Kaiju/Tokusatsu stuff

[Jazzy G]

I bit the bullet and thought I'd dump my Kaiju thoughts here rather than stinking up the VHS/Betamax film or D-Mal's foreign films thread.

I'm three movies into the list on the archive page I found, and they're interesting things.

Godzilla (1954)

The original giant monster movie (apart from the 1933 King Kong, The Great Buddha Arrives in 1934, and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms from 1953), and it's a heck of a ride. We don't actually see the big guy himself until about half an hour in, but we're made aware of his presence with mysterious shipwrecks, planes falling out of the sky, and myths about sacrifices to ancient deities. When the exploratory party make it to Odo island and Godzilla turns up on the far side of the island and they finally see him the effects haven't aged well, but it's still a great sequence. 

When he gets to Tokyo and starts tearing through their defences the chaos is palpable, the army turns up to little effect, he lays waste to the place, and because it's black and white it doesn't looks awful. Then when they just realise they need to leave him to it and he heads off there's a palpable sense of relief. The ethical discussion about using the oxygen destroyer to deal with him is pretty heavy, especially when Dr Serizawa sacrifices himself to make sure that the Oxygen Destroyer can't be recreated and weaponised. You can't help but feel bad for Goji either as he passes away. Well worth a look.

If you don't fancy reading the subtitles the 1956 US Adaptation Godzilla The King Of Monsters with Raymond Burr is worth a look, but the dubbing and some of the shots they use to make it look like Raymond Burr was in the locations from the movie can get awfully janky in places. It still hits the main story beats from the original as well, though.

Godzilla Raids Again/Godzilla's Counterattack (1955)

Due to how well Godzilla did in cinemas, Toho decided they needed a sequel, so nine months after the release of the original we get this. There's a LOT of expository dialogue, and not a whole lot of monster, Things start with a pilot going missing, and a search party being sent for him. He's found on Iwata Island, and while they're trying to get out of there discover another Godzilla fighting against another giant monster. Upon returning to Osaka they encounter a Godzilla expert from Tokyo who's been trying to prepare other cities for potential Godzilla attacks. It's discovered that the new monster is Anguirus, a giant Ankylosaurus who was likely mutated/awoken in a similar fashion to Godzilla. Reports come in that Gidzilla is on his way to Osaka as well, so a solution is needed. The Oxygen Destroyer can't be used again as it's gone, and Dr Serizawa with it, taking all knowledge of how to make another one with him.

Godzilla arrives, and they try to lure him away with something called the light bomb, which is them turning all the city's lightds off before detonating a lot of flares in the opposite direction in the hopes that he's drawn towards the lights. It almost works until some idiots crash a car in a factory and start a huge fire, and it attracts Godzilla's attention which results in him wandering back into the city and causing some havoc. Tanks and planes turn up.. It's not a badly done sequence. Anguirus turns up as well, and has a scrap with Godzilla, but it always just feels like they're just having a bit of a mess about, and not super malicious. Godzilla never uses his atomic breath, they just wrestle a bit, then after Godzilla chucks Anguirus into the sea he just buggers off home. 

Sensing further sequels they (Toho) decide not to kill him this time, but rather seal off the pass he uses to leave the island. He gets snowed in as well. It's still enjoyable, but is obviously a bit of a rush job.

Rodan: Giant Monster Of The Sky (1956)

We're in colour, and Godzilla is nowhere to be seen. People have been mysteriously disappearing in a mine in Tokyo, and further investigation reveals a lot of mysterious critters in the caves. Some are people dressed as insects in a style not dissimilar to a pantomime horse type thing. There are lots of bats. Eventually a couple are found dead, and it's theorised to be a double suicide until they develop the film from the man's camera and sicover a very off picture. They eventually realise that it's a Pteranodon that must have been hiding inside the mountain that they'd been mining. We don't see Rodan until about 50 minutes into a 90 minute runtime, but they do a great job building to it. He can fly at supersonic speed, and leaves a huge wind in his wake that destroys everything behind him. Also when he lands he can flap his wings to create hurricane strength winds. There's a lot of drama, and theydo a great job of presenting Rodan as a different kind of threat to Godzilla. This is obviously in a different timeline as well, since Tokyo is pretty much undamaged, as opposed to rebuilding from the Godzilla attack from a few years ago.

The downside with the shift to colour is that the obvious models that are being destroyed and coming to battle against Rodan look really fake. I love the JASDF (Japan Air & Space Defence Force) planes, though. There's a huge twist as well when it looks like they have Rodan beaten, but I won't spoil it. 

There'll be a few other non Godzilla movies before the big guy turns up again.

[Devon Malcolm]

I watched a load of them when I was a kid when Channel 4 used to have them on, but they just blur into one now. I did watch Shin Godzilla a few months ago and it was ace though, can't believe they've not done a sequel yet.

[Jazzy G]

Can't wait for Godzilla Minus One next month, although there's precious little information about where it's coming out. I fear a trip to Manchester may be in order 

[King Mal the Glorious]

Big fan of Godzilla films. I set myself the task of watching every one a few months ago, I'm currently about 10 films in though I did skip ahead and watch a few of the newer ones too. Really looking forward to Minus One and Legacy of Monsters soon!

