Bruce Lee - His Greatest Hits!

In general terms I have always been a Bruce Lee fan. But my respect for his talents was limited to his role as Kato on The Green Hornet, his appearance in the movie Marlowe, and the blockbuster flick Enter the Dragon. I knew Lee had made himself a star with some films made in Hong Kong, but I've never seen them all until recently and then not in their original forms. That oversight has been rectified and I can say unequivocally I am a Bruce Lee fan thanks to the Criterion Collection set Bruce Lee - His Greatest Hits. Bruce Lee was a man of enormous talents and a man who knew what he wanted. He was poorly treated in Hollywood, his Chinese heritage becoming a barricade to his dreams of success in feature films. Even television was closed to him (despite his electrifying turn as Kato) when a role he largely created was stolen from him and given to David Carradine in the show Kung Fu. With that final slap in the face, he said farewell to Hollywood and went back to Hong Kong to make movies. 

Golden Harvest films was the new kid on the block, trying to find a niche in the marketplace alongside the behemoth Shaw Films. Raymond Chow made a deal with Bruce Lee for small money by Hollywood standards but impressive by Hong Kong standards for two films. The first was The Big Boss in which he was to co-star alongside James Tien. But Lee's presence on film was so instantly recognized that Tien was made the co-star and given an early exit from the film's story setting up the ferocious fighting finale starring Lee. It's a humble story about workers in an ice factory who are unaware their operation is being used for drug shipments by the titular "Big Boss". When workers begin to go missing things get more and more dangerous resulting ultimately in massive deaths. Filled with righteous fury we see our new hero Bruce Lee seek out the "Big Boss" and proceed to kick ass on an epic scale. The movie was a blockbuster by Hong Kong standards and Bruce Lee was on his way. 

The second of the movies in his deal with Golden Harvest was titled Fist of Fury. There has been confusion over this since when these films came at last to America the titles were switched, and The Big Boss was called Fist of Fury and this one was titled The Chinese Connection thought that title made no sense. In this we get a story which is partly true. When a real-life master of Kung Fu is murdered, many suspected the Japanese who at the time were dominant in Shanghai at the time. This movie takes that suspicion as fact and gives us Bruce Lee as the furious student of the murdered master who despite many warnings from his fellow students and the police seeks the murderers among the Japanese fighters. He is relentless and his Kung Fu is far too potent for any to deny him his revenge. Ultimately, not unlike the previous movie there is a great number of tragic deaths, but not before Bruce Lee as the hero has kicked butt on an epic scale.  The movie, which some regard as the greatest martial arts movie ever made, was even more successful than its predecessor. Bruce Lee could write his own ticket at last. 

So, his next movie The Way of the Dragon saw Lee not just as the star, but also as the writer and director as well. Bruce Lee was at the top of his game, in control of his destiny and he used that power to tell the story of a powerful Kung Fu fighter who is sent to Rome to assist some distant family members who are trying to run a restaurant and avoid the pressures brought against them by the local mob. Bruce is called upon to kick ass repeatedly in this one, facing not only simple hoods, but martials arts enforcers brought in to defeat him. Among these enforcers is Bob Wall, a student of Lee's and another more famous student of Lee's named Chuck Norris. (Whatever happened to that guy?) The story leads inevitably to an epic clash in the ruins of the Colosseum between Lee and Norris, regarded by some fans as the greatest duel in martial arts history. Way of the Dragon did even better at the box office than the previous two films and Lee prepared for his next movie, but then Hollywood called. 

Enter the Dragon was the only Bruce Lee feature I'd seen all the way through before I picked up the Criterion Collection. I even bought a copy of this wildly successful movie, but at the time I might have been more motivated by its similarity to a James Bond flick than anything having to do with Bruce Lee. But upon seeing Lee's incredible fights in this blockbuster, I was a convert to his cult. Hollywood wanted Lee but once again showed timidity when they cast alongside him John Saxon and Jim Kelly. The point seemed to be to make sure folks didn't quite realize Lee was the star, but additional scenes shot by Lee himself made that evident as if Saxon's mundane fighting skills and Kelly's memorable efforts could hold a candle to Lee's magnificence. In this one Lee is a secret agent sent to a martial arts contest arranged by a villain who hides on a remote island. The mission is to find out the villain's scheme and if possible, put a stop to it. That's handled in stunning style as Bruce Lee announced his presence to world at long last. 

