Godzilla

The original, Japanese version of "Gojira" is the best giant monster film I've ever seen. Some fans get carried away and call it one of the best movies ever made; I wouldn't go quite that far, but it's damn good.

This film is quite different from the 20+ sequels that followed. Here, Godzilla is not so much a creature as he is a walking incarnation of the atomic bomb. His death ray, which became a rather amusing cartoon laser blast in later films, is here depicted as a sort of radioactive mist that sets its victims on fire. These "radioactive horror" images still resonate today - and imagine the impact they must've had on Japanese audiences fifty years ago.

From a production standpoint, the film holds up well. Godzilla's costume is much more convincing than the silly monkey suits that featured in the 60s and 70s Toho films, and due to the grayscale photography, the model cityscapes look convincing in most shots - or at least respectable. Ifkube's music score is stirring (you know it has to be good, as they kept recycling it in later movies), and director Honda makes great use of camera angles and imaginative special effects to give Godzilla a genuine aura of menace.

For once, the human characters don't let the side down. There's a compelling love triangle, and a dramatic sacrifice made at the end of the film that adds enormously to its emotional impact. The American version ("Godzilla: King of the Monsters") cut out much of the character development, and is thus clearly inferior; but never fear, Rialto is apparently releasing "Gojira," in all its original glory, sometime this year (2004).

In the later Godzilla films, the destruction he causes is almost incidental. Here, it's the whole point - he's a force of nature. Impressive.

When seventeen vessels blow-up and sink nearby Odo Island, Professor Kyohei Yamane (Takashi Shimura), his daughter Emiko Yamane (Momoko Kôchi), and the marine officer Hideto Ogata (Akira Takarada) head to the island to investigate. Soon they witness a giant monster called Gojira by the locals destroying the spot. Meanwhile Emiko meets her boyfriend, the secluded scientist Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata), and he makes she promise to keep a secret about his research with oxygen. She agrees and he discloses the lethal weapon Oxygen Destroyer that he had developed. When Gojira threatens Tokyo and other Japanese cities and the army and the navy are incapable to stop the monster, Emiko discloses Serizawa´s secret to her lover Ogata. Now they want to convince Serizawa to use the Oxygen Destroyer to stop Gojira.

"Gojira" (1954) is a surprisingly good Godzilla film, with well-developed story, screenplay and characters. Despite the dated effects and the behavior of Emiko, the plot is engaging and holds the attention of the viewer to the last scene. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Godzilla"

Trying to convince somebody that isn't wholly invested in cinema, or somebody simply not willing to learn about the culture, that the first Godzilla film was actually a film littered with commentary and played nothing like the idea we all have in our heads about the towering monster is a daunting and almost thankless task in itself. Once you grasp the idea of a postwar Japan that was left demilitarized and financially and structurally battered, fearful of invaders, nuclear repercussions, and the country's future in terms of basic economic prosperity, the original, 1954 Japanese film (known as Gojira in Japanese) becomes a film ripe for thoughtful dissection and analysis by just your average cinephile or history buff.

Little needs to be explained in the way of the film's story, I feel, but the basic idea concerns the awakening of a towering behemoth thanks to prolific nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean. The Japanese are petrified of the destruction possible with this creature lurking around, find their government is content on hiding and obscuring facts related to the issue, and see a dissenting country in the mix of deciding what to do with the monster. While a good majority of the people, understandably, want this monster extinct and destroyed as soon as possible, Dr. Yamane Emiko (Momoko Kōchi) finds the possibility for research and analysis on Godzilla invaluable and has the ambition to try and capture him alive. Dr. Emiko is in the minority on this view, but he sees the long-term value in the creature, while the townspeople, acting on impulse and responding to an immediate conception of fear, want nothing to do with the creature.

This ignites an idea brought on by classic Universal monster movies of the 1930's and 1940's about humans' role in these man-made disasters, or whether or not humans have the responsibility to "play God" in any way. This idea, in conjunction with relativistic looks at the Japanese mindset in the 1940's and 1950's, after the repercussions of World War II, the basic elements of human fear, and what Godzilla metaphorically represents, are all relative in analyzing this particular piece, and it may indeed be the only franchise where the first film is looked at and critiqued in an entirely different light than its successors.

