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Gojira/Godzilla, King of the Monsters [2 Discs][Collector's] - DVD

SKU: 7949679 | Release Date: 9/5/2006

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Format: DVD
Screen Formats: Black & White
Genre: General Horror
Studio: UNKNOWN
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1

Synopsis

Includes:

Gojira (1954)

Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956)

Gojira
One of the longest-running series in film history began with Ishiro Honda's grim, black-and-white allegory for the devastation wrought on Japan by the atomic bomb. As his visual metaphor, Honda uses a 400-foot-tall mutant dinosaur called Gojira, awakened from the depths of the sea as a rampaging nuclear nightmare, complete with glowing dorsal fins and fiery, radioactive breath. Crushing ships, villages, and buildings in his wake, Gojira marches toward Tokyo, bringing all of the country's worst nightmares back until an evil more terrible bomb -- capable of sucking all the oxygen from the sea -- returns the monster to its watery grave. The original film is chilling, despite some rather unconvincing man-in-a-suit special effects, and brimming with explicitly stated anti-American sentiment. All of that was removed for the U.S. release directed by Terry Morse. It was replaced with bad dubbing and tedious added footage starring Raymond Burr. The resulting edit was just another monster movie, but was still popular enough to assure future Toho Studios monster films a wide American release. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Godzilla, King of the Monsters
Filmed in 1954 as Gojira, this grandaddy of all Japanese giant-reptile epics was picked up for American distribution two years later, at which time several newly filmed inserts, featuring Raymond Burr as reporter Steve Martin, were rabetted into the original footage. In both the Japanese and American versions of Godzilla, the story is basically the same: a 400-foot amphibious monster, brought back to life by underwater nuclear testing, goes on a rampage in a tinker-toy Tokyo. An eccentric scientist (Takashi Shimura) does his best to destroy the beast with his heretofore discredited invention, the Oxygen Destroyer. Though Godzilla is apparently disintegrated in the climax, this didn't prevent Toho Studios from grinding out an endless series of sequels with the title character becoming less destructive and more lovable with each subsequent film. Hampered by a low budget which precluded stop-motion animation, special-effects wizard Eiji Tsuburaya was forced to rely upon an actor (Haru Nakajima) in a rubber Godzilla suit. Incidentally, the name "Gojira", a combination of "gorilla" and "kujira", is Japanese slang for "big clumsy ox" and was allegedly the nickname of one of the Toho stagehands. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Version Details

Languages/Sound

Japanese/Eng

Screen Formats

Black & White

Subtitle Languages

Eng

Additional Features

Includes the U.S. theatrical release Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956), starring Raymond Burr Making of the Godzilla Suit featurette Godzilla: story development featurette Audio commentaries by Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski Original movie trailers English subtitles

Chapters

Disc #1 -- Gojira: The Original Japanese Masterpiece
1. Opening Titles [2:03]
2. Attack on the Eiko-Maru [1:03]
3. Missing at Sea [4:34]
4. Sole Survivor [3:27]
5. Myth of the Monster [1:16]
6. A State of Emergency [4:11]
7. Analysis of the Aftermath [3:59]
8. Atom Breeds Monsters [8:29]
9. The Navy Responds [2:13]
10. Secret Research [7:11]
11. Science vs. Nature [5:23]
12. Destruction From the Deep [5:18]
13. A Daring Plan [1:32]
14. To Study or Destroy [2:40]
15. Godzilla Attacks [4:50]
16. Unstoppable Rampage [2:31]
17. Live From the Scene [4:53]
18. Air Strike [2:58]
19. The Human Toll [1:49]
20. An Ultimate Weapon? [6:39]
21. A Moral Dilemma [3:22]
22. Never to Be Used Again [3:36]
23. Weapon of Choice [3:22]
24. Danger of the Deep [8:16]
Disc #2 -- Godzilla, King of the Monsters
1. Introduction "This Was Tokyo" [4:35]
2. Stopover in Japan [6:43]
3. Fear and Panic [11:56]
4. Island Monster [10:06]
5. Dr. Serizawa [7:22]
6. Godzilla Emerges [6:18]
7. Tokyo Bay Terror [13:43]
8. Formula for Success [9:41]
9. Serizawa's Sacrifice [9:52]

Gojira / Godzilla, King of the Monsters [2 Discs]: AMG Review
AMG

Includes:

Gojira (1954)

Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956)

Gojira
While you might have a hard time convincing most people, Inoshiro Honda's Gojira -- the film whose success launched the long-running Godzilla series and helped to make Japanese monster movies one of the nation's best known exports -- is actually an intelligent and somber parable about the legacy and consequences of the atomic bomb, told from the perspective of a people who had witnessed its impact firsthand only nine years earlier. Unfortunately, the film's serious intentions are muffled in the American release version, which has not only been dubbed and re-edited, but features new footage of Raymond Burr as American newsman Steve Martin (a name that started getting laughs of its own about 22 years after the film arrived in the States), acting alongside a handful of Asian extras who keep popping up in increasingly surreal contexts. While the U.S. cut still holds on to some of the original's dark tone, it mostly trivializes a film that deserves better; while still a low-budget monster movie, Honda's original Gojira manages to convey a genuine respect for the gravity of the issues it raises (leaving little doubt that its fire-breathing monster is, in this context, a stand-in for the bombs which leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki), as well as a compassion for both the victims and the emotionally wounded people who left scars upon their nation while fighting the menace. If the opportunity to see Honda's original Japanese-language version of Gojira presents itself, it's a simple but powerful work well worth your time, while the Americanized cut manages to save the cut-rate spectacle but leave out what gave the original film its resonance. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Godzilla, King of the Monsters
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Gojira/Godzilla, King of the Monsters [2 Discs][Collector's] - DVD

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