Bruce Lee was poised to become a super-star. But then tragedy struck and the thirty-two-year old husband, father of two, and movie icon died suddenly. His death was ruled an accident but of course rumors have persisted to this day. His death blew a hole in the Hong Kong community and left both Hollywood and Golden Harvest without a star. Sadly, Lee died a month before Enter the Dragon was released to massive worldwide success, success he'd never get to savor. But he'd been working on his next film before his Hollywood adventure, a film not only over which he'd have complete control, but one in which he would showcase his philosophy of martial arts, and the footage he'd shot for Game of Death was left sitting on the shelves of Golden Harvest for several years. Meanwhile a multitude of imitators lit up the movie theaters in a wave of what was dubbed "Bruceploitation". Eventually Golden Harvest took the footage of what was to become Game of Death and shot new scenes with Lee lookalikes and shameful footage of Lee's actual funeral to fashion a shambolic flick which for its many, many flaws is regarded as Lee's final film. But that's not quite true. 

Released in the same year as Game of Death, the movie Circle of Iron is a movie which Bruce Lee wrote...sort of. When Lee had been Hollywood before his sojourn to Hong Kong, he'd partnered with his student James Coburn and others to fashion a story called The Silent Flute (the original and superior name of the movie before the studio insisted on something more aggressive if meaningless). This was a fantasy tale meant to showcase the very Eastern ideas of Zen. It wasn't made for a host of reasons, but when Lee became wildly successful, he was offered the chance to make the movie but turned it down, thinking it was part of his past and not his future. Years later it was made with David Carradine (ironically enough) in Lee's role about a man seeking wisdom. He encounters strange beings who give him challenges and information which ultimately lead him to understand the wisdom he sought was within him all along. The movie features Christopher Lee, Roddy McDowall, and Eli Wallach. The latter was exceedingly funny as a man who has immersed himself in oil for ten years to wither his lower body freeing him of his sexual urges which limit his ability to find happiness. That scene aside, the movie is kind of a mess with interesting elements which fall flat. But it was written in part by Bruce Lee and that carries some cache. I should point out that Circle of Iron is not part of the Criterion collection in which I found Lee's other movies. I picked it up from the Blue Underground.

Bruce Lee has become a true legend, word which is bandied about much too much. But in Lee's case it fits. His passing cemented our understanding of him to some television appearances and a handful of movies. His body of work is small in comparison to the impact it made on the fields of martial arts and movies. He has risen above the normal fame he sought all his life, to become an unchangeable icon, a symbol of what the human body can achieve if the drive and need are great enough. Whatever Bruce Lee fought to be in his life, he has become so much more. 

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Terror Of MechaGodzilla - The Criterion Collection!

Terror of MechaGodzilla from 1975 is remarkable for several things, not least of which it marks the return of director Ishiro Honda to the  Godzilla franchise as well as becoming his final Godzilla movie. It was also the last Godzilla movie of the Showa era and seemed for a time to be the last Godzilla movie of all time. The movie is an attempt to try and capture the classic Godzilla magic one more time, using the classic elements. And in many respects it's a success. The story is yet another alien invasion flick, in fact it seems to be part two of the same invasion flick with MechaGodzilla returning after a very successful debut and run by supposedly the same aliens as last time, though oddly they look different. There's actually a very heartwarming story of a young woman who has been forced to be a weapon for the aliens in an attempt to take over the planet. To that end she and the ancient dinosaur Titanosaurus have been manipulated to become weapons alongside the titular MechaGodzilla.

