“Scarface” (スカーフェイス), Original Japanese First-Release Double-Sided Promotional Poster / Press Sheet 1984, Rare B3 Size (c. 36 × 51 cm) B293

This is an original Japanese B3 double-sided promotional piece produced for the first Japanese release of Brian De Palma’s Scarface in 1984, starring Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Robert Loggia.

The film was produced in 1983 and opened theatrically in Japan on 28 April 1984. Accordingly, while Scarface is correctly described as a 1983 film, this original Japanese first-release material dates from its 1984 Japanese theatrical campaign.

Importantly, this is not the standard Japanese B2 theatrical one-sheet. It is a much more unusual B3-format, double-sided promotional / press-style sheet, combining a dramatic poster composition on one side with extensive contemporary Japanese editorial material, cast biographies, production information and film stills across both sides.

Design

The principal side is divided into two dramatically contrasting halves.

On the left, Al Pacino as Tony Montana dominates a deep black field in an enormous close-up portrait. His expression is characteristically severe and almost confrontational, while the vertical English typography:

AL PACINO SCARFACE

runs down the right side of his portrait in huge cream-coloured letters.

Above him, the Japanese campaign copy announces:

「『ゴッドファーザー』から12年——
男のロマンと壮烈なバイオレンスに満ちた衝撃の大作がやって来た！」

— approximately:

“Twelve years after The Godfather — a shocking epic filled with masculine ambition and fierce violence has arrived!”

The reference to The Godfather is particularly effective: by 1984, Pacino’s Michael Corleone was already one of the defining performances of modern American cinema, and the Japanese campaign deliberately positioned Tony Montana as the arrival of an altogether more explosive Pacino gangster antihero.

Across the lower portion appears:

「アメリカン・ドリームを愛した男
人は彼を“スカーフェイス”と呼んだ。」

— “A man who loved the American Dream. They called him ‘Scarface.’”

The Japanese title:

アル・パチーノ
スカーフェイス

is rendered in bold white and vivid red, creating an exceptionally strong contrast against the black background.

Small inset photographs introduce other characters and scenes without diluting the overwhelming emphasis on Pacino.

The “Star Memo” panel

The right half takes a completely different approach.

Against a vivid turquoise-blue ground, the sheet presents an extensive contemporary Japanese “Star Memo” feature, with photographs and biographical text devoted to the principal cast and director.

Portraits identify:

AL PACINO
MICHELLE PFEIFFER
STEVEN BAUER
MARY ELIZABETH MASTRANTONIO

together with director:

BRIAN De PALMA

The lower section incorporates colour film stills showing Tony Montana’s extraordinary Miami interiors, his increasingly extravagant lifestyle and key characters from his rise and collapse.

The contrast between the almost poster-like black left panel and the information-dense turquoise right panel gives the piece a distinctly 1980s Japanese promotional aesthetic—part advertisement, part press material and part collectible film ephemera.

Reverse design

The reverse is equally substantial and confirms that this was intended as far more than a conventional decorative poster.

The upper centre presents another striking image of Tony Montana holding a large firearm, beneath the English heading:

AL PACINO SCARFACE

Surrounding him are extensive Japanese sections covering the story, production history, cast, crew and background to the film.

A monochrome strip of numerous individual film stills stretches horizontally across the middle, almost like a miniature contact sheet, documenting characters, interiors, violence, relationships and Tony’s spectacular world.

Detailed staff and cast information identifies the extraordinary creative team behind the film:

Director — Brian De Palma
Screenplay — Oliver Stone
Producer — Martin Bregman
Cinematography — John A. Alonzo
Music — Giorgio Moroder

For a collector, this dense contemporary editorial material makes the sheet particularly interesting: it preserves not only the campaign imagery but also how Scarface was being presented to Japanese audiences at the moment of its original release.

Film background

Set against the 1980 Mariel boatlift, Scarface follows Tony Montana, a Cuban refugee who arrives in Miami with virtually nothing.

Ferociously ambitious and unwilling to remain subordinate to anyone, Tony rapidly enters the city’s criminal underworld and begins working for cocaine trafficker Frank Lopez.

His appetite for wealth and power quickly exceeds that of those around him.

Tony takes control of the organisation, acquires the mansion, cars and opulent lifestyle he has always imagined, and marries Elvira Hancock, played by Michelle Pfeiffer.

Yet the very qualities that drive his ascent—pride, appetite, aggression and absolute refusal to compromise—ultimately make his empire impossible to sustain.

De Palma turns Tony’s rise and collapse into an almost operatic study of excess, while Oliver Stone’s screenplay uses the gangster narrative to explore immigration, capitalism, greed and the corrupted promise of the American Dream.

Al Pacino as Tony Montana

At the centre of the film is one of Al Pacino’s most ferocious performances.

Tony Montana is deliberately excessive: swaggering, suspicious, charismatic, vulgar, violent and permanently hungry for more.

Pacino’s physicality, voice and extraordinary intensity transformed the character into a major cultural icon, far beyond the immediate context of the film.

Tony’s image, dialogue and attitude subsequently became particularly influential in hip-hop culture, fashion, music, gaming and popular representations of the self-made outlaw.

The character remains one of Pacino’s defining screen roles alongside Michael Corleone, Frank Serpico and Sonny Wortzik.

Brian De Palma and Oliver Stone

Scarface brought together two filmmakers with exceptionally strong personalities.

Brian De Palma directs the film with extraordinary formal confidence, building elaborate tracking shots, vast interiors, graphic violence and increasingly operatic set pieces.

Oliver Stone’s screenplay relocates the basic rise-and-fall structure of the 1932 Scarface into the cocaine economy of 1980s Miami.

The result is not a restrained gangster film. Its excess is fundamental to the design: enormous houses, mountains of cocaine, extravagant interiors, relentless language and sudden violence all mirror Tony’s belief that nothing should ever be enough.

Japanese first-release significance

This piece belongs to the film’s original 1984 Japanese release campaign.

That distinction is important.

It is not later commemorative merchandise, a home-video advertisement or a modern reproduction. It was printed when Japanese audiences were first being introduced theatrically to De Palma and Pacino’s film.

The unusual double-sided B3 configuration makes it especially appealing. Whereas conventional Japanese theatrical sheets generally devote the entire face to a single advertising composition, this example preserves a much broader body of contemporary promotional material.

It functions simultaneously as film advertising, editorial design and an original period document of the Japanese campaign.

The B3 format

The Japanese B3 format measures approximately 36.4 × 51.5 cm, half the area of the standard B2 cinema poster.

Its smaller dimensions made it useful for promotional material requiring more detailed reading at close range, while still offering sufficient scale for strong visual presentation.

In landscape orientation, this particular sheet becomes especially effective: Pacino’s enormous portrait occupies one side while the turquoise information panel balances the composition across the other.

Because this example is printed on both sides, framing can be approached in several ways—either displaying the striking primary face or using a reversible / double-glazed frame to retain access to the extraordinarily detailed reverse.

Condition

Excellent condition overall.

The principal side retains excellent colour saturation and strong photographic definition, particularly in the deep black Pacino portrait, vivid red title lettering and brilliant turquoise editorial panel.

Please review all photographs carefully; they show the exact item for sale, including both printed sides.

This is an original Japanese first-release promotional / press sheet produced for the film’s 1984 Japanese theatrical campaign.
It is not a reproduction or modern reprint.

It is approximately 42 years old.

Certificate of Authenticity included.