Varan el increíble

I think this was Toho's fourth "giant monster on the loose" movie, and it's also probably the least known. The American "version", "Varan the Unbelievable", is a travesty and should be avoided at all costs.

The Japanese original has some really good things about it. It features one of Akira Ifukube's best monster-movie scores, in which he introduced some themes that would be re-used in practically every kaiju eiga that followed... There's also a wonderful "Lovecraft-gone-Japanese" feeling about the protagonists' arrival in the village: they interrupt a strange ceremony, and a sea of masked faces turns to watch them. This is followed by an eerie scene as they follow a mist-shrouded path to the forbidden lake.

Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is a little uninspired. It doesn't have the emotional tension of "Godzilla" or "Rodan", although the monster costume and attack scenes are very, very good.

Before I get into the review proper and upset everyone who loves this film, it might help to say a word about the various versions. "Daikaijû Baran (1958)" is the original Japanese version. It has recently been released on DVD, by Tokyo Shock in May 2005, but under the title "Varan The Unbelievable (1962)", which has its own listing on IMDb.

This is bound to cause a lot of confusion, as "Varan the Unbelievable" was an American-produced adaptation, similar to the American adaptation of the original Godzilla (Gojira, 1954). Varan was originally to be a joint US/Japanese production, but that deal fell through. Toho, the Japanese production company also responsible for Godzilla and many other infamous monsters, went ahead and made Varan anyway. A few years later, the American version was produced, with a different title and with additional material directed by Jerry A. Baerwitz.

How do you know what version you watched? Well, the American version is 70 minutes long, has an American actor, Myron Healey, and a plot about trying to desalinize water. The Japanese film is about 90 minutes long, has no American actors, and Varan (or "Baran") makes his first (offscreen) appearance when a couple of scientists from Tokyo make a trip to a remote, mountainous village to research the sighting of a butterfly previously only known to exist in Siberia. The Japanese version also has a different musical score, but since music is a bit difficult to describe well in words (other than technically), that's not a great way for most folks to tell which version they've watched.

To make matters even more confusing, the Tokyo Shock DVD also has a truncated Japanese television version of Daikaijû Baran, clocking in at about 50 minutes, which dispenses with both the desalinization and the butterfly plots. Also, at least some people have reported seeing a color version of the film. I don't know which version that would be, but the Tokyo Shock DVD has the original, black & white widescreen Japanese version from 1958.

So, Daikaijû Baran is the film with the butterfly plot, and that's what I'm reviewing here. It's too bad that it doesn't have more of a butterfly plot, perhaps, or just more of a plot in general, because one of the major faults of Daikaijû Baran is shallowness and a general ineffectiveness of the little plot there is. After the initial scientists head off to the remote village, which happens to worship Varan as a God--the villagers call him "Baradagi"--they quickly get squashed. Once news of this gets back to Tokyo, the scientists send out another team to investigate, and they relatively quickly find the monster.

From there, the film "evolves", if you want--I would say devolves--into a stock Godzilla plot. Perhaps that's surprising given that Daikaijû Baran was made only a couple years after the first Godzilla, but it's a stock Godzilla plot nonetheless. That means that Baran/Varan lumbers around, basically killing time, while the humans try escalating-but-silly, military-based means of fighting him, which all have no effect, at least not until they have to because the film has to end.

For me, the opening, the stuff set in the village and everything up until shortly after we first see Varan all has great promise. I was engaged in the story, I was getting into director Ishirô Honda's atmosphere, and I was enjoying Akira Ifukube's score--the music that accompanies the titles is particularly sublime.

But then it seems like most of that interesting stuff is abandoned (even the fun fact that Varan flies is just dropped after one scene), and three-quarters of the film feels like aimless padding.

It's often funny aimless padding. Of course there is the usual guy-in-a-rubber-suit factor. My wife and I amused ourselves by playing a game seeing who could shout out the "mode" of each shot the fastest. The choices were "studio (standing in for exteriors)", "toys/models", "stock footage", and "real". "Real" meant that Toho actually ponied up for exterior, full-scale shots of exteriors. The challenge has to be who can call the "mode" the quickest, because there's no challenge in spotting the mode at a leisurely pace. Honda makes it very conspicuous when he's switching from "real" tanks to toys, for example, because the toys look like little plastic things with little, fake, immobile people in them. It's a great way to exercise your imagination--you have to work hard to pretend that this stuff could be real, rather than just cinematography of little toys being pulled along by wires. But it's also very funny.