Godzilla himself is alone this time, taking on the enemy by his atomic-breathing own. And he shows up splendidly in this farewell outing. He's been redesigned slightly to look a bit more menacing and less cuddly and his fighting seems more ferocious and less fanciful, though those lighter elements are not altogether absent. When the sacrifices have been made and the battles fought and won, Godzilla is showcased in the "Big Tank" one more time in the blazing red light of a setting sun heading out to sea for his final curtain call. It's not a bad send off given how wonky the series had become from year to year. 

Watching Showa Godzilla movies requires a flexible notion of what makes a good monster movie. If you get yourself locked into one notion then you will find some of them just awful, but if you discover as I do when I watch these fifteen movies that what a monster is can changed over time and from story to story, and further that the changes are key making the whole concept and the genre it begat rich and endlessly diverting. The fifteen Showa Godzilla movies are sumptuous feast, filled with different flavors and distinct tones that rarely if ever bore. Some of terrifying, some are hilarious, and a few are stupifying, but all of them are fascinating in their own way. After a break of ten years it was deemed time for Godzilla to return at long last. 

Check in tomorrow for one more Godzilla post. 

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Godzilla Vs. MechaGodzilla - The Criterion Collection!

 I do believe I saw the American version of this movie called Godzilla vs. Cosmic Monster in the theater, but I'm not at all certain. But no doubt it was one of the earliest movies starring Godzilla I ever owned thanks to a relatively cheap VHS copy, though I was happy to at long last get a better version in the Japanese original. Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla is a much better movie in my opinion than it gets credit for generally. There's a prophecy that a given certain signs such as a dark mountain in the sky and a red sun rising in the West monsters will rise both to attack and to defend the Earth. As the movie progresses we see these prophecies fulfilled in prosaic ways but nonetheless we eventually end up with MechaGodzilla in battle with Godzilla and a new monster named King Caesar, an ancient entity who looks like a Shisa dogs which are legendary guardians. I actually own a pair, given to me long ago by a close friend. I cherish them because of the source, but also because when I look at them I think of this movie. 

Godzilla in this movie is presented in a few ways. When MechaGodzilla first appears it is disguised as his inspiration. The aliens who operate him seek to undermine the confidence of the humans who have come to see Godzilla as a defender and by unleashing their creation they make him appear savage once again. And it's a focused attack, though if you listen you realize that's not Godzilla's roar and eventually when Anguirus fights him we begin to feel something is not right. A tears later when a second Godzilla emerges and we see the shiny metal. Soon it's a battle between the robot and the real thing and it's a doozy which Godzilla appears to lose. All the while this going on of course aliens and humans are battling it out, but always the focus is on what will the monsters ultimately do. This is a movie in which the tie between the humans and the monsters is  quite close. Eventually a priestess sings for her god King Caesar to join the battle and he does to good effect. 

I really enjoy this one, despite what some say are defects in the plot and a lack of motivation of the characters. I guess I'm just not as discerning as others. MechaGodzilla does return of course. 

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Godzilla Vs. Megalon - The Criterion Collection!

 Godzilla vs. Megalon is the only Showa Godzilla movie I actually saw in the theaters. It hit American cinemas in 1976 buoyed by the hooplah over the King Kong remake of that same decade. The poster shows the influence for certain and now that the Twin Towers are no more, a relic of a bygone time indeed. 

This might arguably be the silliest of the Godzilla movies, and Godzilla himself behave more like a human being this time than in any other of the movies. He puts up his mitts as he squares off against his opponents who are a returning Gigan and a new monster named "Megalon". Megalon was actually originally supposed to be part of the previous film and his cockroach-like appearance suggests to me that he'd have made a better option than did the buzz-bellied Gigan. Both of these monsters this time are operating on behalf of the long sunken city-state of "Seatopia" who have agents on Earth looking for options after some atomic tests take too great a toll on the denizens of this forgotten society. Joinging Godzilla in his match against Megalon and Gigan is "Jet Jaguar", robot created by one of our heroes. He's an Ultraman lookalike who responds to the voice commands of his creator but later seems to develop his own intellect and conscience as well as the uncanny ability to enlarge him self so that he might battle the invading monsters. 