Following the boom of the Japanese film industry in the 1950's and 1960's, American activities such as golf were beginning to become prominent in Japan, along with the ubiquity of home Television sets, which saw exponential sales from a few thousands to two million during the mid to late 1960's. As a result, Japan's successful film industry became short-lived, as less and less people flocked out to the theaters due to the lack of popularity of the establishments comparative to the United States. The company that released Gojira, Toho and its director Ishirō Honda, began catering to the lowest common-denominator, not filling their follow-up efforts to Godzilla with thought-provoking commentary on Japanese culture and topical events, but instead, loading them with the kind of cheesiness and glitz expected to attract young children or a late-night audience. The Godzilla films became more concerned with the sounds-and-lights aesthetic, ridiculous and often ludicrous monsters that were totally geared towards selling action figures, and a line of comic books and video games to license the everlasting hell out of Godzilla name.

This kind of franchise and international ubiquity obscured the original film not only for its datedness but made its justifications for social commentary laughable to those uninformed about Japanese culture at the time . This is one of the many things licensing does to hurt a brand or product in the long-term sense, for it alienates consumers because they can't seem to escape it no matter which way they turn, but the reasons for the greatness of the original product become lessened or forgotten due to the constant influx of new material related to the original work.

Gojira may find itself crude in parts, with its assembly of miniatures optimistically passing off as a rogue monstrosity devastating a large community, or its evident aspects showcasing overacting, but it's nonetheless enjoyable on an entertainment level and thoughtful on a commentary-level. This is one of the few films that can be so relevant and topical while playing one of the most simplistic but effective instrumental tracks, and that in its own right is uncommonly beautiful.

Starring: Akira Takarada, Momoko Kōchi, Akihiko Hirata, and Takashi Shimura. Directed by: Ishirō Honda.

First we had King Kong (1933), one of the most important and first large monster films, than we had giant insects... the point in which you thought that all large monster films are gonna die... but, no worries, Japanese are always there to save the day. Godzilla (1954), is bigger, badder, better, meaner, faster, and more artistic than any other monster films. It's the movie that sets some new standards.

The film was based upon the story of Shigeru Kayama "Gojira" from the words "gorilla" and "kujira" (whale). It's without any doubt one of the most significant SF films in Japanese cinema, and we have a proved fact that this movie has a large number of sequels, a US remake, an animated series and we are expecting something new. This movie of Inoshiro Honda is based upon foundation of already tried stories: A large monster suddenly comes alive, and it's growing in catastrophe for human civilization. You can easily say that the story motives are the same just like in the Frankenstein (1932), for example... But Japanese view of these thing is different. Godzilla is not appearing for some purpose, he is there only for the plot, he is an unstoppable, blind force ready for destruction, and there's also a human's error of his interfere in nature, so by the looks of things, the large monster is some kind of "payback" from mother nature.

The movie has good acting crew, excellent direction, an inspiring and brilliant music score by Akira Ifukube, who also made Godzilla roars, the special effects were also great, done by Eiiji Tsuburaya. And from this moment, this movie is a great inspiration to many more monster films... we are expecting more today.

A film that works because of its campy monster and its budget-limited special effects (they couldn't afford stop motion so it's all a dude wearing a rubber suit tromping on miniatures), but is made special because of its deep meaning and the warnings and questions it has for the nuclear age.

It's telling that it was the most advanced scientific breakthrough made by the most brilliant minds on the planet, the harnessing of the atom, that led to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and in turn, in this movie, to the unleashing of a two million year old monster. It warns humanity that in stepping forward in its understanding of the universe, it was also taking a step backwards, and unleashing irrational, destructive violence upon the world. That's all pretty obvious I guess, but the scenes of fleeing people being incinerated by Godzilla, women and children huddling together in fear, and the destruction of Tokyo looking like an atomic bomb had gone off must have reverberated especially with the original audiences of the time. It certainly did for me. There is something deeply painful about this film.

In a fascinating development, it's a Japanese scientist who has to wrestle with the morality of having developed a weapon of mass destruction called the 'Oxygen Destroyer', knowing that its use to stop Godzilla in the short term may lead to its use to further horrific destruction in the long term. It seems to put the Japanese in the same position as the Americans in 1945, one where there are no easy answers. How does one put the lid back on the box of an arms race, where one technology or act of violence leads to another in a crazy, unending spiral? The solution offered may or may not be all that realistic, but I thought just raising the question in the way the film did - and so soon after the war - was incredibly thought-provoking and brave. The film thus works on emotional and philosophical levels that one normally wouldn't get in a monster film, or at least, with this level of meaning and intensity. Definitely recommended.