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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.
CONDITION: NEW
Actors: Takashi Shimura, Akira Takarada
Directors: Ishiro Honda
Format: Multiple Formats, Blu-ray, Black & White, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Language: Japanese (PCM Mono)
Subtitles: English
Region: Region A/1
Number of discs: 1
Rated:
Unrated
Not Rated
Studio: Criterion Collection
DVD Release Date: January 24, 2012
Run Time: 96 minutes
Cast & Crew
Akihiko Hirata Daisuke Serizawa
Momoko Kochi Emiko Yamane
Kokuten Kodo Gisaku, Oto Island Patriarch
Fuyuki Murakami Dr. Tabata
Haruo Nakajima Newspaper Employee (Japanese version only)/Power Subs
Toranosuke Ogawa President of Shipping Company
Kenji Sahara Man aboard Ship
Sachio Sakai Hagiwara
Takashi Shimura Dr. Kyohei Yamane
Kin Sugai Miss Ozawa, member of Parliament
Akira Takarada Hideto Ogata
Katsumi Tezuka Hagiwara's Editor (Japanese version only)/Gojira
Ren Yamamoto Sieji
Technical Credits
Ishiro Honda Director,Screenwriter
Akira Ifukube Score Composer
Kuichiro Kishida Special Effects
Hiroshi Mukoyama Special Effects
Takeo Murata Screenwriter
Hisashi Shimogawa Sound/Sound Designer
Tomoyuki Tanaka Producer
Eiji Tsuburaya Special Effects
Akira Watanabe Special Effects
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