IMDb meta-data is runtime 1 hour and 13 long minutes, rated the 5.4 by 1152 cinematizens.
Genre: Sy Fy
Verdict: Jekyll and Hyde part.
Dauntless globe trotting foreign correspondent goes to interview a reclusive Japanese Mad Scientist in a lab located on a remote mountain fastness before returning to home and hearth. In a step up from the norm, this Mad Scientist has a Fetching assistant rather than a deformed Igor(ess). Journalist turns on the worldly charm by lighting cigarettes. S-m-o-o-t-h.
Mad Scientist has been experimenting on his family and has succeeded in turning them into monsters. Well, monsters are good, but he wants expand the boundaries of knowledge still more to control evolution or devolution. The fraternity brothers wanted to rush some of these monsters.
Mad Scientist has run out family and invites the journalist to hang around…the fetching assistant, while he prepares a new experiment! In no time at all, well it seemed a lot longer, Foreign Correspondent gets an injection of (d)evolution juice in the neck! While the drug is working he whines and dines Fetching, ignoring telephone calls from his New York wife to come home and fix the backdoor. Whines is right. He feels very sorry for himself.
Then, like some deans I have known, Foreign Correspondent grows a second head! Yes, if one dean is bad, imagine a double dose demanding budget cuts, throughput increases, and improved morale! Two budget cuts! Twice as much teaching! Twice as many research grants! Half as many staff. Dancing in the hallways!
At the denouement there is an unexpected but rather striking division of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde into two creatures: the monster and the man, hence manster. Oops, that is a spoiler.
There are some discernible themes in this mishmash. One is the Japanese culture is threatening, corrupt, lascivious, decadent, and it weakens the moral resolve of American Foreign Correspondent. He goes all animal when overexposed to Japisms, Geishas, sushi, public bathing, sake, and…..[see Geishas above].
Everyone smokes and drinks like real men. His distant wife is a clinging vine. Why Fetching shuts herself away on the mountain top with Mad Scientist is a puzzle and stays that way. Correspondent spends a lot of time feeling sorry for himself because of how hardworking he is, yet the only thing we see him do is chat, drink, and smoke. Exhausting! The ostensible interview with Mad Scientist consisted of smoking and drinking. No notes are taken, no information is imparted and Correspondent seems happy with that.
It is a Japanese production with United Artists shot in English with European leads. Currency restrictions meant profits from United Artists films shown in Japan could not all be taken out, so some was used to make films like this. Though, rather unusual for the time, some of the extras speak Japanese, but all of the principle Japanese speak English.