ESPY (1974)
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ESP-Y (TV 1980s)
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PARANORMALISTS CRUSH A STUPENDOUS PLOT TO DESTROY MANKIND
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— International tagline |
ESPY (エスパイ Esupai) is a 1974 Japanese tokusatsu science-fiction action film directed by Jun Fukuda and written by Ei Ogawa based on a 1964 serialized novel of the same name by Sakyo Komatsu, with special effects by Teruyoshi Nakano. Produced by Toho Eizo, the film stars Hiroshi Fujioka, Kaoru Yumi, Masao Kusakari, Yuzo Kayama, and Tomisaburo Wakayama. Toho released it to Japanese theaters on December 28, 1974, on a double bill with Izu Dancer. An English-dubbed version titled ESP-Y was brought to U.S. television by United Productions of America in the 1980s.
Plot
After losing control of his car on a practice lap, test driver Jiro Miki suddenly and inexplicably manages to avoid what likely would have been a fatal crash. He's approached afterwards by Yoshio Tamura and Maria Harada, two spectators who had been filming his drive. They escort Miki to the offices of the W.P.P.O., ostensibly an international anti-pollution organization headed by Hojo, but which is actually a front for ESP International, an undercover peacekeeping agency organized by the United Nations that employs agents with extrasensory powers, known as ESPY. The film taken of the accident proves that Miki shows great potential for telekinetic ability, for which Hojo wants to recruit him into the organization. Miki, however, is uncertain about the prospect.
Hojo explains that an unknown cadre of terrorists also utilizing supernatural abilities has arisen. Recently, their clairvoyant marksman Goro Tatsumi assassinated a UN delegation bound for a peace summit at Geneva which aims to resolve tensions in the revolution-torn Eastern European country of Baltonia. Because knowledge of ESP is still concealed from the world at large, the psychic nature of the killings was withheld from the press for fear of a global panic. Hojo suspects that the terrorists seek to undermine the UN's diplomatic efforts, possibly to escalate the Cold War into an all-out conflict. Thus, ESPY has been tapped to investigate, identify, and stop the paranormal threat before Baltonia's Prime Minister arrives in Japan for the neutral conference. Miki accepts the invitation to train under the tutelage of Tamura and Maria, who are romantically involved and share an exceptional telepathic link. Tamura, the most telekinetically-skilled ESPY, warns Miki that his abilities are thus far uncontrolled and released only when Miki or a loved one is mortally threatened.
The team is deployed in Istanbul to recover a fellow agent who had defected to the terrorists. Through psychic interrogation, Tamura extracts the words "St. Moritz" and "double." He concludes that the Baltonian Prime Minister, officially in Paris, must be a double, with the real man hiding in Switzerland. Tatsumi has tracked ESPY to the safehouse, however, and murders the defector before more information can be revealed. Tamura pursues the assassin through the building, but Tatsumi abducts Maria and then seemingly vanishes from a closed room. Tamura wanders the streets of Istanbul until he senses Maria in a seedy club. Upon entering, he receives a taunting telepathic message from the terrorist boss. Tamura is suddenly restrained and forced to watch as Maria, heavily drugged, performs an erotic dance. When one of the terrorists molests Maria, Tamura psychokinetically severs the man's tongue. In retaliation, Tamura is rendered unconscious by a series of 3,000-volt shocks.
He awakens in the cabin of a fishing boat to find his extrasensory powers impaired after the electrocution. The head terrorist introduces himself as Ulrov, a gifted telekinetic who rejects his own humanity and believes those with paranormal abilities to be superior to the rest of mankind. Through his Counter-ESPY, Ulrov plots to undermine civilization by sowing dissent between the world superpowers until they annihilate each other in what he estimates to be an inevitable conflict. He'd recognized Tamura's potential as a paranormalist and tries to secure his cooperation. Tamura, however, vehemently opposes him, for which he is savagely beaten, put overboard, and left for dead. ESPY rescues Tamura from the depths with the aid of a Soviet submarine. There, Tamura is debriefed by Hojo and wizened oracle Sarabat. Maria was rescued in Istanbul, he learns, although she doesn't recall the specifics of her abduction. Although Tamura suggests teleportation, Sarabat considers the use of such a rare and often-unpredictable ability to be unlikely in that circumstance.
Although Tamura's powers haven't returned, he travels to St. Moritz, where the Baltonian PM is under ESPY guard. The psychic curtain obscuring his location is disrupted by Ulrov's team, who psychically generate and amplify the sound of the town's church bells to produce a disabling cacophony. Miki is forced to defensively kill one of the assassins and, in shock, freezes long enough to allow the other shooter to take out his target. As the PM dies, Sarabat understands that this man is actually the doppelganger. Tamura, Sarabat, and Maria head to Paris to arrange protective transportation to Japan for the actual Baltonian PM. Miki, devastated from having killed, resigns as an ESPY.
