Some national cinemas have birthed their own national icons, and Japan can proudly claim Godzilla. It was introduced in the eponymous 1954 science fiction disaster film (originally titled Gojira), directed by Ishirō Honda, known as the launch of the kaiju genre and the longest-running film series in the history of cinema.
The plot begins with the crew of a Japanese freighter in the Pacific witnessing a huge underground explosion which ultimately destroys the ship, leaving barely enough time for an SOS signal. Ships sent to rescue them mysteriously vanish, just as the fishermen on Ōdo Island discover that something has suddenly deprived them of their fish catches. One of the elders mentions the legend about a huge monster called “Gojira” coming from the sea, but nobody thinks much about it until the arrival of a fact-finding mission led by scientist Dr. Kyohei Yamane (played by Takashi Shimura). He discovers traces of radiation, an ancient trilobite and tracks that are revealed to belong to a huge 50-metre-tall reptilian creature. Dr. Yamane theorises that the prehistoric-looking giant had lived in the oceanic depths before US nuclear bomb tests forced it out of its natural habitat.
“Gojira” begins to attack the Japanese mainland, causing major destruction and loss of life, with the military powerless to stop it with guns, missiles or even electric power. The only hope seems to be the Oxygen Destroyer, a device secretly designed by Dr. Daisuke Serizawa (played by Akihiko Hirata), Yamane’s protégé, childhood friend and presumed fiancé of Yamane’s daughter Emiko (played by Momoko Kōchi). Unlike Emiko’s boyfriend Hideto Ogata (played by Akira Takarada), he is reluctant to use it against “Gojira” and thus reveal it to the world because, as a WWII veteran, he fears that it would be copied and used as a weapon as atomic bombs were.
Produced by Toho, the studio that would become one of Japanese cinema’s most renowned institutions, simultaneously with Kurosawa’s jidai-geki classic Seven Samurai, it received quite a large budget for the standards of the time. Despite its black-and-white cinematography and some rather primitive special effects like “suitmation”, or, in other words, Gojira being played by Haruo Nakajima in a rubber suit, the film looked solid for the standards of its time. Honda and the producer Tomoyuki Tanaka wisely decided to shoot Gojira almost entirely in night scenes, when the flaws of the special effects wouldn’t be that apparent. Much of the credit for the success of the film should go to Honda, whose adept direction maintains a brisk pace and effectively conveys an epic tale in just over ninety minutes. Honda, who had gained a lot of experience as an assistant director, was clearly drawing inspiration from Hollywood classics like the iconic 1933 King Kong, a film with a similar subject.
However, the script can be confusing, demanding some knowledge of Japan, its customs, and history. The film also has a noticeable tonal shift, with the semi-documentary start, where the disaster slowly unfolds, and the audience is still getting to know Gojira, contrasting with the latter half of the film, which has too much melodrama about Emiko being torn between Dr. Serizawa and Hideto Ogata. The weakest point of the film is the score by Akira Ifukube, which is used at inappropriate times, making the film sound disjointed and badly dated, although Ifukube should be credited for designing Godzilla's famous roar.
Honda, a WWII veteran, was clearly inspired by traumatic events from a decade earlier, with scenes of Tokyo’s destruction being clearly inspired by the US firebombing of Tokyo and the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The film was inspired by the infamous Lucky Dragon No. 5 incident and fears that US nuclear bomb tests in the Pacific would have unforeseen consequences not only for Japan but for the rest of humanity. Tomoyuki Tanaka was quite open about the film being seen as a warning against the abuse of nuclear technology, and this is underlined by the final words in the film.
Although not particularly liked by the critics, Godzilla proved to be a major box-office hit, with its popularity spreading beyond Japan partly thanks to the re-edited "Americanised" 1956 version, Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, starring Raymond Burr as an American news reporter. Despite its flaws and obsolescence, the film is still powerful, especially because it is the most authentic of all Godzilla films, dealing with the issues of war and humanity's newfound ability to destroy the world, a theme sadly relevant for our times.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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