Varan Incredible Remodeled by Jerry A. Baerwitz, Ishiro Honda's 1958 film "Varan." They say that the Japanese filmed “Varana” not for themselves, but by order of US producers, and immediately for television. I guess that's where the black and white film comes from. After the colored Radon and Mysterians, Toho for some reason released a black and white kaiju muvi. The Americans soon withdrew from funding the project and the studio had to finish the film for themselves - taking a number of scenes from the cult "Godzilla" 1954 (because the monsters had an almost identical tail). But, many years later, in 1962, Crown International Pictures in the United States still significantly re-edited the picture and released under the title Varan the Unbelievable.
In the American version, quite a lot was cut from the film, and, as usual, a number of scenes were changed altogether. But surprisingly, they added motivation and originality to the monster. Strangely enough, this time no serious problems are raised in the Japanese original. No nuclear tests, no radiation, no global warming, nothing. In the US version, the film features the theme of environmental pollution and human interference in nature - there are attempts to make fresh water from salt water, which awakens the monster. In the original version, Varan seemed not to sleep much at all.
The monster is the deity of a small village where an extremely rare species of butterflies is found. It was believed that they live exclusively in Russia - in the lands of Siberia, to open them in Japan was an incredible event, but two researchers died under unclear circumstances - their jeep was like something or someone flattened, and landslides in the area was not noticed.
The sister of one of the dead, along with another of her rather cowardly brother, goes to find out what happened. In this they are helped by the main character of the film - a young scientist Kenji (Kozo Nomura, who will later appear more than once in kaiju films), who took leave of his mentor.
The monster will appear from the lake in the twenty-first minute, Varan, like Godzilla in his solo album, will not take long to wait. What's more, they're both giant lizards, and in general, Varana's roar is Godzilla's slightly processed roar. The Tohos clearly started exploiting the first film to somehow end this one, saving on different things. But Varan is presented as a four-legged monster, albeit rising at the right time on his hind legs. He does not have any atomic breath, but he knows how to soar and fly, however, this is not particularly disclosed, although the water from the scenes is hinted openly through a roar in the air, from the sky.
The monster has an excellent costume that allows him to be remembered against the background of many other monsters. He is at the same time and in some ways similar and does not look like the classic Godzilla, but very much resembles Godzi from Godzilla vs. King Kong - as if there was a redesigned suit Varana and used. In the scene with the village it seems that he is not so much destroying everything around as swirling in the frame, allowing you to see yourself from all sides. The monster is covered with a kind of shell and a number of sharp spikes, and its skin is, of course, not able to penetrate all modern weapons.
"Varan" is just a kaiju film without much subtext. At first, it is a film-adventure - an expedition to the lake, a village with its headman and beliefs, an ominous fog lurking, a missing boy and a dog, local legends and a terrible awakened monster-deity. In the end, it is rather a fantastic action movie about the battle of all army power and a giant monster.
Having again assembled a beautiful cast, where the bomb expert is played, for example, by Akihiko Hirata himself (Seridzawa from Godzilla, a participant of not a small number of Toho kaiju projects), and many participants in the filmography have a number of representatives of the genre of giant monsters, the director even at the early and frequent appearance of the monster shows us interesting characters.
A distinctive feature of this film from previous ones is the presence of humor. “Godzilla” and “Radon” were basically horror films, “Godzilla Attacks Again” and “Mysterians” – serious fantastic action films without a bit of self-irony. “Varan” is not a comedy, but it has this irony. The dialogue of the film itself rarely, but accurately, give out great jokes, and even some scenes, like an episode with fishermen saying “we are losers” in the absence of productive fishing just before the monster appeared next to them – well, they simply cannot but cause an approving smile.
Ishiro Honda at the same time serves on the screen a large number of spectacular and memorable scenes. "Varan" remains in the heart after watching, you remember the first awakening in the lake, and the episode in the plane, and the moment with a military ship, submarine bombardment, as well as the little that was good "Godzilla attacks again" - the view of flying around the monster from the 1st person of aerial military equipment - fighter aircraft.
There are many episodes of Varan’s interaction with a variety of objects. Including even swallowing sparkling missiles for reasons that are not entirely clear. This, in fact, becomes his Achilles heel. Invented powerful bomb detonates successfully, being only inside - for testing it, for example, buried in the rocks.
So, realizing that outwardly the skin of the monster with the current weapons can not penetrate, the Japanese decide to make the monster swallow the bombs and explode from the inside. The final explosion will be shown to us from under the water – the filmmakers clearly did not want to spoil the costume, making it fly to pieces, but the tradition of killing monsters in each of their solo films Toho still stubbornly observes.
Even if there is no atmosphere of chaos, horror, inevitability, which reigned in Godzilla, there is no sense of the danger and tension from Radon, in Varan there is still a soul invested by the authors - the film is alive, high-quality and interesting. In terms of plot development, it even surpasses the concept of Godzilla, where the final act took place under water after the climax with the invasion of the city.
The film has no problems with the script, the characters, or their communication. Each hero is decorated with a number of spectacular bright features, where a cowardly butterfly hunter or a depressed desperate professor stands out. However, the drama, as such, the film is almost devoid of drama. It’s more of a blockbuster entertainment, eating popcorn as another “gromazilla” is going to turn Tokyo into ruins. But this does not play the film in the negative, it is brilliantly good exactly as a simple kaiju-muvik, which can be watched with pleasure again and again.
8 out of 10
Original