Godzilla Details

The Return of the King

I'll admit to not being able to be impartial on a revue of this, as I am a self confessed Godzilla fan, and have seen every movie the big guy has appeared in, even the latest (Godzilla: Final Wars). This is a serious sci-fi film, Godzilla is a dark engine of destruction and is not the cuddly defender of the Earth as he evolved to in the '60s, which seem to be only G films which are shown on TV here. Retroactively, there have been several explanations as to the motives and design of the film: that it is veiled criticism of the results of US nuclear testing of the time; or it is criticism of the US occupation of Japan which was ending when the film was made; or it was a way of making an action film which would not upset the US who at the time disliked any Japanese films involving the military; or it was simply to use film resources which had become idle after the cancellation of a contract between Toho and an Indonesian film company; or simply it was to capitalise on the success of a re-run of King Kong in Japan in 1953. Certainly, director Ishiro Honda was impressed by Harryhausen's 'The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms' but ruled out the stop-animation techniques in favour of the now famous 'suitimation' approach with a man in a suit trampling exquisitely detailed model cities. The US picked up on the film and actually used a reworked version, with some scenes cut out, re-arranged and extra scenes using Raymond Burr inserted (in order to appeal to a US audience who, ten years after the war, might not have gone for a purely Japanese movie). This original version of Godzilla (Gojira) has strong characterisation, slow build ups, destructive action - remember that the film is fifty years old so the action will not compare to more modern offerings (some of the models are pretty obvious). Worth a look as an example of classic cinema history.

[Highly rated reviewer]

There is something about this type of film!

There is something about this type of film!

No matter how 'bad' they are there still great!

This is just one of the classic Monster movies, where the monster is in no-way scary and the people running away seem more demented than scared!

it was also very clear that pretty much everything godzilla interacted with was a model, (including his plastic self) I couldn't quite put my finger on why it was so obvious, maybe the texture/clean-ness, static reactions to godzilla? not sure!

But all the above are the reasons I loved the film.. Ok nower-days we have the likes of cloverfield etc but in the 50s this was the way they did it!

This is the Original Japanese Godzilla Movie! (GOJIRA)

(Now watch Godzilla Vs King Kong)

4 out of 5