JAPANESE
Giant Horde Beast Nezura
The origins of this project date all the way back to the early 1960s. At that time, the Daiei Motion Picture Company was looking to replicate the domestic and international success that rival studio Toho had achieved with their monster movies featuring the likes of Godzilla, Rodan and Mothra. Taking further inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock`s worldwide smash THE BIRDS and recent news reports of a rat outbreak on an island in the Seto Inland Sea, Daiei began work on a movie about a swarm of rats, mutated to giant size by a new experimental food product, running amuck in Tokyo. Entitled Giant Horde Beast Nezura, the film was scheduled for a New Year 1964 release. The production team for NEZURA initially planned to used rat puppets before deciding on real live rats. Miniature sets of Tokyo and other locales were built to make the rodents appear as giant beasts onscreen. Unfortunately, the rats would not perform as needed. Even worse, the sets -- and crew -- were soon overrun with fleas, ticks and lice. The use of pesticides to combat the problem resulted in unsafe working conditions and a warning from the health department. Beset with one problem after another, Daiei decided to shut down production of NEZURA. The sets were eventually used for GAMERA, a massive hit for the studio that launched a series of films about the giant flying monster turtle.
▲Shot from the original, unmade version of NEZURA. © KADOKAWA
Nezura 1964
Enter writer/director Hiroto Yokokawa and his company, 3Y Film. Having recently completed work on his independent kaiju movie THE GREAT BUDDHA ARRIVAL, Yokokawa approached Kadokawa with a pitch entitled NEZURA 1964; a drama about the infamous unmade film and all of the troubles that led to it`s cancellation. In addition to offering a behind the scenes look at the production, Yokokawa would film FX sequences of an imagined completed version of NEZURA. Production of NEZURA 1964 will be handled by 3Y Film, with Hiroto Yokokawa serving as co-writer, producer and director. Yokokawa is also bringing back much of his team from THE GREAT BUDDHA ARRIVAL, including supervisor Kensaku Sakai, creature designer Keisuke Yoneyama.
CREDITS
Title：Nezura 1964
Writen And Directed by Hiroto Yokokawa
"Mammoth Nezura" design by Keisuke Yoneyama
Music by Takuya Imahori
Cast:Yukijirō Hotaru / Masanori Kikuzawa / Kazuma Yoneyama / Himawari Ono / Mai Saito / Ippei Osako / Norman England / Yoshirō Uchida / Noboru Sato / Akira Ohashi / Shirō Sano / Bin Furuya / Mach Fumiake
Art staff: Takuma Asai / Karin Yamada / Hiroto Yokokawa
Consulting producer: Avery Guerra
Brain: Kensaku Sakai
Production: 3Y Film
Planned and Collaborated with: KADOKAWA
▲"Mammoth Nezura" design by Keisuke Yoneyama
▲The cast of Nezura 1964.
About 3Y Film
3Y Film is part of the video production company 3Y Co., Ltd. Founded in 2015 by Hiroto Yokokawa, 3Y has been involved with the production, filming, photography, editing and CG effects for commercials, movies, stage productions and corporate videos. The company has recently branched out into their original productions such as the feature film THE GREAT BUDDHA ARRIVAL & NEZURA 1964.
▲Nezura 1964(2020) IMAGE | 3Y Film
Link
Nezura 1964 Twitter3Y Film