When I saw this kid-friendly Godzilla I realized that I might well have been the only adult in the audience of the small town theatre. This is a patchwork movie with old footage and some nifty new stuff as well. It's a lot of fun as long as you don't study it too hard. 

Next time Godzilla goes metal. 

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Godzilla Vs. Gigan - The Criterion Collection!

As the Godzilla series entered the 1970's the dynamic in the movie industry had changed considerably. Television had taken a huge chunk out of the audiences and that meant that expensive flicks were much less likely to get a green light. Either that or once expensive movies had to figure out a way to get finished more cheaply. The Toho Studio solved this equation in 1972's  Godzilla vs. Gigan (also released as Godzilla on Monster Island)by recycling the special effects scenes and hiring less impressive casts. The former we see plainly but the latter was actually a refreshment for some of the classic sequences which had gotten a tad hoary over the years. This movie is intended to be a return to the classic model, but that was tough given the limits. But it's not a bad film to watch I think.

Godzilla in this movie does get a lot more screen time than he had done in some of the latter 60's flicks and in point of fact due to a plot element which called for a tower built by the invading cockroach-like alien which looked just like Godzilla (for an amusement center supposedly) the "King of the Monsters" is on screen a lot, even in the sequences involving he human story. The humans are battling the aforementioned aliens who are using King Ghidorah and the buzz-saw bellied Gigan to take over the planet since their last one was overcome with pollution. (So that theme carries on.) The heroes are youngsters of various kinds (a comic artist, his black belt-wearing sister, a young woman seeking to free her brother, and her friend the obligatory nerd). They are a likeable group just as the villains are suitably easy to dislike. 

Godzilla and his buddy Anguirus leave Monster Island to save mankind and we know this because they talk. In a weird move their "speech" is captured in word balloons. One of my favorite moments is when a line from Anguirus is not translated after Godzilla has told him to hurry several times in a row. I assume Anguirus said something he shouldn't have. These two face off against Ghidorah and Gigan and the fight is perfectly okay with some blood spilled here and there. Eventually Godzilla wins the day and the aliens are sent packing as their scheme and the Godzilla-looking tower come crashing down. 

Believe it or not it's going to get weirder. 

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Godzilla Vs.Hedorah - The Criterion Collection!

Pollution was a hot topic of discussion in the early 70's and remains one of the most significant blights in the civilized world. Because of the brouhaha over pollution in America actual real steps were taken to make the skies and the waters cleaner and they worked, a shining example of what government can do when properly motivated. Many today like to mock environmental efforts as extremist and in some instances they can seem so, but in the ruthless face of industrial pollution such extremism seems warranted. That's the situation we have in Godzilla vs. Hedorah in which an alien is able to use pollution to make a deadly giant of itself and become a serious threat to the very lives of those in Japan. This is a really hideous monster and it kills and kills and kills again. 

This is a wackadoodle movie in many ways with psychedelic sequences and animated sections which to my eyes help to make the movie both visually interesting and in most cases help move the narrative. Godzilla himself appears as among the most traditional things in the movie, looking not unlike he has in previous outings. His struggles again Hedorah are potent and his burned paws reveal that he himself is susceptible to the power of the mighty sludge monster. This is also a Godzilla who seems to have little time for mankind as he watches the forces that be fail and fail again to impede the threat. Without Godzilla, who fights for reasons we don't really know, this is a threat to mankind that would have succeeded and the omnipresent naive hope of youth, the feckless ministrations of authority, or the slight insights offered by science seem enough. 

Now Godzilla flies in this movie, using his atomic breath as some sort of thrust. It looks rather goofy really, but is more than accommodated by the dark threatening setting in which the final battle is waged. This ain't the relentless deadly behemoth of the original, but it's as close as the series ever gets. 

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All Monsters Attack - The Criterion Collection!

