Japan's answer to Spielberg's shark movie was anything but a knock-off.
“We want a movie like Jaws.” A straightforward request, and an easily understood desire after 1975. Steven Spielberg’s shark movie was the sort of runaway success any film studio would long for. And the simple premise of the film isn’t hard to conjure follow-ups to.
Toho, and the rest of the major studios in Japan, were all suffering in the 1970s. The rise of television and the collapse of the studio system put severe limits on the production of new films, and movies no longer occupied the same niche in culture that they had enjoyed in a pre-TV era. When Obayashi floated the idea of making a feature film to his young daughter, she told him not to bother: “Japanese movies are boring,” she said.
According to Obayashi, House ended up green-lit by Toho almost immediately after delivery. One producer remarked that, having lost money on “comprehensible” films, it was time to try something as incomprehensible as House. But none of Toho’s directors were willing to helm the project. It was so weird, they felt, that to make it would damage their careers. And Toho still wouldn’t make an exception for Obayashi to direct it himself. They did grant him permission to announce the project’s approval.
In House’s case, the risk paid off. Slow middle patch and all, it’s one of the most delightfully weird movies you could ever hope to watch, and in 1977, plenty of people wanted to watch it. Industry insiders were horrified when Obayashi’s opus became a huge hit in Japan, particularly with children.
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