I'm not sure why the military attacks on the monsters in some of these films are shown to be so incompetent. We see Varan lumbering towards models of the Tokyo Airport, then we see the model tanks and guns shooting at him, but the paths of the bullets, missiles and such almost form random patterns across the frame. If they were trying to aim, they wouldn't be able to hit the broad side of a barn if it were as big as China.

In a way, Honda and his screenwriters seem to be trying to state something metaphorical/subtextual about war, and specifically about World War II and Japan's experience in it. This is supported by the fact that most of Ifukube's score consists of military marches, and a lot of the film could be seen as (a satire of?) propaganda for the Japanese military. But aside from the metaphor of an approaching monster from the sea that's going to destroy Japan, and having to fight it from within, what Honda and his crew seem to be primarily saying is that the Japanese military is incompetent.

In any event, it doesn't make for a particularly good film, although it's worthwhile for die-hard Kaiju fans, those interested in the technical aspects (there's a great special effects documentary and commentary on the Tokyo Shock DVD), and those who want to laugh at the film.

After the success of the Americanized version of Godzilla (aka. Gojira), Toho decided to team up with ABC for what was supposed to be a joint Japanese/American kaiju eiga. Of course, that deal fell apart, but Toho went ahead and created this film. However, this didn't stop a company by the name of Crown International from taking this film and butchering it by cutting out much of the footage shot by Ishiro Honda and making hack Myron Healy in the lead as a Navy commander who tries to find a way to desalinate water and winds up waking up the monster. That version also does away with one of Akira Ifukube's finest scores. Thankfully, the original version of the film has been released on DVD and now Americans can finally see it the way it was intended to be shown.

As for the film itself, it is an okay kaiju eiga. The monster is not as well rounded as Godzilla, Rodan or Mothra. In fact, Varan (or Baran as it is known in Japan) almost seems as though it is a throwaway due to the fact that it probably was intended for a one time appearance (although it does make a brief cameo in Destroy All Monsters). Also, the cast, with the exception of Honda favorites Akihiko Hirata and Yoshio Tsuchiya, is mainly made up of mainly Toho's second line actors. The other thing that made me somewhat disappointed with the film was the fact that it used a lot of stock footage. In fact, if you look closely at some of the battle scenes, many of them were borrowed from Godzilla (aka. Gojira) However, this film is still a much better version than the hatchet job we were treated with for years.

Toho's 1958 "Varan the Unbelievable" (Daikaiju Baran or Giant Monster Varan) remained unseen in the US until the 2000s, only known by its Crown International release of 1962. Baradagi was its name among the superstitious locals in Iwaya Village in the mountainous region of Siberia where a rare species of butterfly has been discovered, two investigators perishing in an avalanche. Three more follow up to find some answers and are told by the high priest that their god does not like intruders, but a runaway dog ensures its emergence from a large lake to run amok for a brief period. A military bombardment causes Varan to spread out its webbed claws and arms to glide like a flying squirrel toward the ocean (never shown in the Crown edit), where it simply swims through a continued barrage that has little effect on it. Only after Varan comes ashore to indulge its fascination for parachuting light bombs do authorities arrive at a solution, a special mixture of explosive gunpowder that should detonate once the monster swallows it, similar to the sorry fate of "Yongary Monster from the Deep" (not to be viewed when suffering indigestion!). Intended as a television coproduction between Toho and Hollywood's AB-PT (American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres), the latter went belly up right after their initial double bill release, Bert I. Gordon's "Beginning of the End" and John Carradine's "The Unearthly," leaving undaunted director Ishiro Honda to forge ahead with his usual crew, though on a noticeably lower budget in black and white with the most basic outline ever conceived for a kaiju film, Akihiko Hirata and Yoshio Tsuchiya the only familiar faces and little comic relief. The original version did receive theatrical distribution in Japan, and once Varan rises from his watery slumber there's plenty of monster footage to maintain interest (his first appearance at the 12 minute mark, much sooner than in Crown's retread), so even if it's a relatively minor cousin to Godzilla, and only a glider compared to Rodan's wingspan, it still proves how much better Toho was over their Hollywood counterparts (Varan would not be forgotten, as noted by its brief presence ten years later in "Destroy All Monsters"). What the 1958 original is now best known for is a stirring score by Akira Ifukube that could have been lost in time were it not revived to excellent effect in future Godzilla entries. It boggles the mind when Crown International jettisoned so much usable footage to offer up a tiny portion of what should have been more of a banquet, beefing up the starring role for little known Myron Healey at the expense of virtually everything else for its eventual stateside release in 1962, a successful pairing with "First Spaceship on Venus."

Don't confuse this original Japanese monster film with its cheap American version called "Varan, the Unbelievable." The American version was a hack job and a half.

