Buffy The Vampire Slayer

SET VISIT: THE GRUDGE, pt. 1.5

3.7.04

By Smilin’ Jack Ruby

So there I was, eye to eye against perhaps the most iconic figure in world cinema from the past fifty years. The suit, a battle/stunt suit that was being refurbished for upcoming fiftieth anniversary celebrations, was about "seven years old" we were told. It was not the newer, jagged-backed lizard found in X Megaguirus or the blank-eyed monster-of-monsters from the incredibly kick-ass GMK, which was recently released on video in America (as All-Out Monster Attack or something), but the one "killed" in vs. Destroyah. The big, thick haunches, the pinch-backed ears, the less-spiky dorsal ridge and the amber eyes gave it away.

I was looking down the barrel of the King of the Monsters himself, Godzilla.

And that’s not all. Behind the suit was the actually quite small Mothra (wings detached and hanging behind her), a large King Ghidorah suit with its three heads and tails detached and lying on the ground and then Baragon, facing away but down on all fours on the ground. The Mothra, Ghidorah and Baragon all appeared to be the ones from GMK, at least from the color and designs I remember, particularly as far as the face of Baragon looked. So, here I was standing in the Godzilla workshop at Toho Studios in Japan watching four artisans refurbish the Godzilla "feet" to be used again and realized this was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen as an entertainment reporter over the past three years.

Allow me to back up a moment. Working in Los Angeles, a week doesn’t go by where I’m not on a studio lot. Frankly, it never gets old. When there’s a screening or something on, say, the Fox lot, I’ll go a little early and just wander around. No, I’m hardly the "movie spy" I once was - the fellow whose first published digital snap was of a sign on the Sony lot confirming that the "production title" of Planet of the Apes was indeed The Visitor - but the studios still have a real mystique. Walking around Fox, you see where The X-Files ended up shooting its last seasons, the offices where the geniuses behind The Simpsons are writing away, parked New York cop cars everywhere from N.Y.P.D. Blue and even the offices of Fox Searchlight with all their colorful posters advertising what they’re most proud of.

Elsewhere, it’s the same way. On one of the best lots, Warner Bros., you see where everything from Casablanca to The Perfect Storm was shot on the large stages and then other exterior spots where movies like Batman and Minority Report were made (and a gateway made impossibly memorable during the climax of Blazing Saddles). Paramount has its Star Trek stages and even the huge cool blue backdrop over its parking lot used by Star Trek IV for its watery climax aboard a sinking Klingon Bird-of-Prey shot. Universal has its Frankenstein and Psycho memories and more recent ones from Van Helsing and Scorpion King. Sony has the big stages (29 and 30 - as legendary as Warners’ Stage 16) that can afford Shepperton-sized Spider-Man and The 6th Day sets. MGM, well, MGM’s an office building now, but was once where Sony is now. The old Warners Hollywood lot still stands just below Santa Monica Boulevard and though small, still has a long history. The old Chaplin studio is now Henson. Raleigh Studio, across the street from Paramount, has been around far longer than its modern buildings suggest (I believe at one point it was RKO). And so on throughout Hollywood. You can’t walk through many of these backlots without getting a real sense of the history of movie-making that’s gone on there. When traveling to, say, The Bridge studios in Vancouver or the new lots at Fox Studios Australia, it’s not really the same as though these still-new properties are pretty cool, they can’t claim the history that others can.

When I went to Rome for the set visit to the ill-fated Exorcist: The Beginning, the greatest thing to be seen was the lot it was being filmed on - the legendary Cinecitta Studios, longtime home of Federico Fellini whose offices still stand and whose memory still pervades the place as an ongoing sense of pride. When I was there, the massive Gangs of New York sets designed by Dante Ferretti were still up and walking along them was utterly fantastic, in particular the huge harbor set. More recently, Cinecitta has been the home of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, Mike Nichols’ Angels in America and Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic. In the same way that Fellini’s memory permeates Cinecitta (the director was renowned for visiting the sets of whatever movie was filming there to bless them with a "hello") it is the spirit of Akira Kurosawa and, equally so, Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya, that permeates Toho Studios in Tokyo, Japan.

For many film fans, Toho is synonymous with the Godzilla franchise because it was not only the lot the movies were made at, but also the studio that’s logo has forever flashed up before the credits. That said, the Toho Studios lot is also the filming site of one of the greatest of all world films, The Seven Samurai among many of Kurosawa’s films. When walking through the various buildings on Toho, you see other projects they’re proud of - including an amazing behind-the-scenes shot from Throne of Blood where Toshiro Mifune, still with only a few arrows in his armor, stands on the top level of his castle during the climax of the film receiving direction from Kurosawa. Surrounding him in what would be just off-screen are dozens of plainclothes-clad archers on cranes and scaffolding waiting to hear "Action!" in order to fire another volley of arrows at the madman as he nears his last moments. Humorously, a nearby photo shows Kirk Douglas sitting next to a heavily-beared Mifune who looks straight out of Red Beard (I should’ve asked as I’m still not sure what that was from as I don’t think they’ve been in a movie together - maybe an awards show). Another showed a quick behind-the-scenes shot from what became the poster image for Kurosawa’s Ikiru. You must take off your shoes to climb to the second story of one of the buildings (a tradition carried onto the sets as you’re not allowed to clamber on a hot set with shoes - there’s nothing more odd than seeing an electrician racing around barefoot, something the U.S. unions would screech at) and when you doff your shoes, handy "Toho" sandals are there waiting for you. What cooler footwear could there be?