Unknown to the team, Counter-ESPY agent Julietta hypnotizes the pilots as they board the flight. En route, Maria senses trouble as they pass an aurora. In the cockpit, Tamura finds the flight off course, the instruments gone haywire, and the flight crew catatonic. He takes the controls but struggles piloting the plane in bad visibility through a mountain range. To ensure the safety of all else aboard, Sarabat expends all of his energy to telekinetically move the jet out of danger. The flight reaches Tokyo, but at the cost of the mystic's life.
With Sarabat's death and Tamura still recovering his abilities, Hojo tasks Tamura with bringing Miki back into the fold to provide security at that evening's conference. Tamura finds, however, that Miki has just left with Julietta, who through hypnosis had convinced Miki she was his childhood friend Judy. Tamura follows Caesar, Miki's dog, who races through Tokyo after Miki and Julietta. They arrive at an abandoned warehouse in which Miki is under siege from Counter-ESPY thugs. Using Caesar's concern for Miki's wellbeing as an example, Tamura explains to Miki that love is the guiding force behind ESP. Tamura provides cover fire while Miki and Caesar escape to the conference. Although he takes out the remaining thugs, Tamura winds up psychically trapped by Julietta inside a car with a time bomb set to explode in a matter of minutes.
The Prime Minister takes the podium at the conference and begins to deliver a speech asserting his commitment to a peaceful solution to the present crisis. Although ESPY's Teraoka has disappeared, neither Hojo, Maria, nor Miki can detect a Counter-ESPY presence at the venue. The PM's speech, however, is interrupted by Ulrov, using telepathy to speak through the Baltonian. Ulrov condemns humanity for its persistent violence and warfare and for its habitual fear of otherness. He promises that he will bring ultimate peace to Earth through the extermination of mankind. The hall is rocked by violent tremors, sending all present into a panicked scramble for safety. Miki notices Caesar's apparent indifference to the carnage and realizes it's only a mass hallucination. As he urges the crowd to calm itself and that there is in fact no earthquake, Tatsumi teleports into the hall and trains his rifle on the PM. Miki jams the trigger in time for Hojo to pull the PM to safety, but Tatsumi turns the gun on Miki and Maria. Although facing his own imminent demise, Tamura senses the threat to his friends, giving him the power to teleport just as the time bomb detonates. He arrives at the conference out of thin air, knocking Tatsumi to the ground. The armed security at the event shoot Tatsumi to death. Ulrov's plan has failed.
Tamura receives a telepathic vision of Ulrov's hideaway. Interpreting it as an invitation, he brings Maria and Miki to a decrepit European-style palace, inside which the three find the kidnapped Teraoka alive but hanging on a cross. They manage to free him despite the presence of several booby traps. Ulrov asks Tamura if he thinks he can kill him, but Tamura replies that he won't have to if only Ulrov admits he's not above the human race. The thought disgusts Ulrov, who reveals the source of his misanthropy: when he was five years old, his father telepathically solved a murder, but upon presenting the evidence to the authorities, was tried and executed on the assumption that only the murderer could have known all the details of the crime. Ulrov came to find this injustice, closed-mindedness, and bigotry to be inherent to humanity. When Tamura counters that ESPY found acceptance in the UN, Ulrov suggests that the world leaders are merely using the psychics for ulterior purposes. Tamura again rejects Ulrov's assertion that they are superior beings, sending Ulrov into a telekinetic frenzy. Amid the calamity, Tamura rescues Maria and pyrokinetically ignites Ulrov's fireplace, setting the mansion ablaze. Too late does Ulrov recognize that Tamura's love for Maria is the force governing his superpowers. Tamura, Maria, Miki, and Teraoka escape as the madman perishes in the conflagration.
Staff
- Main article: ESPY/Credits.
Staff role on the left, staff member's name on the right.
- Directed by Jun Fukuda
- Associate director Kenjiro Omori
- Written by Ei Ogawa
- Based on the novel by Sakyo Komatsu
- Executive producers Tomoyuki Tanaka, Fumio Tanaka
- Music by Masaaki Hirao, Kensuke Kyo
- Theme songs "All We Need is Love" and "To an Unknown Country"
- Performed by Kiyohiko Ozaki
- Lyrics by Yoko Yamaguchi
- Composed by Masaaki Hirao
- Arranged by Kensuke Kyo
- Cinematography by Shoji Ueda, Kazutami Hara
- Edited by Michiko Ikeda
- Production design by Shinobu Muraki
- First assistant director Tsunesaburo Nishikawa
- Director of special effects Teruyoshi Nakano
- First assistant director of special effects Yoshio Tabuchi
Cast
Actor's name on the left, character played on the right.
