“Apocalypse Now” / 「地獄の黙示録」, Original Release Japanese Movie Poster 1979, B2 Size (51 × 73 cm) I352
This is an original Japanese B2 theatrical poster produced for the first Japanese release campaign of Apocalypse Now / 「地獄の黙示録」, Francis Ford Coppola’s monumental Vietnam War epic starring Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, and Robert Duvall.
The film premiered internationally in 1979 and opened theatrically in Japan in 1980. This poster prominently announces its triumph at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival and uses the celebrated international artwork created by legendary illustrator Bob Peak.
Film background
Loosely adapted from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the story relocates the novella’s journey into the wilderness to the height of the Vietnam War.
Captain Benjamin L. Willard is assigned a secret mission to travel upriver through Vietnam and Cambodia. His objective is to locate and assassinate Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, a decorated Special Forces officer who has abandoned military command and established his own violent domain deep within the jungle.
Willard joins the crew of a Navy patrol boat and travels through an increasingly surreal landscape of aerial attacks, devastated villages, military spectacle, fear, and moral collapse.
As he moves closer to Kurtz, the mission becomes less a conventional military operation than a descent into the psychological darkness produced by war.
The film was directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola, from a screenplay by John Milius and Coppola, with cinematography by Vittorio Storaro.
The principal cast includes:
Marlon Brando
Martin Sheen
Robert Duvall
Frederic Forrest
Albert Hall
Sam Bottoms
Laurence Fishburne
Dennis Hopper
The score was composed by Carmine Coppola and Francis Ford Coppola.
Apocalypse Now received the Palme d’Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival and won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Sound. It remains one of the most ambitious and influential war films ever produced.
Poster design
This powerful Japanese poster uses an adaptation of Bob Peak’s iconic painted campaign artwork, dominated by fiery orange, red, black, and yellow tones.
A vast setting sun fills the upper background, partially obscured by smoke and clouds. Across it moves a long formation of military helicopters, suggesting both the immense scale of the American war machine and the film’s hallucinatory atmosphere.
A Huey helicopter occupies the centre, viewed almost directly from the front. Its broad rotor blades stretch horizontally across the composition like a black cross.
Below, the faces of Martin Sheen as Willard and Marlon Brando as Kurtz merge with the aircraft and surrounding darkness. Willard’s face is sharply illuminated and visibly marked by exhaustion, while Kurtz appears beside him as a shadowed, almost spectral presence.
Black silhouettes of rifles frame the lower section, visually enclosing the two men within the machinery and violence of war.
At upper left appears the original hand-drawn English logo:
“Apocalypse Now”
Beneath it, the Japanese text reads:
「1979年カンヌ映画祭グランプリ受賞」
Translated:
“Winner of the Grand Prix at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival.”
The accompanying line reads:
「フランシス・コッポラ作品」
Translated:
“A film by Francis Coppola.”
The enormous Japanese title:
「地獄の黙示録」
appears across the bottom in bold white lettering.
The title may be translated literally as:
“Revelation of Hell.”
The compact credit block at lower right identifies Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Dennis Hopper, Francis Ford Coppola, Vittorio Storaro, and Japanese distributor Nippon Herald Films.
The result is an exceptionally forceful Japanese design, combining Bob Peak’s painterly imagery with severe Japanese typography and the visual language of military machinery, fire, and psychological collapse.
Condition
Very Good+ condition. The poster retains strong orange, red, black, and white colour, clear photographic and painted detail, and very good overall display impact.
Reference: I352.
Please review both photographs carefully, including the reverse, as they show the exact poster and its condition.
This is an original Japanese theatrical poster from the film’s first Japanese release campaign, not a reproduction or reprint.
It is now over 45 years old.
Certificate of Authenticity included.