1969's All Monsters Attack (or as I've known it Godzilla's Revenge) was once one of my least favorite of the Godzilla run. And it's for all the reasons you might suspect, but now it's one of my favorites. This is not really a Godzilla movie like any before or really after. What we have is a movie about a little boy, a latchkey kid living in an urban Japanese environment. He's assaulted by relentless traffic, air pollution, and the basic fact that his parents have to neglect him in one way to get enough money to see to his needs in another. It's a harsh trade off in the modern world for families struggling to get by and it's well reflected in this story which dashes on at  a delightful pace. 

Godzilla in this movie doesn't really exist. This is the world more like the one in which you and I live in which Godzilla is a media concoction and the source of toys (one is seen in the movie in fact) and we have a boy hero who like many of us is besotted by monsters and stories of fantasy. Toys are a big part of this story in a fashion as the surrogate adult in the boy's life is an older stay-at-home inventor of kid's toys. The kid looks to Godzilla for strength in the face of threats from local bullies and ultimately as the story unfolds adult bank robbers. Ichiro is the kid's name and he's a pistol of a character well acted and not made too sweet. He's got a nifty edge like some modern Tom Sawyer, a boy with a clever wit and just enough mischief in his soul to make it interesting. When he's ultimately nabbed by the robbers, the two foul-ups are really out of their depth dealing with the kid's inventiveness and the movie has moments evoking a later classic Home Alone. 

In flights of fancy which evoke Alice in Wonderland at times, Ichiro visits Monster Island where the Son of Godzilla Minya is his guide, shrinking down to suit the part. And as Minya faces his own challenges including a bully named Gabera (who more than resembles some similar characters in the boy's real life) Ichiro learns by proxy how to approach his own issues. So in this movie Godzilla becomes a father figure, a symbol of strength which a boy can look too for calm assurance. 

More next time when the pollution gets even worse. 

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Destroy All Monsters - The Criterion Collection!

Destroy All Monsters is seen by some as the last gasp of the classic Godzilla to take the world by storm. Nuts I say. This is a cornball remake of Toho's signature kaiju flick bonded with their singular take on sci-fi. Like Monster Zero which was made some years before, we get the obligatory aliens who take control of Earth's monsters to wreak havoc and force the world to do as they wish. The Kilaaks, a race of women (is looks like anyway) want the Earth's heat and the monsters they use are a mighty flock indeed. Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, Anguirus, Ghidorah of course along with rare critters like Manda (Atragon), Varan, Baragon (Frankenstein Conquers the World), Kumonga, Gorgosaurus (King Kong Escapes), and even Minya. And truth told all that doesn't help make this meandering kaiju flick. 

As for Godzilla himself, he's reduced once again to a mere puppet who wreaks havoc on New York City and later Tokyo but who doesn't really feel all that menacing despite that. He's just a monster like all the others, a bit more deadly than some and seemingly a leader when the alien control is broken, but he gets relatively little screen time and is not necessarily the focus of the movie. 

But next time, well things change again. 

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Son Of Godzilla - The Criterion Colletion!

Imagine Christopher Lee's Dracula starring in Father Knows Best, or Mighty Joe Young on What's My Line? There are some venues which strike at the very essence of a character and undermine what that character represents. Alas such is the case with director Jun Fukuda's Son of Godzilla. Now I know that apparently they seemed to be running dry on  Godzilla ideas and that the target audience was skewing ever younger, but really. This is harmless movie that is as close to being about nothing as I can imagine. We have a hapless gaggle of sort of hapless scientists wanting to tinker with the weather (for the good of all mankind of course) and in the process irradiate the island they are on and make already horse-sized insects into literal block busters. Not to mention that aforementioned bugs (a bevy of praying mantises called "Kamacuras")  unearth an egg in which resides the titiular offspring. He's goofy as can be, and watching him wriggle and  doddle around seeking comfort from his parent, a literal engine of utter destruction, is a bit hard to process. There is a pretty girl, a Japanese Honey Wilder of sorts so that helps. 

