THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
If monsters don’t intimidate you at the very least, you likely haven’t seen Godzilla.
PLOT
Pronounced as Gojira in Japan, the 1954 film shows a small village in Odo Island go through strange occurrences whereas two different freighter ships go missing and fishing catches drop to zero. When a reporter visits to investigate, an ancient sea creature emerges from the ocean and destroys so much in its way: 17 homes, 20 village livestock and 9 human casualties. The remaining Odo residents travel to Tokyo for disaster relief as they describe what they experienced. When paleontologist Kyohei Yamane visits the remains of the village, he does find trilobites on its footprints before seeing firsthand that Godzilla appears reptilian and is 160 feet tall, passing high levels of radiation wherever it goes. Once he reports this to the government, he suspects the beast to have awoken from hydrogen bomb testing. Before any official decision can be made on what to do next, 17 more ships would be lost at sea. The monster is able to survive depth charges from 10 other frigates, officials support Yamane that it should be studied in order to figure out how to slay it. In the midst of this, Kyohei’s daughter Emiko has broken an engagement with her colleague, Daisuke Serizawa, due to her love for ship captain Hideto Ogata. Serizawa avoids sharing his latest project as a scientist to the public, but willingly shows it Emilio. He calls it the ‘oxygen destroyer’ as it is supposed to disintegrate oxygen atoms and cause organisms to die of rotting asphyxiation. This frightens her due to how dangerous it can be and as she walks out on his demonstration, Godzilla attacks Shinagawa before returning to the sea. The Japan Self Defense Forces set up an electrified fence along the coast, but it is able to destroy it with atomic breath, giving it a chance to have another act of destruction towards Tokyo. Sadly for Emiko, her father and Ogata don’t get on the same page about the Titan before asking for his blessing, as they argued of it being worth studying if so dangerous. The chaos dawned by it worsens as it destroys many tanks and fighter jets that confront it, resulting in hospitals to be filled with survivors suffering from radiation sickness. With all the destruction being too distraught to bare, Emiko and Ogata confront Serizawa in the possibility of using the oxygen destroyer on the beast. He feels hesitant on doing so because it fears it will inspire the creation of more super-weapons being wrongfully used. He changes his mind when seeing a news program showing the nation’s current tragedy. A navy ship takes Serizawa to Tokyo Bay to plant the device but when finding Godzilla, he cuts off his air support as he unloads the device and activates it, taking the secret of working the weapon to his grave. As the Titan would be vanquished, many mourn for Serizawa’s death and the film ends with Yamane declaring no more nuclear tests should go forward, in order to prevent the rise of another monster.
THOUGHTS
Many monster flicks from the past and present stand out from another because we’re so in awe of what they look like we forget to wonder the story behind them that make the whole feature a success. Director ishirō Honda and co-writers Shigeru Kamaya, Tomoyuki Tanaka & Eiji Tsuburaya knew something had to be said on behalf of all Japan when making this, thus succeeding in having a fictional creature represent something monstrous that actually happened. Thanks to Haruo Nakajima wearing the bodysuit, he brings a lot of life to the iconic Kaiju. Godzilla is so terrifying to witness the first time around because he is an embodiment of man made terror and the danger of unchecked power that is nuclear warfare. In ‘45, the cities of Hiroshima & Nagasaki were leveled by the United States’ atomic bomb and each step the monster made reflected all the trauma the country went through. Even though said bomb ended WWII, it never really meant that weapon should’ve been made. It even brings up paranoia worldwide because if such a weapon can be made, you don’t want to imagine the wrong people wielding it. That is the whole point of why Godzilla the creature is so effective of a character where you know it’s too dangerous to roam around the surface and has to be dealt with. Seeing all the self awareness, it’s a relief that the first attempt on defeating it felt more strategic than straight forward. This monster may have been the movie’s selling point of reflecting man made disaster, but there were still people to root for within all the competition that was going on in this story. At the start, Takashi Shimura presents a fair amount of curiosity we have as Kyohei, wanting to see how a monster functions. Since Godzilla is an animal from the past, you can’t help wondering how it managed to outlast generations of lifetimes. But as the danger got worst, he was self aware the beast did not belong in the same era as modern humanity. Momoko Kōchi & Akira Takarada accurately showed Emiko & Ogata as those who saw the danger first and knew something had to be done sooner rather than later. That alone made them a good pair because they were on the same page of their beliefs. The true hero in this movie however is undoubtedly Serizawa. Akihito Hirata was a true idealist as this character because he’s seen how wrong it can turn out when making a weapon for the right reasons. He was smart to die with the weapon because this was his attempt to end the cycle of pointless violence. Although Toho capitalized on making a juggernaut IP with Godzilla by flipping the script and making him go from villain to protector, it does not undo the message that was told the first time around, nor do I believe Serizawa’s death was in vein. In short, Godzilla is the be all end all of monster flicks for saying what had to be said at an important time in history. If you want a movie smarter than what meets the eye, see this now.
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