[Carbomb]

12 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

I watched a load of them when I was a kid when Channel 4 used to have them on, but they just blur into one now. I did watch Shin Godzilla a few months ago and it was ace though, can't believe they've not done a sequel yet.

Shin Godzilla was superb - somehow splicing a kaiju movie with a political satire of the Japanese government was very slick, and very funny, but didn't detract from the action or the drama of it.

[Merzbow]

I was never the biggest into Kaiju but I do adore the 90's/Heisei trilogy Gamera films, they just seemed to perfectly mix the camp, comedy and really bloody good fights into one.

I'll probably dig a little deeper into the Wikizilla and find some more to watch but these three seem to be amongst the highest rated?

Gamera Rebirth does look great though the animation is odd.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Merzbow

[Jazzy G]

There are a good few Gamera movies on Amazon Prime at the moment. The MST3K Gamera episodes are good as well. 

[Jazzy G]

Yeah, yeah, it's a double post. Sorry for this. 

Today's offering is Earth Defence Force/The Mysterians (1957). Godzilla is still on hiatus, but they're putting out plenty of sci-fi and kaiju movies in the meantime. Hot on the heels of Rodan comes Earth Defence Force.

There are some decent visual effects for the time when the bad guys' kaiju, Mogera, first turns up (he looks like a giant robot mole), although the costume looks really difficult to move about in. There are some overlaid explosions to avoid having to blow up actual vehicles, then a bloke in a suit kicking a model of said vehicle around for extra effect. 

Anyhoo, some aliens come from planet Mysteroid, which was in our solar system but destroyed in a nuclear war ages ago, via Mars because their numbers are dwindling and they need to repopulate. The concept of the movie is inspiration for the 1968 TV movie Mars Needs Women, which was also sampled for some rave tunes. 

Some of the ideas used during the set up reminded me a bit of War Of The Worlds with the green cylinders flying through space and landing in craters. 

The aliens' space suits have a little bit of a proto Super Sentai/Kamen Rider thing going on. 

The aliens settle in a spot of land, build a base and start kidnapping ladies. The united defence forces of the earth attack by landing electronic FAHP towers around the alien base in the hope of reflecting their lasers back at them. 

It's a pretty tense final sequence, with another Mogera turning up, and a daring rescue attempt. Totally different feel from the usual Godzilla fare. 

[Devon Malcolm]

Troll, the Norwegian Netflix film, is a half-decent spin onthe kaiju film and I believe they're doing a sequel to it.

[Jazzy G]

It's been a few days, but today's offering is Beauty & The Liquid People aka The H-Man (1958). The beauty in question is Arai, a singer in a jazz club (nice) who's terrorised by a pair of gangsters who keep disappearing. It turns out they've been involved in a radiation accident and turned into liquid people. No huge monsters this time around, but some pretty nifty effects for the 50s. It starts as a crime thriller, and midway through there's the reveal that the two villains can transform into liquid form. Back to kaiju next though with Great Monster Varan.

[Devon Malcolm]

On 11/14/2023 at 10:11 PM, jazzygeofferz said:

Can't wait for Godzilla Minus One next month, although there's precious little information about where it's coming out. 

Official release date is December 15th. I don't know how wide a release it will get though. Shin Godzilla got quite a decent sized release so fingers crossed it happens with this too. It's done really well on its Japanese release so that might be a good sign.

[Jazzy G]

I have a feeling if I am seeing it in the cinema it might involve a trip to Manchester like when I saw Glass Onion. 

[Jazzy G]

We're back with 1958's Great Monster Varan aka Varan The Unbelievable. It's back to black and white as well, presumably because the effects aren't up to the standard of the last few offerings. It feels a bit King Kong in places with Varan (apparently an example of a prehistoric creature called a Varanopode) living in a secret forest in "the Tibet of Japan" where he's worshipped as a god. Anyway, some kid and his dog from the nearby village wind him up and he destroys the village, which leads to The army being sent in, then Varan flies off to Tokyo. 

The Varan monster is a decent concept, but the execution is lacking. It looks laughably poor in places, especially when he's "flying" the Army in their obviously model tanks with little action figures sat in the turret are pretty hilarious too, but it's all played seriously. I dread to think how poor it would have been in colour. 

The score is decent, although a lot of the motifs running through it just should like they're variations on the classic Godzilla March. I think Ikufube did the score, which makes sense as he did a lot of Godzilla scores back in the day. 

It's not a bad movie, and Varan has a fair bit of potential as a kind of stepping stone between a land based kaiju such as Godzilla, and an aeriel kaiju such as Mothra or Rodan. Varan will return in Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters. 

Next up it's 1959's Great Space War/Battle In Outer Space. 

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by jazzygeofferz

[s279]

On 11/14/2023 at 10:11 PM, jazzygeofferz said:

Can't wait for Godzilla Minus One next month, although there's precious little information about where it's coming out. I fear a trip to Manchester may be in order 

It looks like Odeon will have it on a fairly wide release. All of the ones round here have one showing a night (so far) from 15th to 17th December. 

[Jazzy G]

I've seen it's on at Vue that weekend, but I think I'll have to go to Bolton or Preston to see it. I'm probably going to see it at Preston on the Saturday afternoon because they have lovely recliner seats there.