Kaiju-eiga: Return to the source
Kaiju-eiga or 'Japanese monster movie' to you and me.
The British Film Institute are to re-release the complete uncut original 1954 Japanese monster movie Godzilla (dir. Ishiro Honda, a close friend of Akira Kurosawa). Big deal, you might think: blokes in daft rubber monster suits demolishing matchstick box replicas of Tokyo. Anyone who may have seen the twenty-odd sequels and countless rip-offs (let's not even mention Roland Emmerich's 1998 dire 'reimagining') that came out of Japan and elsewhere in the last 50 years would have a point. But the original 1954 film that started it all is an altogether different beast (excuse the pun).
Quite simply, Godzilla was an allegory of atomic warfare. It was a response not only to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bomb in August 1945 but also the newly developed hydrogen bombs successfully tested by the Americans and Soviets in the early 1950s. In March 1952 the Japanese crew of the ironically monikered tuna-boat The Lucky Dragon developed radiation sickness as a result of the testing of an American hydrogen bomb on Bikini Atoll. It is effectively this scene that opens Godzilla. The explosion awakens the pre-historic creature, a once benign force of nature mutated by radiation into a malevolent, destructive monster.
The film struck a chord with a traumatised Japanese audience with its images of widespread destruction, nuclear contamination, black rain and bomb shelters. It was Japan's first stab at a big budget sci-fi epic, costing ten times as much as the average japanese film and twice as much as Kurosawa's The Seven Samauri that was released the same year.
In 1956 the distribution rights were sold to the Americans who judiscously exised the anti-nuclear message, including the H-bomb test and sinking of the Japanese tuna-boat opening scene, and re-edited and redubbed the picture into a typical monster-on-the-loose action flick with inserts of Raymond Burr acting as a news reporter commenting on the events. It is this immasculated version that has hitherto been available here in the West.
But now the Bfi are releasing the uncut Japanese original on DVD and giving it a limited theatrical run.
I used to love the many Godzilla sequels when I was a child even though they were basically (increasingly cute) monster trash-'em-ups but the original is a truly bleak apocalyptic vision. It's still a bloke in a suit but thanks to wonderful lighting and excellent black and white photography the special effects still stand up incredibly well against today's CGI saturated blockbusters.
At last we will get the opportunity to see the film as Honda intended on a big screen where it belongs.
Godzilla will be given a limited theatrical release in the UK on 14 October 2005.
The British Film Institute are to re-release the complete uncut original 1954 Japanese monster movie Godzilla (dir. Ishiro Honda, a close friend of Akira Kurosawa). Big deal, you might think: blokes in daft rubber monster suits demolishing matchstick box replicas of Tokyo. Anyone who may have seen the twenty-odd sequels and countless rip-offs (let's not even mention Roland Emmerich's 1998 dire 'reimagining') that came out of Japan and elsewhere in the last 50 years would have a point. But the original 1954 film that started it all is an altogether different beast (excuse the pun).
Quite simply, Godzilla was an allegory of atomic warfare. It was a response not only to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bomb in August 1945 but also the newly developed hydrogen bombs successfully tested by the Americans and Soviets in the early 1950s. In March 1952 the Japanese crew of the ironically monikered tuna-boat The Lucky Dragon developed radiation sickness as a result of the testing of an American hydrogen bomb on Bikini Atoll. It is effectively this scene that opens Godzilla. The explosion awakens the pre-historic creature, a once benign force of nature mutated by radiation into a malevolent, destructive monster.
The film struck a chord with a traumatised Japanese audience with its images of widespread destruction, nuclear contamination, black rain and bomb shelters. It was Japan's first stab at a big budget sci-fi epic, costing ten times as much as the average japanese film and twice as much as Kurosawa's The Seven Samauri that was released the same year.
In 1956 the distribution rights were sold to the Americans who judiscously exised the anti-nuclear message, including the H-bomb test and sinking of the Japanese tuna-boat opening scene, and re-edited and redubbed the picture into a typical monster-on-the-loose action flick with inserts of Raymond Burr acting as a news reporter commenting on the events. It is this immasculated version that has hitherto been available here in the West.
But now the Bfi are releasing the uncut Japanese original on DVD and giving it a limited theatrical run.
I used to love the many Godzilla sequels when I was a child even though they were basically (increasingly cute) monster trash-'em-ups but the original is a truly bleak apocalyptic vision. It's still a bloke in a suit but thanks to wonderful lighting and excellent black and white photography the special effects still stand up incredibly well against today's CGI saturated blockbusters.
At last we will get the opportunity to see the film as Honda intended on a big screen where it belongs.
Godzilla will be given a limited theatrical release in the UK on 14 October 2005.
posted by Steve Kane at 11:54 PM
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