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Devoted pacifist and allegorical visionary, Ishiro Honda (b. 1911) was and remains one of Japan’s most influential filmmakers. He grew up with a love for film and developed artistic aspirations. However, his life was forever changed when he was drafted, primarily serving during World War II, witnessing unimaginable horrors firsthand, including atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army. Following his military service and time as a prisoner of war, Honda returned to a devastated Japan that was still in ruins from the firebombings and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These traumatic experiences solidified his anti-war beliefs and devotion to advocating pacifism, including postwar reflections on the wartime horrors he was affiliated with. He was a man who stood by his principles right up to his passing in 1993. More information on the director’s life can be found in Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski’s biography “Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film,...

Godzilla is one of modern pop culture’s most recognizable monsters, being the trope codified for an entire genre of films. While there have been many stories about how Godzilla was conceived as an idea, Life magazine published a special article about the nuclear menace, detailing how Godzilla was conceived in the mind of producer Tomoyuki Tanaka.

A still from Godzilla Minus One/ Toho Studios

The producer was responsible for a film that was being made as a collaboration between Japan and Indonesia. However, due to rising political tensions, the film was dropped from the production schedule as Indonesia decided to back off from the project, which left a very large unallocated budget in the hands of Tomoryuki Tanaka.

Godzilla ended up taking the spot of In the Shadow of Honor Godzilla (2014)/ Legendary Pictures

Termed an ambitious coproduction between Japan and Indonesia, Shadow of Honor was set to be an...

According to the lore of Ishiro Honda's original Godzilla film "Gojira" (1954), the title monster came into being as the direct result of nuclear tests held in out in the Pacific. An unseen ancient sea creature was exposed to radiation from said tests, causing it to mutate into a 130-meter-tall amphibious dinosaur-like behemoth that climbs out of the ocean and lays waste to cities in Japan. It crushed buildings underfoot and can breathe clouds of destructive radiation. Nothing seems to be able to stop it.  

"Gojira" was partially inspired by the real-life Daigo Fukuryu Maru disaster, an even in which a Japanese fishing vessel was exposed to nuclear radiation during the United States' Castle Bravo H-bomb tests. One of the sailors died, the rest of the crew was sick, and the Japanese public became concerned that the fish may have been tainted. Nuclear fears were justifiably high in 1954, making Honda's film incredibly timely.

It’s another CineSavant review of a movie largely unavailable, especially the original Japanese version. This third Ishirô Honda / Eiji Tsuburaya outer space action epic is probably the best Toho science fiction feature ever, an Astral Collision tale in which the drama and characters are as compelling as the special effects. Nothing can stop a colossal planetoid heading toward Earth, but science comes to the rescue with the biggest construction job ever undertaken by mankind. The fine screenplay generates thrills, suspense and human warmth. It also takes place in the far, far future: 1980.

Gorath

CineSavant Revival Screening Review

Not On Region A Home Video

1962 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 88 83 min. / Yôsei Gorasu

Starring: Ryô Ikebe, Yumi Shirakawa, Akira Kubo, Kumi Mizuno, Akihiko Hirata, Kenji Sahara, Jun Tazaki, Ken Uehara, Takashi Shimura, Seizaburô Kawazu, Takamaru Sasaki, Kô Nishimura, Eitarô Ozawa, Hideyo Amamoto, George Furness, Ross Benette, Nadao Kirino, Fumio Sakashita, Ikio Sawamura, Haruo Nakajima.

Hitting movie theaters this weekend:

Pirates of the Caribbean: on Stranger Tides – Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz, Ian McShane

Movie of the Week

Pirates of the Caribbean: on Stranger Tides

The Stars: Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz, Ian McShane

The Plot: Jack Sparrow and Barbossa embark on a quest to find the elusive fountain of youth, only to discover that Blackbeard and his daughter are after it too.

The Buzz: Who dares to release a film on the same day as the next Pirates film? No one dares. Well, slight correction — Woody Allen dares, but Midnight in Paris is a limited release. Really looking forward to that one too…but back on task…

I will admit my bias, as I absolutely adored the first three Pirates films, but that aside, this film’s first trailer knocked my socks off. Though it be a mere trailer, it had it all: Jack Sparrow (the...

"Margot Benacerraf, now in her 80s, only ever made one feature-length film," begins Josef Braun, "but that film remains so extraordinary, so very nearly singular, that it merits an admiration on par with many more prolific and esteemed bodies of work. After studying and gathering numerous influential allies in France and elsewhere, Benacerraf returned to her native Venezuela, specifically to an island no one had heard of, though when was discovered by the Spanish 450 years earlier it was deemed a sort of paradise on account of its abundance of one resource: salt, as valuable back then as gold. We can see the ruins of colonial fortresses erected to protect the island and its salt marshes, once the center of piracy in the Caribbean, during the prologue of Araya (1959). But historical context quickly gives way to the seeming timelessness of hard labour, to Benacerraf's lyrical approach to depicting the life of a community that was,...

For over 40 years Japanese director Masahiro Shinoda both played within the confines of genre and sought to break from those same restrictions in exploring universal themes, such as faith and mortality. Shinoda’s 1964′s Pale Flower and 1971′s Silence, two of the Shinoda prints selected to play during the New York Film Festival, reflect this diversity on a rather epic scale. On one hand there’s Pale Flower, a black-and-white, well-paced, simply-told crime saga concerning a career criminal and the woman who wins his cold, cold heart. On the other is a sweeping tale of Catholicism and martyrdom, featuring landscapes and vibrant color – for at least some of the time.

Flower, while more successful as a narrative and more impressive on a technical level, lacks the personal passion present in Silence, which seems to be a reflection of Shinoda’s own conflicting beliefs. That said, both films feature principled protagonists who break their own rules.