Though we were at Toho Studios to watch filming on The Grudge, during the lunch break, the unit publicist (who I’d met a mere few weeks before on L.A. as she had been the unit on Brett Ratner’s After the Sunset) had arranged for us to take a tour of Toho escorted by the Assistant Manager - Toho Facility Services, Masaru Aso. As you might have seen in Lost in Translation, the trading of business cards is a ritual in and of itself in Japan and even if you never contact the person again, it’s a polite greeting to bow, present your card (held in two hands, the top corners pressed between thumb and forefinger), and bow again as you receive their card. We went through this with Mr. Aso and found that his card was double-sided - Japanese on one side and English on the other. Fangoria reporter Norman England, who joined us later in the day, informed us that you can tell an underling from a senior fellow at the studio by whether or not they have that on their cards as underlings only have cards in Japanese.

Aso - well-aided by our translator for the day, Junko Sumiya - started our tour at Stage 1 and 2 by saying (through Sumiya), "Stage 2 and Stage 1 are the oldest stages on Toho, built in 1932. At the time, it wasn’t called Toho Studios. There’s no real English translation, but ’photo chemical laboratories’ is the equivalent of what it was called. Toho was a movie company that came along later and wasn’t one of the earliest Japanese studios. Stage 1 and 2 were built right about the time in Japanese movies when they were switching from silent to talking movies. Earlier films were mainly shot in Kyoto in Japan and not in Tokyo. Kurosawa worked here even before he was a director. He was working here as an assistant."

We moved along and took a glimpse inside Stage 2 to where they were building the set for the other production going on at Toho, a massive historical movie about a Japanese submarine during World War II entitled Die Lorelei (after the German tale) being directed by a first-time director, longtime visual effects supervisor (I believe his name is Shinji Higuchi - he did the visual effects on the new Gamera series). "Originally, Stage 2 wasn’t a stage," continued Aso as we watched carpenters work. "It was where they recorded the voices for movies like Seven Samurai."

A quick note. Both Seven Samurai and Godzilla: King of the Monsters were shooting at Toho at the same time in 1954. Imagine being at the studio for that.

We started walking down between the buildings away from Stages 1 and 2 towards the new, mammoth Stage 7 when Aso pointed to a small, older two-story building that looked like a machine or carpentry shop. That’s when he told us that inside, workers were refurbishing one of the Godzilla suits and would-we-like-to-see-it? I think I blacked out. Giddy as hell and knowing full-well that no, I couldn’t take pictures, our little band filed in behind Aso to meet the King of the Monsters.

The first thing I saw was the back of the lizard and the big zipper going down his back as the dorsal fins that cover that on film were taken off. Though his official bio has Godzilla aka Gojira (it’s common knowledge that "Gojira" comes from a combination of the Japanese words for "whale" and "gorilla," but what’s less commonly known is it was being used as the nickname for a loud, obnoxious and "rotund" Toho publicist at the time) at 60 meters high and 30,000 metric tons, this guy was right around six foot nothing with a big pink tongue, brown eyes, large haunches and the small, pinched back ears of what is typically seen as the Heisei Godzilla (I asked and was told that the suit itself weighs in at 100 kilograms!). There were patches of white around where the joints of the arm would be, obviously worn from use (we were told it was an "action" suit) and his feet were being worked on by four fabricators in the shop who seemed amused by our presence ("It’s being restored for different events that he comes out for," Aso explained).

Directly beside Godzilla - hanging from the ceiling, its toes barely on the floor - was the massive body of King Ghidorah, the golden dragon, but missing its heads and tails, which were stretched out in front of it (looking exactly like the Ghidorah from GMK - I assume it was). Behind Ghidorah, hanging well off the ground was the diminutive-in-comparison Mothra sans wings. Her wings and Ghidorah’s detached wings were both hanging sideways not far away. On the floor in front of Ghidorah and looking the most "complete" was the Baragon suit.

As we looked around, obviously impressed as all-hell, the workers continued to smile and watch us. I’m sure we weren’t the first gawking visitors to come face to face with their big lizard, but I’m sure they get a kick out of seeing "grown" men look at the thing with the wonder of a child. On their workbench were unpainted moulds for future feet and I believe, new hands for the beastie. Honestly, I could’ve stayed there all day and watched them work, but as it was only one stop on the tour, after a few minutes, we pressed on. I’ve seen a lot of things at various studios - from decades-old Best Picture Oscars to an actual Kermit the Frog muppet to masks and costumes and weapons and even the Ecto-1 and one of the original Back to the Future DeLorean’s, but I can say unequivocally, I have never seen a cooler piece of movie history.