- Hiroshi Fujioka as Yoshio Tamura
- Kaoru Yumi as Maria Harada
- Masao Kusakari as Jiro Miki
- Eiji Okada as Sarabat
- Katsumasa Uchida as Goro Tatsumi
- Goro Mutsumi as Teraoka
- Luna Takamura as Julietta
- Hatsuo Yamaya as Ball
- Jimmy Shaw as Godonov
- Andrew Hughes as P. B.
- Steve Greene as Prime Minister of Baltonia
- Willy Dorcey as Abdullah
- Ralph Jesser as Counter-ESPY A
- Franz Gruber as Counter-ESPY C
- Koichi Ito as government official
- Yoshio Katsube as reporter
- Toshio Hosoi as security guard
- Hiroya Morita as security guard
- Yuzo Kayama as Hojo
- Tomisaburo Wakayama as Ulrov
- Roger Wood as United Nations Mediation Committee member A
- Anest Harness as United Nations Mediation Committee member B
- Germal Liner as Counter-ESPY B
- Bart Johanson as Counter-ESPY D
- Shigeo Kato as security guard
- Kazuo Imai as cameraman
- Jiro Mitsuaki as man at International Conference Center
- Robert Dunham as airline captain
International English dub
- Barry Haigh as Yoshio Tamura / Sarabat / P. B. / Prime Minister of Baltonia
- Linda Masson as Maria / Julietta / Judy
- Michael Ross as Jiro Miki / Godonov
- Matthew Oram as Ball / Hojo / Ulrov
Appearances
Psychics
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Weapons, vehicles, and races
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Development
ESPY was adapted from a novel of the same name by Sakyo Komatsu which was serialized a full decade earlier in Weekly Manga Sunday. The novel's release came at a time of great popularity for the spy genre in Japan, sparked by the 1962 film Dr. No and its starting of the James Bond series. The rights to produce a film adaptation of ESPY were acquired by Toho producer Tomoyuki Tanaka shortly after the novel's release, and the film was announced in February 1966 as part of the company's production lineup. One of the film's planned stars was Akiko Wakabayashi, who was also attached to that year's King Kong Escapes. However, both films were forced to be delayed due to scheduling conflicts, as Wakabayashi was shooting the James Bond film You Only Live Twice from July to November. ESPY was finally readded to the lineup in February 1967, with Jun Fukuda announced as director, Ei Ogawa as screenwriter, and Tatsuya Mihashi, Makoto Sato, Mie Hama, and Wakabayashi to star. Wakabayashi's casting once again proved to be the film's undoing, as the actress declined to renew her contract as a Toho employee; she was replaced by Hama in King Kong Escapes, while ESPY was shelved altogether.[2]
Interest in the project would not be renewed until 1974, when the popularity of the supernatural was reaching an all-time high in Japan, in a so-called "occult boom." Extrasensory perception in particular had risen in popularity around this time, owing to an appearance by supposed psychic Uri Geller on Japanese television. Intending to capitalize on this, Toho's tokusatsu-oriented subsidiary Toho Eizo, which had also taken over production of the Godzilla films in 1973, adopted and revived the project.[2] In spite of these motivations, however, Tanaka insisted that the comparatively more outlandish novel be converted into a serious spy film, with the characters' abilities toned down significantly; as fellow producer Fumio Tanaka recalled, "clairvoyance was limited to seeing through a train's window blinds, telekinesis was limited to whether or not a gun's muzzle could be pointed up, precognition was limited to knowing when danger was approaching, and teleportation was impossible." Masahiro Kakefuda was hired to develop a screenplay alongside Fukuda, and the two took a retreat to the Keio Plaza Hotel in Tokyo to work out the details.[3] However, they found themselves unable to clear the hurdles imposed by Tanaka, and thus Ogawa was brought back on to assist them.[4] The trio ultimately turned out three drafts: a "consideration draft" on August 5,[5] a "preparatory draft" on August 24, and a "final draft" on September 5.[6]
The consideration draft contained numerous differences from the final story, including that Ulrov was named "Linz" and established to hail from Armenia, several historical tragedies were mentioned in detail, the head of the UN peace conference was the premier of China instead of the prime minister of the fictional Baltonia, Maria had a Turkish pendant called the "Evil Eye" to protect against the curse of the same name, the minor characters P. B. and Judy were given larger roles, and Ulrov's dialogue during the final sequence was changed. Rather than a childhood friend of Miki, Judy was an unrelated girl with psychic powers who was also Caesar's owner. At the end, as "Linz" burned in his mansion, he took on a grotesque form and revealed that he had personally known both Jesus Christ and the Buddha. Just before his death, he spoke the final words, "Two thousand years ago a man named Jesus, who loved mankind in spite of my advice, was sadly tortured to death by those humans."[5]
Even with Ogawa's assistance, the writers struggled to prevent the Baltonian Prime Minister's death without the use of teleportation, choosing to include it in that scene only.[7] The writers' other inventions included the character Jiro Miki, who did not exist in Komatsu's novel.[2] Ogawa finally collected the group's ideas into a fourth, "revised draft" which was published on October 1.[5][6] This draft was nearly identical to the finished film, except for the inclusion of Maria's pendant and a scene where Ulrov executed Julietta in his mansion for failing her mission.[5] Due to Ogawa penning this final version alone, neither Fukuda nor Kakefuda would receive screenwriter credit on the film.
