The American - Poster Giveaway
Ends Sep 5, 2010
Enter today for your chance to win this full-sized, double-sided theatrical poster from the upcoming Focus Features Film.
Rating: Country: USA Release Date: September 5, 2006 Distributor: Sony Wonder Director: · Ishiro Honda · Terry Morse Cast: · Takashi Shimura · Momoko Kochi · Akira Takarada · Akihiko Hirata · Raymond Burr Related Sites: ·IMDb: Gojira ·IMDb: Godzilla, King of the Monsters
Grade: B+
When the old-timers talk of monster movies -- not horror films or slasher flicks, but true, creature-feature monster movies -- the discussion doesn't progress very far before the king of all the monsters comes up: Godzilla. Star of several films (and even a cartoon series), this reptilian giant with the atomic breath is an icon of the genre. And yet, as many times as people have stayed up late to watch Godzilla in all his black-and-white glory, very few people have actually seen the original "Godzilla". They think they have... but they're mistaken.
"Godzilla" -- or "Gojira" in its original Japanese version -- starts off with the capsizing of a fishing boat, the Eiko-Maru. Audiences who saw the premiere felt an immediate pang of terror and sympathy when viewing this scene: It had only been a few months before that the Lucky Dragon #5, a tuna boat, had been caught in the blast of a hydrogen bomb test off the Bikini atoll. The effect was similar to what modern viewers might have felt seeing a film in late 2001 that opened with a scene of two skyscrapers collapsing.
Following the fate of the Eiko-Maru, boat after boat is lost in the area, and the only survivor who washes up on his island home speaks of a sea monster. Most of the residents of the island think he's lost it, except for an old man who says it could only be the legendary Godzilla. When the island is ravaged -- ostensibly by a hurricane -- the tale reaches Dr. Yamane (Takashi Shimura), a zoologist. He arrives to find the island a total disaster, but amid the chaos, Yamane discovers that the waist-deep depressions are actually footprints -- and they're radioactive. As the team investigates the island further, they have their first encounter with the prehistoric beast, which fortunately doesn't attack them but toddles back into the sea.
A subplot (yes, there was one!) to the story involved Dr. Yamane's daughter, Emiko (Momoko Kochi) and her arranged betrothal to Yamane's assistant, Dr. Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata). However, her true love is Ogata (Akira Takarada). Serizawa has developed a type of bomb that destroys all the oxygen in water -- Godzilla's natural habitat. After several building crunching, car melting scenes, the cast tracks Godzilla back to the place in the ocean where he nests, and Serizawa sacrifices himself to destroy the monster, while also intentionally creating an opportunity for Emiko and Ogata to be happy together without guilt.
The subtext (yes, there was that, too!) of the whole film was actually a fable, a warning against the misuse of atomic weapons. According to Dr. Yamane, it was nuclear blasts that disturbed Godzilla and drew him out of his habitat and out into the humanity's environs. Only a culture that had such first-hand knowledge of the impact of atomic weapons as Japan had could have produced a film with such a message in the early fifties.
Absolutely frightening! (And the giant lizard is
pretty scary too!)
"Gojira" is almost but not quite the same story as the one American audiences saw. "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" opened with Raymond Burr, playing American reporter Steve Martin on assignment in Japan. Burr's voiceover dominates most of the film, his narration filling in the audience on all the subtleties that director Terry Morse must have deemed over the heads of American viewing audiences. Burr's scenes were filmed in a short period, in the United States, and interspliced into Ishiro Honda's original with English voice-overs.
"Godzilla" gets more flack than respect when it comes to cinema, but over fifty years later it's still some of the best forced-perspective out there. And as far as being a man-in-a-rubber-suit monster, once you've seen the special features about the actual construction of the suit -- a stiff, hundred-plus pound burden that could only be worn for seconds at a time before the actor threatened to collapse, from which sweat would later be poured out by the cup -- you end up having a heck of a lot more respect for the guys who had to wear it. Rubber suit, indeed.
This two-disc set -- one film per, with special features on each -- comes packaged in a very nicely bound case, and includes a sixteen-page booklet by Steve Ryfle that covers the history of cinema's greatest monster. Ryfle is joined by Ed Godziszewski on the commentary tracks for both "Gojira" and "Godzilla" (being also joined on "Godzilla" by Terry Morris, Jr.). The special features include two featurettes, one about the making of the film and one about the making of the suit, each clocking in at around thirteen minutes, and each narrated by Godziszewski. Viewers can also watch the original three-minute trailer for "Gojira" and compare it to the fifty-eight second trailer for "Godzilla".
"Gojira" is presented in its original Japanese, with English subtitles enabled as a default. The video is remastered, although the English credits of the American version still show many burn-holes that were beyond repair. The only difficulty I had with this set was with the commentary which, once turned on, cannot be disabled without ejecting and reinserting the disc.