The Godzilla in this flick has not much to do with any Godzilla who has come before. We see a creature with paternal instincts who likes to laze around napping while his kid nips at his talons. He rears up to fend off a deadly mantis here and there and ultimately takes on "Kumonga" a ginormous trapdoor spider.  They do have him show up early, in the first few minutes in fact, but it's not really for any specific purpose. (I suspect they were stung by criticism from the last one in which he was not seen for nearly an hour.)But as the movie ends, he's cuddling his kid as the artificially manufactured snow drifts down and covers them until the next flick arrives. 

Godzilla is presented here as a father figure of sorts and I guess his popularity made that seem like a great idea, with notions of merchandising dancing in Toho's collective heads. But I wish they'd made a more interesting movie. Turns our they did, but that's later. 

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Ebirah, Horror Of The Deep - The Criterion Collection!

Ebirah, Horror of the Deep or as it's also known Godzilla Vs. The Sea Monster is an offbeat 1966 Godzilla flick and for a good reason. It was originally a King Kong project, one which was to be the movie that became King Kong Escapes. But when Toho had this script on its hands they went and made a Godzilla movie out of it and let Jun Fukuda direct it, but alas it adds little alas to the "Big G" mythos. That's not to say it's a bad movie, in fact it's rather entertaining jaunt filled with charismatic characters we care about as they are thrown together on a remote island and find it occupied by a terrorist organization called "Red Bamboo". Aside from Godzilla there are three other monsters -- the every faithful Mothra, a giant Vulture who lasts about a minute, and the eponymous Ebirah -- a ginormous lobster.

Actually Godzilla himself spends most of this movie asleep. He's not discovered snoozing away in a cave until the fifty minute mark of the movie and a viewer could be well forgiven for forgetting he or she was even watching a Godzilla movie by the time he wakes up nearly ten minutes later and gets into a rock throwing contest with Ebirah. But even after he's awake he spends some time weirdly gazing at a girl (King Kong influence I guess) and napping some more. Then he kicks it into gear and roasts the Vulture, stomps the nuclear facility of Red Bamboo, and tears into Ebirah for the final time. The Godzilla here looks remarkably like a frog in the face and not much at all menacing really. 

Not a shining moment for those just watching for monster fighting, but for those looking for broader entertainment with fun and funny human characters still interesting. Heck it's worth just to watch the fetching Kumi Mazuno run around in her sparse native garb. 

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Invasion Of Astro-Monster - The Criterion Collection!

I really love the movie The Mysterians, an early 50's flick from Toho about aliens who invade the Earth to breed with our women. It's a great lark of a sci-fi outing which landed amongst the monsters before Toho gave over to Godzilla and his kin. Invasion of Astro-Monster is The Mysterians with Godzilla and gang, and it's a lot of fun. If features an American co-star, Nick Adams, present for the sole reason to make the movie marketable overseas. And he's an enthusiastic addition to Toho stock company of seasoned pros. 

But focusing on Godzilla himself for a moment let's all agree that the movies never got sillier than one single moment in this highly memorable screen saga. The aliens (called "Xillians") are attempting to trick mankind into thinking their invasion is not that and that they mean us only the best, such as when they offer up a cure for cancer. They say they are afflicted by King Ghidorah on their homeworld "Planet X" out around Jupiter. But they are liars and Ghidorah is under their control and by trickery theyget Godzilla and Rodan also who fight off Ghidorah. As he flies into space Godzilla crosses his arms and jumps for joy in a move called a "Shie dance" after a cartoon character who performs the move and yells "Shie". It's goofy and lots of folks including the director didn't like it, but it stayed and after that Godzilla moved into another place completely. 

Like most hardcore Godzilla fans I hated it for a long time, but I've changed my mind and embrace it. Godzilla in this movie is not the "Big G" of other films, he's a movie star who can appear in a range of different kinds of movies and comedy is just one. More next time. 

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Ghidrah The Three-Headed Monster - The Criterion Collection!

 It is in Gidorah the Three-Headed Monster that the worm turns...literally. Godzilla, Japan's most famous dragon from the sea abandons his longtime role as nemesis of the Japanese people and instead becomes a defender of the Earth itself. All it took was a threat not of this world and that of course was King Ghidorah, the three-headed, bat-winged monstrosity from beyond the stars.