Like Wakabayashi, none of the film's other originally-slated actors were retained. Kaoru Yumi's casting as Maria was personally requested by Komatsu,[2] while Tomisaburo Wakayama (Ulrov) was recommended by castmate Goro Mutsumi. As a Toei actor, Wakayama was paid ¥5 million for his appearance in a Toho film.[8] The Baltonian Prime Minister was played not by a professional actor, but by expat Steven D. Greene (credited as Steve Greene), a reporter for the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes.[9]
Gallery
- Main article: ESPY/Gallery.
Soundtrack
- Main article: ESPY/Soundtrack.
Alternate titles
- ESP-Y (U.S. television title)
- E.S.P./SPY (U.S. home video title)
- The War of the Occult Powers (La Guerra de los Poderes Ocultos; Spain)
- Espy - Extrasensory Action (Espy - Ação Extra-Sensorial; Brazil)
- Espy - The Power of the Mind (Espy - O Poder da Mente; Brazilian video title)
- Espy - Extrasensory Threat (Espy - Minaccia Extrasensoriale; Italy)
Box office
ESPY and its cofeature Izu Dancer earned ¥828 million in distributor rentals, making them the third-highest-earning Japanese films of 1975 and seventh-highest-earning films shown in Japan that year.[1]
Reception
In a brief 1975 review published in Variety, contributor Mizu described ESPY as "a straight-out entertainment about colorful characters", in contrast to the apocalyptic drama and "more or less [...] scientifically convincing story" of Submersion of Japan. The special effects were given particular praise: "Some of [the] special effect sequences — an aurora incident over Alaska and an earthquake scene — are spectacular, as might well be expected of the famous Toho special effect workshop."[10]
Video releases
Paramount/Gateway VHS (1994)
- Tapes: 1
- Audio: English
DVD Toho/TOHO Visual Entertainment DVD (September 25, 2004/August 3, 2013/August 19, 2015)
- Region: 2
- Discs: 1
- Audio: Japanese (Mono)
- Subtitles: Japanese
- Special features: Audio commentary, trailer, image gallery, 8-page booklet
TOHO Visual Entertainment Blu-ray (December 18, 2024)[11]
- Region: A
- Discs: 1
- Audio: Japanese (Mono)
- Subtitles: Japanese
- Special features: Audio commentary; trailers (special announcement, Japanese trailer, export trailer, Sponichi News); still gallery; 8 lobby cards; 88-page booklet including a commentary on the evolution of the script, interviews with Hiroshi Fujioka, Kaoru Yumi, Masao Kusakari, and Eiichi Asada, "Memories of Screenwriter Ei Ogawa" by Toshimichi Okawa, promotional materials, and still images
Videos
Trailers
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Miscellaneous
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Trivia
- The film's title is a contraction of "ESPer spy" (エスパー・スパイ esupā supai), ESPer being the Japanese term for psychics.
References
This is a list of references for ESPY. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]
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Bibliography
- The Complete 85-Installment History of Kinema Junpo's Best Ten: 1924-2011. Kinema Junpo. 17 May 2012. ISBN 978-4-87376-755-0.
- Ishikawa, Eugene; Hirai, Yutaro, eds. (28 September 2012). Toho Special Effects Movie Complete Works. villagebooks. ISBN 978-4-86491-013-2.
- Asai, Kazuyasu. "ESPY (1st Draft—Consideration Draft—1974.8.5), ESPY (4th Draft—Revised Draft—1974.10.1)". In Ishikawa & Hirai (2012), p. 182.
- Tanaka, Fumio (30 November 1991). "The Time of the Toho Literature Department: In Lieu of an Afterword". Novel: Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. Asahi Sonorama. ISBN 4-257-01033-9.
- Mizu (5 February 1975). "Espy (JAPANESE-COLOR)". Variety. Vol. 277 no. 13. Variety, Inc. – via Internet Archive.
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