken to the Kadokawa Haruki office, where an unexpected development took place. Yamane explains how it came about.

"At the last minute, when we were about to announce the production, Kadokawa Haruki Agency interfered. However, we had not signed a contract, so there was no way we could win, but we had at least gotten a verbal promise. (omitted) They wanted to do 'Make it a Slow Boogie' with Kadokawa. It was a kind of false pretense, and they presented us with conditions that Shochiku could not accept." (MOVE MAGAZINE, No. 12)

Yamane did not reveal the conditions under which he was not allowed to drink, but according to a report in the Hochi Shimbun (April 7, 1977), there was some negotiation going on between Kadokawa and Shochiku at this time. A few days after Yamane visited the Kadokawa Haruki office, Haruki visited Shochiku's chairman, Kido Shiro. There were two things he wanted. The first was that he wanted "Proof of the Man" to be performed at the special performance scheduled for September at the Shinbashi Enbujo Theater to commemorate Mariko Okada's 25th anniversary in show business. Okada had already been cast in the lead role in "Proof of the Man," the second Kadokawa film, and the plan was to stage a stage version with the same cast at the same time The Day After the film was released. The second thing Haruki wanted was for Atsumi Kiyoshi to be loaned out to star in the film version of "Proof of the Man."

Kido flatly rejected both of these offers. Even if you think about it from the common sense of the film industry, there is no way that Atsumi, who played the main role in "The Village of the Eight Graves," released at the same time, could be lent to "Proof of the Man" (although he would have been suited to the role of a veteran detective who teams up with Yusaku Matsuda, played by Hana Hajime). However, it was Kadokawa Pictures that broke this common sense (although in later years Haruki denied negotiating with Atsumi for a role).

With the talks falling apart, Kadokawa's side was unable to hand over the original novels for His Motorcycle, Her Island and Make It a Slow Boogie, which Shochiku was planning to adapt, citing plans to adapt them into films (in fact, Kadokawa Pictures made them into films later in life). In the end, Yamane decided to quickly make Suddenly, Like a Storm as a replacement project, using the same cast as His Motorcycle, Her Island, and was able to get by with a short preparation period.

Yamane, who is currently working hard due to the changes to the project, showed his anger by saying, "I really hate Kadokawa. A script written without sleep for three or four days doesn't work. Once we start, you can't make enough revisions because you have to make it with no time to spare" (MOVE MAGAZINE, cited above). However, we should not forget that the possibility of the Yamane x Go duo was dashed in the shadow of a major production movie.

Less than a month The Day After meeting with Kadokawa, Kido suddenly passed away on April 18th, but veteran Shochiku editor Sugihara Yoshi testified that in his later years, Kido expressed remorse regarding Proof of the Man.

"It seems like that was a painful moment in his life. (Omitted) He said he was sorry that he had refused based on his own opinion. He swore that he would never do such things on his own from now on, said he wanted everyone's help, and in the end he seemed like a really good-natured old man." ("A System of Film History Based on Collections of Conversations by Individuals and Areas")

It's hearsay, so it's dangerous to believe everything, but Kido is apologizing for the stage version of "Proof of the Man," but it's possible that Kadokawa had approached him about the movie "Proof of the Man." The film was distributed by Toei's foreign film division, and was a bold move that overturned the traditional movie theater system of showing the film mainly at Toho and Toei theaters, so it's not surprising that Shochiku had also been approached for advice. The "Village of the Eight Graves" incident gave birth to Kadokawa Pictures and "The Inugami Family," and by teaming up with Toho and Toei for "Proof of the Man," it was determined that Kadokawa Pictures would hold the casting vote for future Japanese films, so Kido must have had no choice but to admit the repeated mismanagement surrounding Kadokawa.

The annihilation operation of "The Village of Eight Graves"