Ironically, this original seems to have too much "American" in it as well. The film was commissioned by ABC-TV in 1958 and shot by Toho. Unfortunately, Toho had seen American TV and had noticed that Americans have a penchant for action -- lots of action (i.e., "War of the Worlds," "Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers," "Invaders from Mars"). Toho gave ABC what it thought they wanted. A monster movie with little plot and lots of action.

This concept turns "Baran" into a mediocre film. Even "Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" and "It Came From Beneath the Sea" had well-thought out plots and good acting.

The plot (or what is supposed to be the plot) deals with an isolated village in northern Japan. The villagers worship a god called "Baradagi." Two butterfly scientists come calling and get shunned by the high priest. They press on, find a rare butterfly and also find a huge shadow and a massive rock slide.

A reporter who is also the sister of one of the crushed scientists drags another butterfly scientist along, as well as a fat cameraman, to the village. They ignore the priest and rouse Varan, a dinosaur that trashes the village.

Unlike "Gojira" where the tension built slowly, here, there is no tension. The military responds (ineffectively) and then we see lots of attacks by the Navy, Air Force and Army. Finally, a simple solution is found to stop the monster that seems like it should have been easier (like when police launch a massive manhunt for a missing person and then find the person's car three blocks away about three weeks later, making you wonder why they didn't find it sooner).

Too many potential plot twists are left flapping in the breeze. The high priest (Akira Sira) and his villagers don't get enough screen time. The supposed romance between the butterfly scientist (Kozo Nomura) and the reporter (Ayumi Sunoda) was supposed to emulate Emiko Yemane and Ogata from "Gojira" but went nowhere as the two leads had no on-screen chemistry.

Nomura's character is so bland he actually drags down the film. His character isn't very likable either. When he gets to the village, the first thing he does is insult the priest and the village's religion. He breaks village law and rouses Baran. If he wasn't so bland, he might have redeemed himself, but fails miserably. Meanwhile, Sunoda devolves into one of Toho's most useless characters -- the reporter who never reports. Fumito Matsuo is along as the cameraman and provides yet another Toho cliché -- the comic-relief fat guy, though he does get in a classic comedic exchange with other reporters when they retreat from Baran's rampage ("You want the enemy to see your back?" "No, I'm just going to take a picture from a distance." "Good, I think I'll take one from a distance, too.")

There's a scene where everyone's retreating after the initial military attack fails. Yuriko wants to stay to report on the monster, but the scientist tells her it's no place for a reporter. Yeah, but it's obviously a place for a butterfly scientist? More credibility is killed moments later when the scientist has to rescue her from an incredibly slow-moving Varan in a scene with no suspense whatsoever.

The film's best actor is probably Akihiko Hirata as Dr. Fujimora, who supplies a weapon that might help stop Varan. Hirata was Dr. Serizawa in "Gojira" who supplied the weapon that stopped Godzilla. In "Varan," Hirata's character appears out of the blue.

Varan actually flies like a flying squirrel (it's somewhat comical because it looks like the guy in the rubber suit needed to do some stomach crunches), but is shown like that for one scene.

The special effects were okay, blending stock footage with miniatures. Unfortunately, footage was borrowed from "Gojira," thus repeating the same mistakes as that film. For instance, you can clearly see the wires holding up the jets. The scene where the monster's foot crashes through the roof of a warehouse is strangely missing the tail, just like in "Gojira." The worst thing about the special effects was a problem that was all too evident in most Japanese monster films. The miniatures fired at the monster in one take, instead of blending stock footage with close-ups of explosions on the monster. What you got were tanks, jets, ships and rocket launchers that couldn't hit the broad side of a building. About 90 percent of the shots missed. And I won't even get into that most annoying military feature -- the rocket launcher that never reloads.

Also, Varan is never fleshed out, like Godzilla, Rodan and Mothra were. Here, it might be an angry God or a revived dinosaur, but it's never explained. It just attacks and heads for Tokyo. Also, it never gets to Tokyo, just Haneda Airport. Unlike other Toho films, it doesn't take a potshot at Japan or America (like in "Mothra" where the American gas stations get trashed or Rodan, where an American-style car dealership is smashed by Japanese-made cars and buses). It's just a straight-forward monster movie -- monster shows up out of the blue, resists military efforts to kill it, rampages across countryside and is finally taken out. Very by-the-numbers.

Only Akira Ifukube's excellent movie score saves this film.

So, add this to your collection if you're a B-movie fan or like Japanese monsters. Just don't compare it to "Gojira" or even "Godzilla, King of the Monsters" for that matter.