Godzilla doesn't come to this new place in his long existence all that easily. It in point of fact requires some convincing from Mothra (in caterpillar form) who convinces both Godzilla and his new best buddy Rodan that the three of them must not fight one another, nor destroy all the Birely soft drinks and Mobil Oil signage they can locate, but instead must put aside their enmity for man and become something else instead. And so Godzilla, the creature which once epitomized the deadly Hydrogen Bomb becomes a "good guy". And when I say convince, I mean just that. This movie is notorious for the scene in which the three monsters Godzilla, Rodan and Mothra discuss the threat confronting Earth and eventually following Mothra's lead the the other two follow and gang up on the three-headed menace from deep space, defeating him for the time being. The "conversation" is in monster language of course and is translated for us mere humans by the "Small Beauties" who are on hand to witness it. 

Godzilla (and Rodan too for that matter) will never be the same, at least during the classic Showa Era. Next time Godzilla leaps into his silliest moment of all time. 

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Mothra Vs. Godzilla - The Criterion Collection!

Mothra Vs. Godzilla (or as we know it in America and other points outside Japan -- Godzilla Vs. The Thing) offers up a tasty image of the classic Kaiju critter and establishes some of the tropes that will define the genre going forward in the Showa era and beyond. The first thing to say is that Mothra is the heroine of this epic, called upon by a modern world which has nuked her homeland, kidnapped her priestesses and progeny, and generally disrespected the people who worship her, to sail in and combat the deadly menace of the prehistoric engine of destruction Godzilla. And she does it. 

Godzilla for his part is truly a monster, but in a different way. In his first film Godzilla was the embodiment of a nuclear weapon, wanton uncaring and unstoppable destruction and death. In his second outing Godzilla became a deadly and uncontrollable beast from a prehistoric time and impossible to control in a modern world. In the conflict with King Kong he became possessed of a personality and battled another monster for bragging rights and lost. Here in this latest face-off against Mothra he is downright malevolent. There is an evil intelligence evident in Godzilla as he wreaks havoc across the land once more. In some way his acts might be seen as somewhat accidental, but focusing on his muzzle shows intention behind wicked eyes. He is defeated and sent once more into the sea. 

When he returns, he will become something else yet again, when an unwanted guest crashes the Kaiju party. 

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King Kong Vs. Godzilla - The Criterion Collection!

When Toho decided to revive Godzilla after his two 1950's outings it was because they'd gotten their hands on the granddaddy of all giant monsters -- King Kong. The tale of how King Kong came to be a Japanese monster is a circuitous one and a story which will make a fan of Willis O'Brien, the man who made Kong movie in the landmark movie so many decades ago, weep. O'Brien is celebrated now, but rarely given his due and even more sadly for fans of fantasy films the resources to make the movies he imagined. King Kong Vs. Frankenstein was one such project and by taking it to RKO (or what was left of RKO) he eventually lost control of the idea and it went overseas and the next thing you know Toho is mixing the Eighth Wonder of the World with the King of the Monsters. Mary Shelley's creation fell by the wayside but Toho made a version of that even some years later. King Kong as seen in this first Kaiju comedy is a far cry from the classic behemoth who threatened NYC so long before. 

But my focus here is Godzilla. who in this movie plays the villain. Despite being the hometown boy, Godzilla was still seen as the baddie and Kong as the hero who sails in to save the day on the slopes of Mount Fuji. But even though Godzilla is the baddie here, he's for the first time really portrayed with significant human characteristics. Buoyed by the success Mothra, Toho and Ishiro Honda skewed the Kaiju world to include comedy and satire. The monsters therefore were not merely representations of nuclear threats or prehistoric menace, but also characters on a stage and possessed of personality. We see Godzilla wave his arms together, applauding his fighting moves as he struggles against Kong. He is not a force, he is not an animal, he is a something else -- a blend of all of that. And the formula would prove a potent and to an important extent a successful one. 

