The original is usually the best.
The Japanese version is told in flashback. The expedition is telling a reporter about their ordeal.
Five friends are on a ski vacation in the Japanese Alps. Two of them decide to ski to the cabin of a friend. The other three ski down to the inn. The inn keeper tells the three that a storm is coming. The innkeeper and the three friends at the inn try to phone the remote cabin but continue to get no answer. Finally, outside they hear the rumble of an avalanche. Then the phone rings. Instead of the voices of their friends the sounds coming over the phone are screams.
The next day, after the storm, a rescue party heads up to the cabin. They find two of the inhabitants dead. The third is missing. All they find are tufts of hair and some giant footprints outside in the snow. The bodies of the two dead people are taken down the mountain. The third person is never found.
Six months later another search is mounted. Anthropologist Professor Shigeki Koizumi (Nobue Nakamura) is leader of the expedition. While they are searching for the missing skier Professor Koizumi is also looking for a previously unknown primate that is reported to be living in the area. A Snowman. While they are at the inn getting ready to head up the mountains, another group are there looking for the same thing, but for different intentions. They are poachers looking for zoo exhibits. They are tailing the search party.
One night, in camp, the creature appears. One of the search party tries to follow it and ends up hurt. He then runs across the circus brokers and gets hurt some more. He is found by a young woman from a mountain tribe. The leader of the tribe is furious that the woman brought the boy into the village. He fears their god will be angry. They call their god The Master. He makes her give a food offering to The Master. While she is gone the villagers take the boy, tie him up, and hang him from a cliff. The snowman finds the boy and releases him. Then the snowman walks away.
The circus poachers run across the girl from the village. They con her into telling them where the snowman's cave is. They find the snowman’s son. They tie him up. When the father comes to rescue the son, they capture him and put him in a cage on a truck. The boy snowman escapes and follows the truck. He tries to free his father from the truck and is shot. The snowman goes crazy and kills all the circus people. He takes his dead son back to his cave. Insane with rage the creature attacks the village.
“Half Human” was released in 1955 in Japan and was directed by Ishiro Honda. The Japanese version of the film is so much better than the American version. The main problem with the Japanese version is that you can’t find it. It has been removed from circulation, by TOHO, and never released in any home video format.
The reason for TOHO’s decision to basically ban the movie is due to the depiction of the mountain village in the film. The villagers are represented as backward and deformed due to inbreeding and with violent tendencies. These descriptions are often associated with a minority group called Burakumin. Since the film was made TOHO has been criticized for their representation of these indigenous peoples. This type of depiction has become a sensitive issue in Japan. Not wanting to be offensive, TOHO voluntarily removed the film from distribution.
The film, in its Japanese version, is now only available in bootleg form. The bootleg contains a timecode stamp on the top of the frame. Some copies of the bootleg film have had the timecode digitally removed and subtitles added by a fansub site.
Granted some of the special effects are dated but it is a much darker and eerier film than the slap-dash American one. No one can ruin a movie like an American editor. The basic plot of both movies is similar. The Japanese version is filled out more with better character development and additional scenes that add to the plot. There are less plot holes and is not as boring as the American version. I love John Carradine, but the American version was watered down so much that it came off as more of a lecture than a thriller. The original film was about 97 minutes long. The American version ended up about 63 minutes long. A lot of the original movie was cut, and a bunch of talk was added in. Even with the new scenes there is a whole half hour missing.