We moved on away from Godzilla and continued wandering through the studio, which included looking up at the gigantic new Stage 7. Aso admitted that, "Although The Grudge wasn’t the first movie filmed there, it was probably the first to take advantage of the high ceiling." We asked him about the dimensions and were told that Stage 7 has a floor space of 300 square meters and it is 12 meters up to the catwalk.

We kept walking through Toho and came across a very interesting sight - people walking through the studio, sort of. The studio grounds are bisected by a river (yes, the one seen in Seven Samurai) and there’s a bridge across said river (the river is about 10 feet below the bridge and the banks of the river are stone). What’s new is that a walkway now exists along the river for people to get to their homes on either side of Toho. On each of the bridge, there are gates into Toho, but a sidewalk running atop the river bank now affords bicyclists and pedestrians. Aso told us that "When making Seven Samurai, Kurosawa did a lot of the scenes outside the studio in the rural areas. There used to be so much land!"

We kept walking and came across two other large stages where Lorelei was also being filmed as well as a large outdoor site where exterior buildings had been built up for a large street scene. But that’s not what was really cool. Just behind the buildings was a large, shallow (maybe a foot and a half deep) open-air square water-filled pool. This pool is where Godzilla for years has had water battle after water battle and has time and time again exited the ocean onto a large, outdoor miniature of the shore. While there have been many sets built inside the stages that were subsequently filled with water for battles that were to be shot indoors, plenty of water battles have been filmed outside in this pool as well.

We wandered back towards the stages where Grudge was being shot and came across a small wooden shrine tucked under some trees next to one of the buildings. We asked Aso about its significance and he replied, "This area used to be very swampy and though we don’t know for sure for which god, it’s a shrine that was here before the studio was built. It’s fairly common for a company to keep or build around a shrine."

We meandered back through Toho and glanced around at the various other large-scale workshops in and around the large stages that dominate the lot. Various open-air carpentry shops and offices are intermingled with buildings that house costume and machine shops as well as dressing rooms and makeup facilities. Though it doesn’t have a permanent backlot, Toho shares much in common with the Warners lot simply because of the "look" of the shop buildings and where they are in relation to the stages. Toho is obviously very much a "working" lot. The place is abuzz with activity as both Grudge and Lorelei are pretty hefty productions being balanced on the multiple stages - both indoor and out.

That said, our quick tour had to come to an end, sadly. We thanked Aso profusely and exchanged business cards. I have to say, Toho business cards are pretty cool. We spent the rest of the day and the next day on Toho and though it’s a long-shot, I’d love to one day go back. More than that, however, I’d love to get one of the cool "outdoor" jackets worn by Aso - a blue-green, multi-pocketed work jacket with the Toho logo on it and the legend, "Toho Studios." I’d probably never take the thing off.

An additional Godzilla note. I spent a great deal of time with Norman England on the last day of our visit and as he has been covering Japanese films for years - for Fangoria, but also many other outlets - and is personal friends with people like Shimizu-san, but also the wide range of Godzilla makers, he let me in on a number of stories about the making of the movies and Toho. England has literally tens of thousands of unpublished behind-the-scenes photos of the franchise (the few that have been published have shown up in places like Japanese Giants issue #9, the magazine edited by American Godzilla expert Ed Godziszewski where Norman did a lengthy feature about GMK from pre-production through the premiere) and has appeared as a "man running from Godzilla" in Godzilla X Megaguirus, an errant elbow in GMK (Kaneko wanted no westerners in GMK, but as England was on set every day, one day the camera panned back too far towards the crew side and his elbow appears briefly along with part of a light stand) and actually had a speaking line ("Oh, cruise missile?") in last year’s Godzilla X Mechagodzilla. So, England is truly the man to know when it comes to all things Godzilla, but also holds the distinction of being the only westerner ever allowed to put on the Godzilla suit.

The new Godzilla movie - Godzilla: Final Wars - is going into production this May, as soon as the World War II submarine movie finishes up at Toho and the release date is set, as always, for December (premiering at the Tokyo International Film Festival in November, again, as always). After Kaneko’s brilliant GMK, you’d think he’d be asked back, but instead, Toho has decided to hand the franchise to "hot young director" Ryuhei Kitamura (of Versus and Azumi fame - England and I had a laugh over just how bad the over-hyped and over-blown Azumi really is as a film). Given the quality of Azumi (albeit, I am a fan of Versus, but have not caught Alive or his other films), I am indeed slightly worried about Final Wars. Promising to feature some 15 different new alien monsters, Final Wars could be a truly great 50th anniversary present to the franchise (Godzilla: King of the Monsters premiered in 1954 - coincidentally the same year America tested the first hydrogen bomb at the Bikini Atoll, a bomb 600 times more powerful than the atomic one), but with Kitamura at the helm, I’m still a bit tentative.

And that was my experience on the lot at Toho Studios checking out behind-the-scenes of the stages where, among others, two powerful presences have both strode - Akira Kurosawa and, well, Godzilla. A mighty "thank you" to Cid Swank for hooking that up and also to our guide, Masaru Aso and our translator, Junko Sumiya.

Check back tomorrow for more reports from the set of Sony’s new horror film, The Grudge, currently filming at Toho Studios in Tokyo, Japan!