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Godzilla Raids Again - The Criterion Collection!

 When Toho realized they had a (ahem) monster hit on their hands they quickly dashed off a sequel which given that it was only six months in the making ain't all that bad really. Godzilla Raids Again lacks the emotional and symbolic depth of its predecessor and is in fact just a monster movie. But it's a pretty dang good monster movie when all is said and done. 

Godzilla himself though is much different. And that should make sense since this is another Godzilla, a second behemoth reared up from the depths of time and the Earth itself to plague man. This time he's much more of an animal with animal instincts and motivations. This is the first of the Toho movies to offer up a classic Kaiju battle as from the get-go Anguirus a giant Anklyosaurus is pitted against Godzilla. The two seem to be fighting over territory which points to instinctive motivations on the part of both. Godzilla's look this time is much trimmer than in his debut, the costume having been redesigned for greater comfort and ease of movement for the sake of the battle scenes. This makes Godzilla more mobile but less imposing. 

Godzilla had been a horror film with a monster presented as an iconic nigh mythic representation of nuclear destruction. In this second outing Godzilla in which in the American release the distributors saw fit to change his name to "Gigantis" he is just a giant monster, one among others battling for dominion but nothing suggests he's anything other than a significant terrestrial threat. Next time he'll meet another monster who will give him a nice outing indeed. 

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Godzilla - The Criterion Collection!

I've reviewed the Godzilla movies a few times here at the Dojo. My approach this time out will be to focus on the presentation of Godzilla himself over the course of the fifteen Showa movies. As we already know the behemoth known as Godzilla will become many things to different audiences as the films progressed through the 50's and 60's and into the 70's. 

In this magnificent debut we meet Godzilla in his purest form -- a lumbering incredible beast of impossible size who personifies the myriad dangers of the atomic bomb. Godzilla made in 1954 was constructed by men who not only remembered WWII, but participated in it in various ways. Some were labeled as war criminals for a time, but eventually as the grip of American occupation slipped away to reveal a new Japan, these men sought to comment on the war, the cost of that war, and the methods which had been used to end it. Further they wanted to say something about how war itself seemed to have become the focus of whole world entirely. To that end they created a horror film, an unrelenting document which shows both the fragments of the old Japan and the pressures of the new. In that cauldron they concoct a monster unlike any before or since.

In its earliest forms the monster was to have a mushroom cloud head, making unequivocal the comparisons the moviemakers wanted to make to the H-Bomb. This was rejected for something more akin to an actual mythic animal. But it's critical to not imagine that in this first outing that Godzilla is an animal. The movie has been criticized for the fact that Godzilla lacks any animalistic motivation for his wanton destruction. Comparisons to the precursor of the movie The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms suggest that like that revived dinosaur Godzilla needed a reason to ramble through all the prominent districts of Tokyo. But that's the point, he 's not an animal in any way that makes sense. He's too big to live to begin with and his behaviors are not that, anymore than a hurricane has behaviors. What Godzilla and a hurricane have in common is that they are relentless and uncaring and merely the result of events which predate their existence. (Later films will alter this detail.) 

Furthermore Godzilla is death. To come into contact with Godzilla in this movie is almost a certain death sentence. A fisherman who manages to survive one of Godzilla's early attacks washes ashore only in time to later be crushed beneath his monstrous foot when the creature makes landfall. This is radiation made manifest. The fisherman beheld the beast in all his fury and was dead from that moment forward, it would only take a bit more time for the death to inevitably arrive. Godzilla's fiery blasts are just more radiation, presented in such a way as to make it visible but no less deadly. 

So to watch the original Godzilla or its worldwide counterpart Godzilla, King of the Monsters is to see atomic death on the hoof striding across the land unhampered and unimpeded by the creations of man. Once made he or better yet it is unstoppable save by a device which is possibly even more deadly. The arms race never ever ends until it ends with the deaths of us all. That's what Godzilla was saying to us all those decades ago, to stop and behold death made by man. 

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