The lost Japanese movie King Kong Appears In Edo beat Godzilla to the big screen to become one of the first Kaiju movies. A two-part silent film, King Kong Appears in Edo was released in 1938 and little is really known about it other than its writer (Daijo Aoyama), director (Soya Kumagai), and a plot summary. Kong himself had made his debut with 1933’s groundbreaking King Kong, but this Japanese production was neither connected to that film nor did its makers have permission to use the creature for Edo. There had also been a Japanese short movie parody of the film with 1933’s Wasei Kingu Kongu.
King Kong Appears In Edo’s plot is said to involve the kidnapping of a young woman named Chinami, whose businessman father Toba is extorted for a ransom. The worried dad puts up a cash reward in exchange for finding his daughter, but one of the men who takes on the job is actually the villain, who used his own father’s pet ape “King Kong” to kidnap the girl. In the film’s latter half, it’s revealed Toba was responsible for the death of the villain’s father, which prompted his son to utilize Kong and set the abduction plan in motion. The ape ends up killing Toba and fatally wounding himself, leaving King Kong Appears in Edo‘s villain as the only survivor; though Chinami’s fate is never revealed, the audience is led to assume she was released following the money exchange.
King Kong Appears In Edo was set during Japan’s Edo Period – which lasted from 1603 to 1868 – where the nation was under the rule of the military government called the Tokugawa shogunate. The city now known as Tokyo was referred to as Edo during this time. Sadly, the movie is believed to have been destroyed during the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, with only a few stills surviving, leaving a great deal of its legacy to become almost mythologized. While the original Godzilla from 1954 is widely considered one of the first Kaiju – AKA giant monster – movies, King Kong Appears In Edo beat it to the screen by about sixteen years.
Actor and sculptor Fuminori Ohashi – who would go on to consult on Godzilla’s suit many years later – is quoted as saying King Kong Appears in Edo was the first film in Japan to feature “certain kinds of special effects.” Though he didn’t specify exactly what those effects entailed, he did mention a “giant gorilla” that he worked on for the movie. This doesn’t quite add up with the film’s supposed concept, which wasn’t believed to have involved a giant ape. Of course, for it to be known as a Kaiju movie at all, the beast must have become giant-sized at some point and Ohashi’s mention of a “giant gorilla” seems to confirm this was the case.
King Kong Appears In Edo is extremely unlikely to resurface, but its place in the development of the Kaiju movie in Japan must be noted. The two titans themselves would eventually clash in 1962’s King Kong Vs Godzilla, which was the third entry in the latter’s franchise. Nearly 60 years later they will clash once more, with Adam Wingard’s upcoming Godzilla Vs Kong but unlike the 1962 original, it will apparently feature a clear winner between the two iconic beasts.
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