Toei Company, Ltd.

FYI, just like Nessie, these big critters aren't allowed to be moved to the island because it's believed that would destroy local tourism.

Toei, after a failed project with Amicus, yes, them again, called Kongorilla, capitalized on the trend with The Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds, which is on the MIFE master list.

Toho even tried to do the same by attempting a co-production with Hammer Films called Nessie, which, tragically, also fell through.

The Last Dinosaur was written by William Overgaard, who was a cartoonist and comic artist.

This cavewoman was played by Masumi Sekia, and some would object to how she was treated on set, given that Hazel is a quote-unquote beautiful, noble savage archetype.

She was required to bring a swimsuit photo and wear a swimsuit for the audition.

While this makes sense, given she plays a prehistoric jungle girl, I've heard of other instances where actresses in Japanese productions, such as Toei's Kamen Rider Black 1987, required actresses to wear swimsuits as part of their audition, even though their characters didn't wear such clothing.

Make of that what you will.

them.

So this was an odd period for the Toei company and the, and the rest of Japanese genre cinema, uh, 1980 when this came out and this is Arrow releasing this where they were really trying to figure out what the next step was in reflection to what was happening in Hong Kong because Hong Kong had this booming like industry like first there was Bruce Lee which obviously was a thing and there was a lot of shit going on in Japanese film that was reflect trying to capture that a lot of that was with they were like considered Sonny Chiba was there Bruce Lee they're gonna do a lot of stuff with him But then the new big guy was that no one saw coming was Jackie Chan.

And this was already starting to be a thing, this sort of comedy action thing.

And they were like, well, what are we going to do with our films to reflect that? Now, believe it or not, lead actor in here, Hiroyuki Sanada, whose name you may not recognize, but you have seen him in a hundred different American productions of things.

Oh, what is a guy describing a Japanese martial arts film who's never seen it?

ding ding ding ding that's right um this was a movie that i watched uh i do think i did think at times i was like oh this is a little playful um this is about the biggest impression that it made on me was like oh this is kind of like it's got a little bit of playful vibes to it but um i don't have a strong opinion one way or the other about it it was not it was not so great that i set up and took notice it was just kind of like oh i've seen things like this before all right this one's all has a little bit of a playful tone and then that was kind of like the the end of my mental relationship with shogun's ninja

Well, it's funny that Toei was trying two different strategies at this point.

They wanted to do stuff like this.

Yeah, that's, that may be one of a couple of them.

Uh, so this was an odd period for the Toei company and the, and the rest of, uh, Japanese genre cinema.

[swallows] In 1980, when this came out, and this is Arrow releasing this, where they were really trying to figure out what the next step was in reflection to what was happening in Hong Kong.

'Cause Hong Kong had this booming, like, industry.

It was just kind of like, "Oh, I've seen things like this before.

All right, this one's a l- has a little bit of a playful tone." And then that was kind of like the, the end of my [laughs] mental relationship with Shoguns' Ninja.

Well, it's funny that Toei was trying two different strategies at this point.

They wanted to do stuff like this.

Minagawa had to discover how tattooing could become printed cloth.

She went to Toei's Kyoto film studio, watched artists paint tattoos for period and yakuza films, learned their brushwork and color gradations, then translated Hendrix and Joplin imagery into a cotton print using dozens of colors.

The Metropolitan Museum records Miyake as designer and Minagawa as artist.

Two kinds of authorship attached to one dress.