King of Monsters The Monster King appeared to the world from the depths of the water and was the result of an atomic explosion. Despite all this secondary plot and continuity, for Japan the film turned out to be very significant and powerful. According to its name, Godjira was planned as a hybrid of Gorilla and Whale. But “The Monster from the depth of 20,000 sea fathoms” so delighted the Japanese that it was decided to make Godzilla also a dinosaur. A mutant lizard. All these changes clearly benefited the final picture.
Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla is a metaphor for war, nuclear testing, innocent victims, and the “monster” that humanity uses in times of conflict. The monster is like the weapons we make. An ugly mutant wreaking havoc and nothing can stop him. The heat of passions, the seriously raised topic of radiation, the ruins of the city to the song-prayer of Japanese schoolgirls - the very first film personified the invasion of a monster with a real tragedy and natural disaster.
Radiation, dying ships, irradiated sailors and a giant creature that cannot stop the entire military power of the country and scientists from all over the world. Slow but inevitable death, a colossal devil of unimaginable grandeur, turning Tokyo into ruins district by district.
The image of Godzilla is very remotely similar to the traditional predatory dinosaur. The form here is conditional, in fact it is a mutating something that combines animal features in itself and completely, even the "thorns" on its back because in fact something in the spirit of fins. A terrible creature capable of simultaneously emitting “atomic breath” – steam or smoke, turning everything around into a sea of fire, bringing Godzilla even to a kind of image of a “sea dragon” from various myths and legends.
The image of Godzilla went back centuries and spread to all sorts of memes, quotes, references and parodies. It is regularly used in a variety of areas of life from symbolism to commercials. No atomic ray, which later became a proprietary feature of Godzilla, was even out of the question here, but the spikes-needles shine before each volley, becoming a kind of canon of this chip. Breathing and breathing, and the moment where high-voltage towers melt from this “couple” is one of the best scenes of the film!
In general, the destruction here is in order. If you remember how Brontosaurus, Kong and Redosaurus crushed their metropolises, then Godzilla clearly outperformed them all combined. And the film itself demonstrates such a variety and abundance of filming of real military equipment of the Japanese that few shots can be blamed for the unrealistic miniatures in the frame.
The film gave birth to a whole great direction of Asian cinema in Japan. After Godzilla, there were not only films about the battles of giant monsters with each other and not just pictures of how another giant monster destroys cities, but also various tokusatsu-series.
Godzilla was the first and triumphant, and despite the fact that a lot, up to the “unique super-weapon” in the final – is already secondary and repeating the progenitors of the genre, the film gained huge success and popularity. Kaiju films are released to this day in different countries, although it would seem that the genre could outlive itself in all past eras. Even fan films are shot, not to mention from rebuts and remakes.
A terrifying mutant dinosaur, the fruit of human weapons tests, a symbol of the most brutality and animal essence of people, conflicts and war, he still personifies all this horror, continuing to appear in films, books, comics, computer games, fan shorts, on various art and brands, on boxes with children's breakfasts and in commercials.
However, “Godzilla” in addition to its special effects and magnificently executed monster can be remembered and various other things. Here, for example, just divine music – composer Akira Ifukube created a real masterpiece! The title theme of the film to this day accompanies the Monster King in cinema. In general, the entire technical part here is high. And military equipment, and scenery, and various effects of explosions, melting, electricity. And, of course, the overall direction of Ishiro Honda is just wonderful!
The film is full of interesting finds and memorable scenes, such as Godzilla’s reaction to a tower clock, a cult episode with a train (clearly inspired by a similar scene from King Kong), or a news report straight from the falling tower before the death of all the brave journalists who dared to give the best footage of the destruction of Tokyo. This, perhaps, is a serious and severe disaster film, where instead of a typhoon, tsunami, volcanic eruption or tornado, humanity is struck by natural fury in the form of a giant monster.
Excellent mashups with a monster against the background of a fire in the middle of urban landscapes, even moments of combination with people running in terror are successful. All the shots together look very good, and the serious tone and general panic mood of the picture reminds of those times when the genre of “giant monsters” directly related to horror and was the direction of horror films.
But there's good acting here. The film is based on five characters, in the center of which is a love triangle. Scientist Dr. Serizawa is perhaps one of the most powerful characters in all the Godzilla films. His image of a man who lost an eye, fascinated by his discovery of an oxygen destroyer, not wanting it to be made a weapon, remains in memory for centuries.
His assistant, Emiko, promised to the scientist as his wife, secretly loves the military sailor Ogata and does not even know how to tell Serizawa about it or at least her father, a scientist-paleontologist. Emiko also made a beautiful emotional character, especially the scene of her reaction to how the doctor burns all his research, so that they do not fall into the wrong hands. He himself, in turn, just for all the “oscars” of the world plays facial expressions of the face in the scene of understanding that his bride loves another.
Godzilla appears in the film in the twenty-second minute, so it is not very long in coming. And although the overall culmination of the picture here falls not at all on the underwater ending, but on the main triumphal procession of Godzilla around Tokyo after coming to the shore, where the monster will finally be shown to us in all its glory, and not only parts and close-ups of the limbs, the emotional intensity and its symbolic significance of the finale here also turned out quite spectacular.
Godzilla is not just a high-quality spectacle by the standards of its years, as well as not just an archaic retro classic of cinema, but also a deep intelligent film filled with meaning, brilliantly staged and talentedly played, which is not such a frequent phenomenon for most Kaiju films, including sequels about Godzilla. Massive unkillable creature lives in the hearts and does not cease to inspire. And his rich heritage is flourishing!
10 out of 10
Original