“Safari 5000 / 5,000 Kilometers to Glory” (栄光への5000キロ), Original Japanese First-Release Movie Poster 1969, B2 Size (c. 51.5 × 72.8 cm) S257
This is an original Japanese B2 theatrical poster produced for the first release of Safari 5000 / 5,000 Kilometers to Glory (栄光への5000キロ) in 1969, directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara (蔵原惟繕) and starring Yūjirō Ishihara, Ruriko Asaoka, Toshirō Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Jūzō Itami, Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Claude Drouot.
An unusually ambitious Japanese racing epic, the film follows professional driver Godai through European competition and ultimately into the punishing East African Safari Rally, combining motorsport spectacle with romance, rivalry and the psychological toll of racing at the limit.
Produced on an unusually international scale, the film was shot extensively outside Japan and made with the cooperation of Nissan Motor Co., whose involvement is credited directly on the poster. It remains one of the great Japanese motor-racing films of the late 1960s.
Film background
The story begins with Godai already established as an international racing driver.
After a serious accident during European rally competition, his career and personal life begin to fracture. Racing has become both his greatest obsession and the force threatening everything around him.
His path eventually leads towards the East African Safari Rally, one of the most demanding endurance events in world motorsport.
Rather than treating racing purely as spectacle, Safari 5000 places its characters against an almost overwhelming physical environment: vast distances, heat, dust, mechanical failure and exhaustion become as important as the competitors themselves.
The international cast reinforces that scale. Alongside Ishihara and Asaoka are major Japanese stars Toshirō Mifune and Tatsuya Nakadai, together with European performers including Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Claude Drouot.
Design
This is a superb example of late-1960s Japanese large-scale adventure advertising, built around an extraordinary close-up of Ishihara’s racing helmet.
The upper half is dominated by the helmet of Godai, his name rendered simply as:
T. GODAI
across the white shell.
The enormous helmet, goggles and roll bar immediately establish the film’s racing identity, but the composition has an almost futuristic quality. The white helmet floats against an intensely saturated turquoise-blue sky, crossed by dark copper clouds and framed by the black geometry of the car.
The red scarf tied around Godai’s neck provides another vivid accent and leads the eye downward into the second half of the design.
The African landscape
The lower field opens dramatically into a vast orange and gold sunset, against which a rally car races across the African terrain.
This change in scale is particularly effective.
At the top, the viewer is almost inside the cockpit with the driver; below, the car becomes tiny against the landscape.
The design therefore visualises one of the film’s central ideas: however skilled or determined the driver may be, the Safari Rally ultimately places the individual against an environment of almost incomprehensible scale.
Across the lower-right horizon appears a remarkable line-up of the film’s principal cast, their faces arranged almost like witnesses to the approaching race.
The transition from helmet, to landscape, to portraits gives the poster an unusually cinematic sense of movement.
Japanese campaign copy
Running vertically down the upper-left edge is the dramatic red campaign line:
「炎熱のサファリ原野を爆走――
愛を捨て 死と対決する若きレーサー！」
Approximately:
“Racing at full speed across the scorching Safari wilderness —
a young driver abandons love and confronts death!”
Beside it, yellow typography announces the production’s exceptional scale:
「ヨーロッパ、アフリカ長期ロケ、6大スターが展開する激情のドラマ！」
Approximately:
“Extensive location filming in Europe and Africa — a passionate drama unfolded by six major stars!”
The copy is pure late-1960s Japanese roadshow language: speed, danger, international scale and emotional extremity.
Title design
Across the bottom, the Japanese title:
栄光への5000粁
is rendered in enormous white lettering against black, with the English:
SAFARI 5000
picked out in blue at the lower right.
The old character 粁 is an especially attractive period detail, historically used in Japanese typography to represent “kilometre.”
The huge 5000 numerals dominate the lower third of the sheet, giving the title almost the same visual force as the racing imagery itself.
The composition is therefore built from three extremely strong graphic elements:
the monumental racing helmet, the African sunset and the enormous “5000” title.
International production
The poster itself emphasises the film’s extensive European and African location work, a major undertaking for a Japanese production of the period.
The film was adapted from Gōzō Kasahara’s account of the East African Safari Rally, with Nobuo Yamada writing the screenplay and Kurahara directing.
Kurahara was one of the most visually assured Japanese filmmakers of his generation, and the film’s scale allowed him to combine intimate character drama with vast racing landscapes.
The production’s involvement with Nissan Motor Co. also gives the film an additional layer of significance for collectors of Japanese automotive history. The Safari Rally had enormous importance to Japanese manufacturers during this era as they sought to establish their cars internationally through endurance competition.
Yūjirō Ishihara
For Japanese audiences, Yūjirō Ishihara was far more than simply the film’s leading actor.
One of the defining screen stars of post-war Japan, Ishihara embodied a modern, affluent and internationally oriented masculinity that made him particularly well suited to the role of a globe-travelling racing driver.
Here that star image is pushed to monumental scale.
The helmet obscures almost everything except the suggestion of the man inside it. The character becomes inseparable from the machinery, speed and danger surrounding him—an unusually sophisticated image for a commercial racing poster.
The B2 format
Measuring approximately 51.5 × 72.8 cm, the Japanese B2 was the principal theatrical poster format used in Japanese cinemas.
The vertical dimensions are particularly effective for this design, allowing the giant helmet to dominate the upper field while the landscape and cast montage expand below it.
Original Japanese first-release posters for Safari 5000 are considerably less frequently encountered than material for many better-known Japanese films of the period, while the combination of Ishihara, Mifune, Nakadai, international location photography and Japanese motorsport history gives the title unusually broad collecting appeal.
Condition
Very Good+ original condition overall.
The poster retains exceptionally strong colour and excellent visual impact, particularly the brilliant turquoise sky, deep orange African sunset, vivid red racing scarf and monumental white title lettering.
There are original storage folds / crease lines, together with age-related handling marks and some surface creasing. The margins show localized edge wear, small tears and minor paper loss / abrasion, particularly around the upper and right edges, with additional light handling wear visible elsewhere.
There are also a few small surface marks and imperfections consistent with an original theatrical poster that has survived for more than half a century.
Importantly, the principal imagery remains very strong: Godai’s helmet, the sunset rally scene, cast portraits and title retain excellent colour and definition.
The reverse shows the corresponding fold structure, general age-related handling and natural paper toning.
Please review all photographs carefully; they show the exact poster for sale, front and reverse.
This is an original Japanese B2 theatrical poster from the film’s first-release campaign in 1969.
It is not a reproduction or modern reprint.
It is approximately 57 years old.
Certificate of Authenticity included.
