MOTW- THE HUMAN VAPOR (1960)

[Xenorama ™]

Tatsuya Mihashi ... Detective Okamoto
Kaoru Yachigusa ... Fujichiyo Kasuga
Yoshio Tsuchiya ... Mizuno, the Librarian/The 'Vapor Man'
Keiko Sata ... Reporter Kyoko
Hisaya Ito ... Police Scientist
Yoshifumi Tajima ... Sergeant
Yoshio Kosugi ... Mean Detective
Fuyuki Murakami ... Dr. Sano
Bokuzen Hidari ... Jiya (Fujichiyo's Attendant)
Takamaru Sasaki ... Police Chief
Minosuke Yamada ... Official
Tatsuo Matsumura ... Editor Ikeda
Ko Mishima ... Detective Fujita
Kôzô Nomura ... Kyoko's Fellow Reporter
Ren Yamamoto ... Nomura the Robber

i've really only watched this once, and found it kind of boring.

a young man volunteers for an experiment and becomes a man who can turn in vapor at will. commits crimes to fund the comeback of a young dancer.

[Gwangi]

I really liked this one. It is Yoshio Tsuchiya who really makes this picture going, along with some pretty cool vaporizing / misty effects. (I should give credit to James Hong as well, for doing a good job dubbing Tsuchiya's character, I thought).

Like in "The H-Man", the police here aren't portrayed in the best of light, and I think they get a worse treatment in this movie. They so become a mistrusted bunch, that you end up rooting for the Vapor Man. But it was good to see someone like Tatsuya Mihashi, an actor normally associated in crime flicks, in a sci-fi movie.

[RedKing]

I agree with gwangi on this one. This is totally a tour-de-force for Yoshio Tsuchiya(and James Hong-the US dub is quite good). This is similar to H-MAN with it being basically a crime drama and having the police portrayed less than flatteringly. I found Tsuchiya to be kind of disturbing here, he would have made an excellent horror actor. He brings a kind of obsessive insanity and superiority combined with self-loathing to what could easily have been a one-dimensional character.