Description

An ambitious work by Director Teruo Ishii, well-known for his cult films of the bizarre. The cast includes Teruo Yoshida, Asao Koike, and Masaomi Kondo, among others. Remixing Ranbo Edogawa’s “Panorama To Kitan,”  “Koto no Oni,”  “Ningen Isu,” and others, Murobushi plays the role of a grotesque, malformed human that Professor Jogoro Komoda (Tatsumi Hijikata), with the aspiration to create a utopia with a new mankind, invents. At the time, Murobushi was chosen to be Hijikata’s attendant and they lodged together on-location at the Noto Peninsula.

Hijikata wore a wedding dress inside out, jumped into the ocean, and ran around. The hems of the dress were immediately drenched and, unable to run anymore, fell down. (laugh) Director Ishii said to me, ‘Guevara, Guevara, Hijikata fell!’–I had sported long hair and a moustache and had been called Guevara (Note: When he went to Mexico later, Murobushi found that, oddly, he shared the same birthday as Guevara and said what is quoted.)–and I used a wire to hold the costume in place, made coffee in the morning, etc…..

Murobushi

Furthermore, Hijikata at the time had appeared to be earning some from his film work, and sought out, Murobushi also appeared alongside Juro Kara and Yoko Ashikawa in Director Misao Arai's “Onsen Ponbiki Jochu.” 

Whenever I went to the filming site, Hijikata, in his rehearsal wear, would be waiting as if haunting Toei. He was so cool. “Oh, so you came,” he would say. (laugh) Staying at an inn in Kyoto, Hijikata would drag all of us part-timers to a bar called Heihachi in Gion, rent out a tatami room there and down drink after drink, and eventually start doing something strange. (laugh) I remember that well. That was when I first started my interactions with Hijikata.

Murobushi

(Y.O)

translation

Vinci Ting